Fund Manager Ranks BEST and WORST Finance Jobs

Hey, welcome back to the show. Today we're gonna be breaking down and ranking some of the top jobs in finances, going through pros and cons, what I think are the best and worst jobs in finance. Should be a fun episode. Now if you're new to the channel, you know we do a $100 giveaway to the best comment that somebody comments below. So if you want to be entered in into next video, comment something below, hit the like button. And with that, today's $100 goes to Thang Vo. Thang, He says this, he said, talk slower. Thang, you really want me to talk like this and be very methodical and think through what I'm saying? It's probably some good advice, but it might put everyone to sleep. So I'm sorry, Thang, it's a no, I'm not talking slower. You can slow me down if you want, the little side button thingy. We're going at this, but because I thought it was a pretty funny comment, it was just talk slower, I love it. You get $100, so send us a message, bridger@investmentfundsealers.com, we'll send you the $100. If you guys want to be entered, comment below. All right, now that we're over with giving away money, let's start ranking money. Now, if you don't know what a tier list is, this is what we're gonna be doing. We're gonna be ranking jobs from an S tier to an F tier. So it goes— I don't get this, by the way. My YouTube guy says this is what the YouTube people do. It goes S, A, B, C, D, E, F. I thought it was just A, B, C, D, E, F. I thought that'd be a very easy way to do it. He said, no, you have to do the S. So we— here we are, Kaden. We are doing the S. And S, we found out, stands for super, which is better than A. I thought A was the best grade you could get, but I guess an S is the best. So we're going from S to F on today's rankings. All right, number 1, first up, we've got on the list a very hot topic, investment banking. Now it's hard to put an exact figure on how much you'll make in investment banking. We'll start with analysts, brand new investment bankers, all the way up to seasoned veterans. But investment bankers are typically hired from other groups to deal with large liquidity events. So usually a mergers acquisitions team, sometimes they're acquiring other companies, A lot of times they're taking companies public. They get hired to do these types of activities. So if you have a company, you want to go public, you would hire an investment banking team to help you do the dog and pony show and to help your company go public, hopefully at a high evaluation. Now you might know some investment bankers or people that would be investment banking back from your college or high school days. These are typically your slick-talking, well-dressed, really douchebag type of people. Sorry to laugh, but that's— I mean, it's kind of true. It's kind of the stigma that goes with investment banking. But you get some— I mean, you're working your tail off. I— and I laugh because this was my route actually. I was doing investment banking. I was going after this. In college, you have to work your tail off. They only take the best of the best. Typically, what you'll do is your sophomore or junior year, you'll go do an internship at an investment bank. You're working 80 to 100 hours a week, hoping to get an offer at a big firm, which I got an offer out in Silicon Valley, which I actually turned down to go launch my own fund and said screw the investment banking route because— The investment banking route is a hard route to go. Like I said before, you're working 60 to 100 hours a week, at least for your first 2 years. Now, salaries are very good at the beginning. We're starting at the beginning. Typically, right out of college, you're making anywhere from $100,000 to about $150,000, plus or minus some bonuses, things in there, which is a great starting salary for a college grad. That is why a lot of smart, ambitious college grads want to get into investment banking. They see the big dollar ticket. That's— I was the same way. I can get in, I can learn a lot on Wall Street. I'm gonna write my ticket after a few years and get into other things. But if you break it down and you're working 60 to 100 hours a week, your hourly wage is actually only like $25 to $35 an hour. And I actually made a previous video that high school English teachers make more than investment bankers. They make a better hourly rate than investment bankers. Now, investment bankers make more on the year before everyone goes crazy in the comments. But teachers, if you take out— they get summers off, they get vacation days, they get all the stuff there. Investment bankers and teachers are making about the same amount of money, which is a tough reality to face. And that's hard to look an investment banker square in the eyes and say, buddy, you're only making as much as a high school English teacher. And nothing against teachers, I love them. But you went after this investment banking for money and you're not making Making a lot of money for your time. Now, obviously, this isn't the dream forever. This usually happens for only 2 years. After 2 years, a lot of people go and get their MBA. They roll out and they— a lot of people say you can write your ticket. I think it's a total myth after talking to a lot of people who've done this. I mean, you're not really writing your ticket, but a lot of people try to do an MBA or they try to transition into private equity or a hedge fund at this point, or come back as an associate and they try to get a partner status, all that kind of stuff. But if you stick