I heartily agree that CvM is way ahead of his boss on this front. Do what makes you happy.
It reminded me of this article about Michael Jordan and life after playing basketball. The dude seems like a complete mess, despite having plenty of money. Being miserable at 50 considering all his career success sounds awful.
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Michael-Jordan/michael-jordan-not-left-building
^ Respect.
@ CFAvsMBA
Just keep doing “You”.
In all reality, you’re manager will never hit his lofty goals and probably end up 50 years old and miserable, wondering to himself why he didn’t take the time to take his neices and nephews to the park before they grew too old to see the world with wonder or spend qualitiy time with his parents.
Put it this way: You say you make far from 300k and your manager makes 1.2-1.5 your salary. Even if you’re being sarcasstic and “far from 300k” is 299k, your manager is making 358k-448k a year. Thats pre-tax mind you. Assuming your manager is 30 years old, they have 20 years to make 250mm in liquid assets. Starting with 0, that means he has to BANK an average of 12.5 mm a year. Assuming he already has 50mm (which is a joke) thats still averaging 10mm a year. Unless he is MD level or higher now, I doubt he has any shot of ever breaking 10mm a year, let alone AVERAGE that for the next 20.
So do me a favor and laugh at your manager.
Time is the most valuable resource… Use yours where it matters.
I’m also currently doing 10-12hour days (and with a 1.5hour commute both ways mind you). I leave at 5:45am and am lucky to be home by 8pm. Add on top of that I workout an hour a day so basically M-F I work and sleep. And now that I cracked the Level 3 books and started studying (which I’m proud I didn’t wait till superbowl like I did for level 2) I have even less time. Sure the comp is great, but in all seriousness, what comes in goes out just as fast. Since I value my free time so much, (i.e. weekends) I outsource everything to free it up… Housekeeper, Landscaper, Pool Guy… I have so many people on the payroll I feel like Hammer. Its a catch-22… I have to give up my free time to make money, but have to spend money to have free time. But its worth it every weekend when I host friends and family for BBQs, Buy UFC/PPV events, and spread my good fortune to others. I’m happy with my work/life balance now… All work M-F, Balls Out Life Sat-Sun. I will never live my life to work. No one should.
As for a realistic goal,I plan to have house paid off and 5-10mm liquid by 45. I’m 33 now. At that point I’ll move to the beach and start some half-assed business to keep busy and have a tax shelter. And if I don’t make that goal? At least I know I didn’t give up everything chasing it.
^ Respect. You need to post 'round here more.
wait does he make 1.2 times your salary or 1.2 million more than your salary.
Glad to see others using MM
They tryin to get they ones, I’m trying to get them M’s.
Word. Just like you never see a funeral procession with a trailor full of assets behind the hearse.
On Henry Royce’s (Think, Rolls-Royce) deathbed, he said "I have only one regret, that I have not worked harder”
Hey CvM, does your manager post on Wall Street oasis? You should suggest it to him. That’s a good place to pontificate about $250k per year being tiddlywinks, and anything less than forbes 400 is a failure.
I should add, I like working for my manager. He’s a cool cat, works hard, and generally has a positive demeanor. We don’t see eye to eye as both of us tossed our 20s away chasing paper. I’m trying to have a life outside of the office where he keeps chasing the dollaz.
Anyways, points taken. Ain’t nothing wrong with wanting a 9-5er and life outside of work.
I think the question here really relates to personal values and it’s silly for your boss to try to impress on you what his own values were.
For me, money is an enabler. I work to live; I don’t live to work. However, to the extent that what I do is intellectually stimulating, puts me in touch with fascinating people, and helps me earn a good living in the process, then that totally works for me. That said, the main purpose for me to make money is to enable me to do things that make me happy and take care of people around me. I like to be generous to my friends and family because nobody will remember me for what spreadsheets I worked on, but they will remember me based on the time I’ve spent with them.
