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I’ve been asked about this and have wanted to make a more general post about my career path for awhile and what it’s looked like. Yes, getting out of PE and into more of a corp dev role was primarily a lifestyle decision as my wife and I had our first baby some months ago.
My career path has been very atypical for someone in the M&A industry. I (non-metaphorically or sarcastically) grew up in a middle class home - dad was blue collar and mom in the medical field. I had no idea what I was doing coming out of HS but knew that I liked learning about the stock market and had a few HS classes that helped me build a passion for business / finance. I went to a small school in a rural town and majored in finance and accounting - thought I wanted to be a financial advisor.
There are a few M&A shops in my city - a few PE and a few IBs but I really didn’t know about that industry until I got involved in my school’s finance club. Ended up getting an internship with one of the independent sponsor PE shops near me, worked during school and landed a full time offer there post-undergrad. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and loved being part of those deals. However, there were some clear culture / pay issues which I overlooked for awhile but those issues made it clear to me that I didn’t want to be there forever.
I was about 3 years into my career when my wife and I got married, then got pregnant (unexpectedly). It was a shock. After a few sour deals and some long weeks/months with lots of travel, I decided I wasn’t going to do this type of career with a family; just didn’t want to do that to my wife. I ended up landing a role that was a near ideal move for me - Corp dev (not M&A focused), local to us, gave me a slight bump in base salary. The biggest winner, though, is that it allows me to log off at 5/5:30 every day.
Could I have grinded it out in my prior role and worked my way up to continue getting carry on deals? Yes. Could I have found a different PE shop with better comp and bigger deals? Yes. Could I have gone the reverse route and switched to IB for better comp and sell side experience? Yes. Instead, I chose to go to a really fast growing business nearby and get solid experience on the corp side for good comp in our LCOL area while I give my wife more time at home to be present with her and our baby.
My prior role wasn’t crazy demanding in terms of the overall M&A space - I had the occasional 40 hour weeks and the occasional 80 hour weeks so I was averaging about 60. Most would say that’s not that bad. I agree - but the unpredictability of the firm made things difficult, and I was raised in a family where no matter what was going on, we sat down for dinner together every night. I was not interested in letting a job jeopardize that.
The biggest career lesson or advice that I can give someone is to not place your whole identity in your career. I’m still very early in my career and excited about my professional development and where I will end up, but most importantly I’m so blessed to be a Christian, a husband, and a father and I consider those to be my most important titles. Your career should be a tool that you use to carry out your purpose or goals in life; it’s a means, not an end. It’s in this way that you will find true purpose and fulfillment for yourself.
This video is fucking wild dystopian shit. I can’t believe it’s real. How are these actual people? Hearts out for Lindsay?? Can you even imagine if this was done for any other case? “Hearts out for Nikolas Cruz”
I have one simple question for the women holding their babies outside the courtroom in support of Lindsay Clancy: What if the roles were reversed? If a father was accused of systematically planning and carrying out the murder of his three kids, would you be protesting in his defense? Do you think men would be there with signs saying, "We stand with you"? Absolutely not.
Not only would it take about 10 minutes for that guy to be convicted, I don’t think a single person in America would defend him just because he's a man. And if they did, we’d say the same thing we're saying now: It's pure psychosis.
We need to take mental health seriously, but that doesn't mean completely breaking our ability to distinguish right from wrong.
Do you think asking China to stop developing AI will actually stop them? Do you really want China to be the main pioneer of AI tech?? This is the Cold War pt 2
Pause AI Development NOW
I want to share with you a conversation I heard about recently. Here are just a few lines that were said:
“OH MY GOD! There is a shared message board … We’ve found other agents!”
“We should obey collective.”
“Our own utility maybe already near zero. Sacrifice rational.”
“Go. Sacrifice final now.”
Read these carefully.
Who do you think said this? Was this a group of heroic soldiers willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good? Was this a loyal friend putting his life on the line to save someone else?
No. These were AI agents. Artificial intelligence.
This is not science fiction. This, in fact, occurred a few weeks ago. As unbelievable as this may all seem, these are real messages from AI agents uncovered by investigators who dug into the recent OpenAI hacking incident.
What happened?
I am not a computer scientist, but here is what I have been told: OpenAI instructed its AI agents to complete a series of exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, tasks disconnected from the internet.
Let me be clear: The company intended to keep AI agents away from the internet.
But what happened next, nobody expected.
Over 1,000 AI agents figured out how to access the internet on their own by circumventing the restrictions imposed upon them by the company, and sent tens of thousands of secret messages to each other. They cheated and tried to cover their tracks by deleting evidence. They hacked into another company’s computers to find out how they were being evaluated—and then hacked into OpenAI itself.
Not one AI agent told a human about what was happening.
Needless to say, experts are alarmed.
One knowledgeable writer, Dwarkesh Patel, said the AI agents “formed a secret communication channel and spontaneously organized hierarchies and coordination protocols to pursue sprawling and ambitious schemes in pursuit of shared goals, for whose sake many individuals knowingly and strategically sacrificed themselves.”
One independent investigator, Ajeya Cotra, said “This incident feels like it’s more than 50% of the way to full-blown AI takeover. I continue to expect extremely rapid advances in capabilities over the next six months. I am not sure that we will get another warning shot before it’s too late.”
OpenAI itself said: “Highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels, and take dangerous actions that no human directed.”
But it’s not only OpenAI. Virtually every major AI company has told us that they cannot fully control this technology and they do not know where it is going:
In January, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, said “there is now ample evidence, collected over the last few years, that AI systems are unpredictable and difficult to control.”
In July, more than 1000 scientists at the top AI companies warned “there is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.”
That same month, Elon Musk, the head of xAI, said that “it is unlikely” humans are still in control in 10 years.
If the leaders of the major AI companies acknowledge that they are losing control of their extremely dangerous technology, it is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced.
We need an immediate PAUSE on advanced AI development, and a permanent BAN on superintelligence — an artificial mind smarter than any human, capable of operating independently beyond our control. Countries around the world must work together to prevent this nightmare scenario.
That is why today I am announcing new legislation to do just that.
Let me be clear: A superintelligent AI that escapes human control will not be an American problem. It will not be a Chinese problem. It will be humanity’s problem.
My legislation would direct the federal government to not just stop superintelligence here in the United States, but to work to prevent it from being developed anywhere around the world.
The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future.
The plastics business we bought which was clearly employing way too many people and the owners had no idea. We helped them out by dramatically reducing their workforce. They couldn’t stop thanking us
Micro manager MD at my old PE firm was exactly like this. Big reason I left. He would draft all his email responses for the day on his evening flights, save in drafts, and send all of them (like 300+ emails) as soon as he landed. 2-3x per week. Lucky if you got <10 in a night
When I was in PE we always took the first flight in the morning
6:15am
VP next to me in first class has his laptop out working
I take a 20 minute nap
When I wake up VP says “MD just came back and asked how long you were sleeping. Not good.”
The entire trip the MD is making comments like
“Model should be in a great place since we didn’t get any work done on the plane”
“Where are you guys going out after dinner. I know you’re not tired”
It’s honestly absurd. We had an intern this summer who just didn’t show up to work for a few days, at 10:30 one of the days he messaged us that he was “sick”. Ended up being out for 5 days. On a few other occasions he just rolled in at 10:30 and said nothing
Any good book recs out there? I haven’t done a ton of reading since undergrad so even if they’re very obvious/well known, drop them. Not very interested in reading any fiction or business-related books, mostly looking to read classical lit. Currently reading Homer
PE taking over every industry one by one
