[HN Gopher] How Bank of America Ignores Its Own Rules to Prevent...
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       How Bank of America Ignores Its Own Rules to Prevent Dangerous
       Workloads
        
       Author : nradov
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2024-08-12 15:49 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
        
       | somastoma wrote:
       | And we are surprised by this?
        
       | ok123456 wrote:
       | Can't read. WSJ thinks I'm a bot.
        
         | hooverd wrote:
         | I believe you, but can I get your opinion on flipped over
         | turtles in the desert first? s/
         | 
         | I don't think it's Firefox, I get the paywall but I'm not
         | blocked.
        
       | hooverd wrote:
       | The title is missing meant; in full it's "How Bank of America
       | Ignores Its Own Rules Meant to Prevent Dangerous Workloads." I
       | think that changes the meaning at a first glance, like this was
       | about dangerous workloads in the computer-y sense.
       | 
       | I thought this was common in lots of corporate environments. You
       | don't have to work overtime, wink wink, but it would be
       | implicitly bad for your career if you didn't.
        
         | tiltowait wrote:
         | Wow, that changes the meaning completely.
        
       | xeromal wrote:
       | Can't read
        
       | OutOfHere wrote:
       | When I was younger, I used to think that it was honorable to work
       | long hours, including overnight, for an employer. As I grew
       | older, I realized it was so unfair, especially considering that
       | the bosses would never put in even a regular full day of effort,
       | and would undermine my work with bad managerial decisions. Just
       | because they put in extra effort at some point twenty years ago
       | doesn't entitle them to do that to me now.
       | 
       | Regarding being an investment banker, if you're intelligent, it's
       | imho better to earn your capital and then do your own investment
       | banking for yourself, not for someone else.
        
         | zer0tonin wrote:
         | > Regarding being an investment banker, if you're intelligent,
         | it's imho better to earn your capital and then do your own
         | investment banking for yourself, not for someone else.
         | 
         | Investment banking isn't "owning a bunch of stocks"
        
           | ForOldHack wrote:
           | Investment banking is SELLING a bunch of stock, to collect
           | commissions, and when you make a bad decision, covering it
           | up. See 'Boiler Room.'
        
             | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
             | No, a boiler room operation is typically a brokerage, which
             | is a completely different kind of a business from an
             | investment bank.
        
           | OutOfHere wrote:
           | Whatever it is, the end result for the worker is the same if
           | not better via stocks and derivatives. There is no relative
           | benefit for an intelligent individual to being an investment
           | banker.
        
           | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
           | For those who are clueless on this: the primary work of
           | "investment bankers" is providing advice to corporate clients
           | on raising capital (through market offerings like bonds and
           | stocks), mergers and acquisitions, and also by underwriting
           | transactions where they act as a middleman between the client
           | and the market - classic case is the IPO.
           | 
           | This is distinct from market making, which is buying and
           | selling securities in the market, albeit that investment
           | banks often have strong market making operations as well.
           | 
           | It's also distinct from asset management, which is the
           | business of taking money from people and investing it for
           | them through e.g. funds.
           | 
           | This article is about the first kind of investment banking,
           | which is legendary for ludicrous overloads for analysts
           | (hires direct from school) during their first few years.
           | Those that survive often go to B school, get their MBAs and
           | come back as associates; but this is also a pipeline that
           | leads into other finance careers like private equity.
        
             | alephnerd wrote:
             | > Those that survive often go to B school, get their MBAs
             | and come back as associates
             | 
             | If you're already an analyst and not (completely) burned
             | out by 70-90 hour weeks you are becoming an associate
             | within 2-3 years.
             | 
             | You use the MBA to exit out of IB into VC, PE, PM, CorpDev,
             | etc.
             | 
             | This is also why tech became so popular over the past
             | decade - new grads are earning IB level compensation with
             | significantly better WLB and less barrier to entry, and
             | most analysts are now STEM or STEM Adjacent majors.
        
         | tivert wrote:
         | > When I was younger, I used to think that it was honorable to
         | work long hours, including overnight, for an employer.
         | 
         | That is a foolish idea planted in the minds of the young and
         | naive to prime them for exploitation.
        
           | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
           | IB analysts are not dumb - they put up with this because the
           | worst of it only lasts for a few years, and on the other side
           | are huge riches.
        
             | impossiblefork wrote:
             | If they work long nights, they will be dumb eventually.
             | Permanent stupidity can be induced by a relatively a short
             | period of sleep deprivation.
        
       | akira2501 wrote:
       | The title should be:
       | 
       | "How Bank of America breaks laws."
       | 
       | An editorialized title might be:
       | 
       | "How Bank of America breaks laws for no reason and for tiny
       | amounts of actual profit."
        
         | ForOldHack wrote:
         | It could not have happened to a nicer bunch of evil ________.
         | 
         | https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/bank-america-profit...
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | WSJ of course.
         | 
         | The title is even ambiguous: the same title would work for a
         | story about how BofA breaks its internal rules to _prevent_
         | dangerous workloads
        
       | adolph wrote:
       | "Workload" needs disambiguation. This is about humans working
       | long hours in banking, not bypassing security scans on
       | containers. I can't remember the last time I heard the word
       | "workload" to describe a human.
        
       | potatoball wrote:
       | Seems like archive.today can't get full WSJ articles anymore
       | 
       | https://archive.is/slapz
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-12 23:02 UTC)