with this for over 10 to 15 years, you are making high 6-figure salaries and even well into the 7-figure range every single year as an investment banker. So let's go through some pros and cons. So let's talk money first. Number 1, you get a large salary, but another con is your time for that salary is actually compromised and actually not that great. So it's kind of a pro and a con. But number 2, you are getting great experience. You are working at a huge bank on Wall Street or some, you know, big financial institution. You're getting exposed to a lot of big deals, which could potentially open a lot of doors to other places. Now, cons, you're giving up again a lot of time, very stressful, and a lot of times leads to burnout. And one of the reasons I actually turned down this career path was most of the people that get into this game of investment banking, they don't want to be investment bankers. They want what investment banking opens doors to. And most of the people I talked to said, yeah, I'm going to do investment banking for a few years because I one day want to run my own fund. I want to work in a big private equity fund, hedge fund, or run my own fund as well. And I thought, huh, why don't I just go start a fund now instead of going through the 10 years of going and doing this process to hopefully one day write my ticket? And by the way, I talked to a lot of buddies that did that and they got so burnt out and stressed out, they ended up not even having the ambition to get in the fund game because they were just so done with, you know, a decade's a long time to be working 80 to 100 hours a week. It hurt their family life. They weren't getting married, they weren't, starting family. They just lacked a lot of other places in their life. And I thought, heck, I'm gonna get into this now. And you guys know my story. I went and launched a fund at 22, launched my second fund at 24, and then scaled that and actually sold one of those funds and have done pretty well since then. And I am now making well above any of these investment bankers that are still grinding away trying to make it in there. So for all those reasons, back to our ranking list, I would put investment banking— I'm gonna do 2 categories on my ranking. So number one, if you're coming from just no background at all, you need to just get a start in something, need to get money, need to like get moving. You don't have, you know, you grew up on the farm, no one in your family or friend group even knows a lick about finance, this might be a great route. So for that reason, I would give this a B+ in here if that's your background. Now, if you're like any, you know, I would say an average background of finance or entrepreneurship or something else, I would give this an F. I would not advise anyone to go into investment banking. I would advise them To go a different route. We live in too much opportunity. Your years from age 20 to 30 are your highest functioning years. Your body is at peak condition. You can do more. You can work later than ever before. Why not go work on your own thing instead of slaving away 100 hours a week for someone else making $35 an hour? Why not go slave on yourself? and on your own business. And that's— I just took it, I said, hey, I'm going to make a calculated risk. In 10 years, I bet if I spend 100 hours a week on myself and my own businesses, my own companies, I will make way more money than these guys who spend 100 hours a week working for somebody else and building someone else's dream. So for that reason, I'm giving it an F if you're a regular, you know, normal background type of person. But if you're coming from like the boonies or somewhere crazy, you have some crazy background, I'll give it a B. Like, you know, it's a D— it's a good job to get into if you're just like, you have no background at all. But invest in yourself is what I'm trying to say. This is a great way to get going. All right, so number 2 job we're gonna rank is an insurance advisor and insurance agent. Sorry, that first one I got on some rambling about. I got— you can tell there's some, some deep feelings about investment banking there. This one we're gonna try to stay a little bit separated from, but insurance advisor. So what is an insurance advisor? They're, in basic sense, they're an insurance salesman. These guys are selling You know, house, life insurance, car insurance, all kinds of stuff. Also, insurance agents are selling a lot of investment products. Something I didn't know for a long time was I had buddies that were getting into insurance and then, yeah, I sell insurance. I go, no, no, no, you don't sell insurance, you sell investments. And they go, well, yeah. But they tell people they're in insurance. Anyways, yes, there are insurance advisors that sell car and house and, you know, some types of life insurance that are more standard. But a lot of insurance agents— and the very successful ones sell insurance products that are essentially investment products. If you guys have ever read the book Infinite Banking or The Infinite Banking System, you can use insurance products to create essentially a bank for yourself that you can lend and pull money out of. It's a very cool process, not in the scope of this video, but that's something that very high earners do inside of the insurance game. Now, most advisors choose a policy of expertise. So some people get really good at car insurance or corporate insurance or investment type of life insurance. Now, the average starting salary for this type of an earner is around $75,000 a