bromion is da man up in here, although I personally love the CFA baby
If an individual is as intelligent and as thoughtful as Einhorn, it doesnt make a rats ass if you have a Harvard MBA or a technical certificate from a vocational school - eventually, you are going to meet the right person and then spend the next 10 years earning 20% per annum and leaving everyone else in the dust. If you havent read Folling Some of the People All of the Time, which is his book, you should do so, and then realize that he is able to conduct research and put together an investment thesis better than 99.9% of the investment populus. Period.
I think “school” does matter, not because of the education or necessarily what is studied, but because smart people with good track records tend to get into IVY schools and attend them. (Note: These type of people exist at non-ivy’s including state schools) The same type of people are desirable at most finance firms or any firm. These people are pervasive in management of finance firms, and guess what, they hire similar people! Everyone does. In the long run I agree that you could just be really talented at “investing,” or whatever and bootstrap yourself to the top. But for most people the corporate sector is an escalator that they get on and slowly rise up from their early 20’s until they retire. Most people working in finance don’t really have jobs where they directly impact anything, so it is very subjective and difficult to assess their performance. Most can coast. As one friend of mine told me once, “You don’t have to be smart to work in finance, you just have to be smart enough to get the job in the first place.” To summarize (All you finance hopefuls): 1. Going to Ivy League school and graduating with top marks is probably good enough to get you entry into the industry at the bottom. From there you have to make your own way. If you have aptitude for it you can probably find a place somewhere (although maybe not with the cool kids). 2. People comparing Government majors at Cornell or Harvard to Finance Majors at schools like Ohio State University are comparing apples to Oranges. Most Ivy schools like their liberal arts counterparts do not offer “finance” degrees. The closest thing my school (Top 10 Lib Arts) had was Economics or Mathematics. Neither taught you how to be a good investor or that much about the finance industry. 95 percent of it was theory. Every major at my school did involve research, testing theories, and writing analysis. Hmm? My school is a major feeder to investment banking and many of those candidates come from the humanities. They are just smart, hard working, and often well connected. 3. Another important thing for people to consider is that it helps to have different knowledge than everyone else in the room. For this reason firms often seek people from other educational backgrounds to do analysis. If everyone in finance only studied finance undergrad then someone with other knowledge would have a huge competitive advantage. For this reason, no degree is the be all, end all. 4. If you think the CFA = automatic job in finance then you really need to rethink your strategy. Probably having a good network, good references, and being aggressive will get you way further. Disclosure: English Lit Major, Gainfully Employed in P.E., Math Retard.
^ I can buy english major in PE. But horrible in math?? It’s hard to believe you got that job.
numbers in PE don’t get much more complex than adding and subtracting. it’s more the substance behind the numbers.