I do think working on the buy-side can offer a good work/life balance, but it’s also very intense and competitive. If you aren’t hungry about trying to beat the markets every day and come up with a differentiated view on a stock, then you probably won’t succeed in the long run. But if trying to uncover value in the markets is exciting for you and you can do well, it does enable you to have a pretty decent lifestyle (55-65 hour work weeks) and very good $/hour. That’s very different from investment banking, where the work can be pretty mind-numbing, it’s much more processing than creative thought, and the hours are horrendous.
I don’t need to make multi-millions to live a life that makes me happy. However, I also realized in times when I was a student and didn’t have steady income (or any at all), it was a pretty terrifying experience at times. That is what keeps me going at my job every day, though coming to work with the right team of people is far more of a motivating factor than money itself. There were times in the past where I had taken a 40-50% pay raise for a new position that basically required the same skills as my old role, but the team I was with was pretty corrosive and all I could think about every day was how many more hours there were before I could leave the office for the weekend. The extra money I was making was great, but I was often in a foul mood and didn’t even have much free time to spend it anyway so what was the point?
If the end goal is to move to the beach and keep busy, why not do that now? I dont mean to draw contridictions to your post but from the statement above, I would align you more with CVM’s boss instead of CVM.
Im balanciing that fine line… I do the ~60hr work week, but I don’t look down upon those who don’t. It’s my choice as it allows me to not only provide for myself, but make the lives of friends and family better as well. I could get a job making half of what I make and do the 9-5 and still be comfortable, but I don’t want to be comfortable and retire at 65. I am in the mindset (and still have the health) to work more now to hopefully make the years after I turn 45 or 50 relatively easy. I work the way I do because It allows me to put a lot more away for the future, as well as buy those luxuries that justifies the long hours (I have no idea how those people in yahoo news articles claim they pinch and save every penny to meet some goal. This is making work your whole life and basically the seventh circle of hell in my opinion). It’s easy to work the long work week when I know Saturday afternoon I have a fully stocked humidor and a few bottles of Macallan waiting poolside for me and my friends and family to enjoy. If I didn’t have the weekends free to live life I wouldn’t work as hard as I do. IB analysts working weekends on top of 16 hour days are insane. CvMs manager with pipedreams of being an equity partner in a firm and having a quarter yard by 50 are a carrot on a stick and I feel bad for him. It’s great to have dreams and ambitions but to sacrifice everything working like a dog for someone else for something so implausable is sad. Put it this way… Mitt Romney is 67 and worth ~250mm. He founded Bain Capital when he was 37. He wasn’t made “Equity Partner”, he founded his own firm. Look at his pedigree… Stanford, Harvard MBA, Boston Consulting Group… This guy practically has BSD tattooed on his BSD. To use AF cliche’ , should CvMs manager just grab the hacksaw now? In my opinion, If his only “Win” scenario in life is 250mm by 50 then yes.
Thats not me. I work hard, but have no delusions of spinning off my own fund from my current HF and comparing bank accounts with my peers to see who “wins”, I’m content to work hard, get paid well, and along the way enjoy time with my family and appreciate what matters. Hopefully in 10-15 years I can semi-retire to the beach.
As for why not move to the beach now? Well, I would, but the commute would be ~2hours from where I want to be. I am contemplating doing that in 5 or so years… I can do 5-10 years of a 2 hours commute… but staring down the barrel of 10+ years of 2 hours driving each way… thats a tough one.
^ You hiring brah? I could dig working alongside a Straight G like you (no homo).
^^
Unforturnately no… so it will be a while till we get some guys on the desk old enough to get the countless 80s references I spew out continuously throughout the day. These damn 24-26 year old kids… It’s a sad day when I go on a rant about how much of a two-timing tramp-tease Winnie Cooper was to Kevin and no one has a clue what I’m talking about.
25-26 year olds should get a Wonder Years reference.
Great stuff, and the quarter yard reference, brilliant. You in NYC?
^^
Yup. Suffering through the 10 degree weather with best of 'em.