year your first year, but some people making well into the 6-figure range and some even well into the 7-figure range. People that run their own practices have a lot of people and built a company around their insurance agency. Now, all you need to become an insurance agent is really a high school diploma. You do not need a bachelor or master or any type of MBA degree to get into this game. Although a lot of firms do like to see a bachelor degree, I see that becoming less and less relevant, especially if your degree is in, you know, gender studies or sociology or something random that's really unrelated to business or finance at all. Now, unlike investment banking, you have the hourly. I typically see good hours here. You know, you're working 40, maybe 50 hours a week, very standard work-life balance. So pros and cons, decent salary for your time, you know, with a decent amount of earning potential, you know, well into the 6-figure range if you build a good book. Those are repeat clients you don't have to work with. Cons, some people think you're kind of slimy. I know there's a connotation around if you tell people, hey, I'm an insurance agent, there's just a little bit of a slimy connotation. I don't know why, but you do get that slime on you a little bit. So it's tough. That's a con. I'm sorry. That's what it is. Now, not a, you know, you're probably making a little bit less than you would at other places, but good work-life balance. Now, because of those things, it actually deters a lot of good people from getting into this game. I actually would think I'm gonna give this a decent ranking. I mean, I'm looking at the ranking here. I would say I'm gonna give this right here probably an A-, okay? I think insurance advisor, I'll do IA, insurance advisor, not investment advisor, but insurance advisor. I'll give it an A-. I think it's a good place to get into. A lot of people that, you know, want to work hard, you want to grind, you can build a good book, you can make a good living with, you know, without giving up too much time, that work-life balance being important to you. I actually think it's a very good career to get into. All right, number 3 on the list has got to be my favorite. This is a hedge fund manager. Now typically a hedge fund manager, what you're doing is you are pooling capital together from investors. You're going and making investments. Hedge funds would be in public securities. This also works for private equity, real estate funds. Any type of fund manager in here typically come from a Harvard, you know, Ivy League background. A lot of these people come out of investment banking. A lot of investment bankers aspire to be a fund manager one day. And you may ask, why do they aspire to this? It's because it is so freaking lucrative. Okay, that's why. I mean, look at fund managers. Here's a great example. Ken Griffin. Okay, Ken Griffin, you may or may not know him. Ken Griffin is the managing director of Citadel. Okay, Citadel, one of the largest hedge funds on the planet. Why don't you take a wild guess how much Ken Griffin makes per month from his fund? Okay, just take a wild guess. And but before I tell you the answer, this is not his net worth, okay? I know Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, their stock price goes up and their net worth will go up and go down, right? You see that it fluctuates like billions of dollars at a time. I'm not talking about net worth. I am talking about monthly income from his fund. How much Ken Griffin makes just from his fund. And this is excluding personal investments other places. Ken Griffin makes over $100 million a month from his fund. Let me say that again. $100 million a month. Every month comes to him. I don't even know what I would do with $100— you'd have to have a whole team ready to receive the $100 million and deploy it into good investments. I mean, that's a full-time team of job to like, deploy $100 million every single month for year after year after year. Who? I could handle that. I could handle that life, I think. Okay? So, number 1, pay is huge, right? The earning potential as a fund manager is pretty much unlimited. You look at the Forbes 100 list, it is riddled with fund managers. I mean that because it is so scalable. Really, how much you make as a fund manager is up to you and how big you want to play. Now, typically, I mentioned this before, A lot of fund managers come out of investment banking. They come out of Ivy League schools, and that's traditionally what it's been. If you followed our stuff or any of our content, you just know that that's not true anymore. There's a whole new generation of fund managers coming out that are coming from all walks of life, and I'm living proof of that. I've launched 2 funds in my 20s and actually managed this fund role, raised capital from investors, brought it in, the whole 9 yards, and scaled there. We've actually helped Dozens and dozens of other people, regular people like me and you, launched their own funds. We've actually got a couple people in our group, 2 people that are almost to $100 million each, one group that's raised over $700 million for their fund, handful of groups between $10 and $20 million we've helped with them. It's a pretty cool game to be in. Now, I know you're gonna have a ton of things. Well, you need a track record. How do you get experience? How do you build the right team? There's no way you could do it without an Ivy League degree, blah blah blah. Go check out our channel. I've got video after video that breaks down all of those things. How