"50 year-old bankers earn $300k but can barely use Excel"

As banks clear out directors and managing directors in investment banking as part of their juniorisation cost-cutting efforts, juniors are getting frustrated by the ineptitude of senior staff who remain. 

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Writing on our TikTok channel, one junior said "the majority of over 50s in my bank are lackluster and slow," but "clear $300k purely because of what they used to earn before 2008." Another said they're "barely capable of using excel", let alone AI.

As junior bankers are expected to step up and work harder, there are complaints not only of long hours but of being expected to work beyond their pay grades.  One hedge fund junior said senior people are leaning on her so hard that she's had to "take two months off between jobs because I developed blood pressure problems from work." She said she's only been able to adapt to the pressure because "of my special interest in the industry and my ADHD, which gives me a very fast learning pace."

While some senior bankers are accused of being inept at Excel, junior bankers may be becoming too reliant on AI. One recent study said said that a third of private equity interns would "reconsider their choice of employer" if they didn't have enterprise-grade AI tools.

Some juniors are aware of this. The hedge fund junior said she "[doesn't] like that the majority of [her] generation has 'bad' work ethics now." A junior in banking said "you'll only benefit from AI if you know how to use it," and that most people "won't bother" to truly educate themselves.

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