My aim is to not really speak to specific people or funds. Even if it was, I'd only have nice things to say about every person I've worked for, every role I've had, I've enjoyed and learned a lot from. In terms of networking, my guess is for any famous or high-level fund manager, it's super hard to network without providing value. Especially in public markets funds. Private market funds you can often reach out to show them a deal or to discuss different ways of working together or sourcing.

Personally, I've always been torn between (i) enjoying in-depth diligence and complexities and problem solving (such as those in distressed) and (ii) getting really excited about starting something brand new and taking a big risk. Distressed was always my main goal and dream job since college, but sometimes things change both on a professional and personal level and you get excited about new goals and dreams.

Distressed is great, don't have anything bad to say about it. I would just specify: distressed is often very specific. If you love the problem solving nature and deep thought and diligence behind distressed, it's an amazing career choice. That being said, distressed often has less exit opps than banking / PE / venture, and there hasn't been massive growth 2011-2021 in the distressed market. If you want to do distressed you should, but you should make sure you want to.

At least in my distressed experience, I was surprised by the depth of analysis. Some situations seem simple but there's any multitude of documents, analysis, org structures, legal structures, business plans, risks and migrants. On each trade, there's almost no limit to how deep you can go, and you definitely have to enjoy solving complicated puzzles (which I did and do).

I'm a few years out of the game in terms of first job from college, but I imagine not too much has changed. You need to (i) work hard to have a high GPA (ii) demonstrate interest in finance by being a TA, joining finance clubs, joining business fraternities and (iii) developing expertise in modeling and technical analysis / interview questions. Then you need to take advantage of either (i) any on-campus recruiting or (ii) networking to find available roles. If it's the right role you have to figure out what the job involves and if you have a core interest there or if it leads to jobs you will have an interest in.

Sure! I went to Cornell. My "way in" was through an on-campus internship posting on the career boards. Previously I hadn't done much in finance (I lifeguarded my sophomore summer), but I was a TA in a few accounting / finance classes and did a few other extra-curriculars. My gpa was relatively high. It was really just having a high enough GPA / prior interest in finance, then trying to execute well on the interviews I received. Nothing too special. I accepted my internship offer to return.

Great question! Personally, I like to focus on companies that have some level of understandable and monetizable core asset. Even if companies are venture-stage, they might be super capital intensive with capital needed for things other than marketing or salaries. They might need working capital, or capital for roll-ups or acquisitions, or capital to build-out specific assets. The venture and growth-stage world is massive and many high growth companies have real collateral that isn't personnel.

Definitely. Most importantly, after distressed / restructuring, you get a confidence that no structure, or legal documentation, or business model can be too complex to understand or model. Additionally, in any credit role, the ability to think through businesses and covenants and margin of safety that comes from distressed will be valuable.

I've seen it go a few ways for bankers:

- Analysts leave banking to (i) do a coding bootcamp and be an engineer (ii) do a bootcamp or MBA to be a product lead or data analyst or (iii) do bus dev / corp dev / cap markets for the FinTech or (iv) FP&A

- Associates / VPs leave banking and can take higher up roles, especially if their experience adds to the role. For example, I was able to leave distressed to lead a specialty investment vehicle, since I had special situations experience.

- MD's / Group Heads often leave their roles to found fintech start-ups or take immediately C-level roles based on their experience in the industry

IMO most of the best roles I've seen at start-ups you get by joining start-ups out of college / MBA or gaining specific expertise in the industry. The MBA seems to help get interesting corp dev / bus dev jobs in big tech, after which you have A LOT of options at start-ups.

100% most definitely. IMO a lot of banking has had a "brian drain" since a lot of MBA's now go into tech and a lot of analysts leave for the "buy side". I've seen many many restructuring consultants go straight into Associate / VP roles in IB restructuring. Super common.

Make sure you understand the financial component of restructuring (i.e. the legal nuances and models). The MBA can help. But so can learning from the bankers you work with on the mandates. Often you can start as a Junior Associate and learn these nuances and don't have to prove anything except that you can learn.

I personally think that IB is a great way to start your career, since you (i) learn an insane amount of analysis and modelling (ii) get a great network of similarly minded people and (iii) open up a super diverse realm of possibilities like PE, HF, Private Debt, Corp Dev, top-tier MBA. It can't be matched in terms of diversity of exit (in finance).

Broadly speaking, if you compare the tiers (like mega-fund PE vs. mega-fund private debt, middle-market PE vs. middle-market private debt), PE will often pay more than private debt. There's just more upside there and higher fees. That being said private debt can often be more stable and be less competitive for career advancement. Also, it's hard to say since some private debt funds lever to equity-like returns, so they might pay more. At a core level though, PE is higher on the risk spectrum so often p