I built a track record, how we found investors, how we've helped other people do it through what we call the Fund Launch Formula. If you go through our channel, we have a 4-step formula on launching funds, how it all works. Go check it out. And stop lying to yourself and telling yourself, oh, I could never do a fund. I told myself that for years. And finally, after meeting— and some of you guys know my story— great family and friends and mentors that taught me how to do this. I went, oh, I can do this. Regular people can go out and do this. Actually funny, the fund managers of today, George Soros, Ray Dalio, Warren Buffett, Ken Griffin, all of them started their first fund when they were under 30 years old. Guess what? They were once inexperienced. They didn't have the track record. They didn't have all that stuff. And they went out and started and started to build the track record, started to build the experience, started to build the clientele. You can do this. So with that, we're gonna run pros and cons for fund manager. Pro, you make a ton of money. There's earning potential is huge. You get the freaking just swag of being a fund manager. Con, you're gonna work. This definitely takes a lot of work. It's a lot of, it's a decent amount of stress to manage other people's money. Now, if you have a good team, a good portfolio, all that kind of stuff, hopefully it's not too bad for you. You know, it's a lot of the, you know, investment banking type of, you know, mindset without the, and you're just, you're gonna hire people like investment bankers to work for you as analysts. Hopefully with a high earning potential. So a little bit of con is it is stressful. There's a lot of work that goes into it, but if you're going to dedicate your life to something, you might as well dedicate it to something that has major, major earning potential. So with that, to our ranking board, easy choice right here on the ranking board. We're going high S, and S stands for super whatever. It's the top ranking. Again, I don't know why they did that. S is the top fund manager right here. I'm going to circle it. And bam! I mean, that is like it's obviously the best. All these people here aspire to be fund managers. Bam! It is the top of the list. All right, let's go on to number four. This is a private equity associate. So actually, in the fund manager game, but a lower tier person, an associate in a private equity firm. I'm just gonna put PE associate. Now, a private equity firm is a fund that buys and sells privately held businesses. It's all a private equity firm does. They buy and sell private businesses. Now, typically an associate of private equity firm would be doing a number of jobs. They could be analyzing businesses and companies they want to acquire. They could be helping manage portfolio companies. So a great example is Sycamore Partners. Sycamore Partners is a private equity firm on Wall Street. They own Staples, Aeropostale, Nine West Shoes. Actually, last year they were trying to buy Victoria's Secret. First off, did you know that, right? Those companies are actually all owned by the same parent company. If you look into structures A lot of the companies that you see out there today are really actually owned by the same individuals, which is kind of crazy. An associate here, number one, could do analysis on new companies to acquire. They also might help with managing the current companies or looking to exit or dispose of some companies, whether they're going to IPO, they're going to merge, they're going to sell or liquidate some way, shape, or form. That's kind of the job that you're doing there. Now, starting salary, if you look online, is anywhere from about $100,000 and $10,000 to about $200,000 is kind of the range there for an associate, but this varies drastically, especially with bonuses. A lot of private equity individuals get bonuses that can go high into the 6-figure range. I'm talking $500,000 to $1 million. And if you become a partner at one of these firms, you're going well over 7, even 8-figure yearly income range, and some groups even a 9-figure range. So pros and cons. Pro number 1, you're getting good exposure to industry, a little bit less stressful than investment banking. You get to network with great people. You get the status and the swag of working at a fund. Cons, you might be working long hours. Number 2, it's actually very hard to get these types of jobs. Very coveted job to get in the private equity world, and you might be traveling quite a bit as well to fly out and meet with these portfolio companies. Now for me, instead of trying to work my way up a private equity firm for 20 years, I decided to just go out and start my own fund like I mentioned before. If you If you want to learn more about starting a private equity fund, we have other videos there. Now, if this video has been useful to you, please subscribe and like below. And again, we're going to pick somebody on the comments. I like funny comments. So if you've got a funny comment, drop it below. You can win $100 on our next video. And finally, let me give the last ranking for private equity associate. I'm thinking I'm going to put a private equity associate right here in the A. I would just give it a solid A category, right? I actually think Very great job, good benefits. A lot of good things usually come out of working in a private equity fund from there. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. Again, like and subscribe below, watch our other videos, and thank you so much. See you on the next one.