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1/x) Quick thread on "grinding" and "working hard". Tons of hustle porn on here recently, and frankly I'm for anything that inspires people to move and try things even if I think some of the points and examples here are wrong.
2/x) I'm not the hardest working person on here, but I worked at a couple big institutions and hustled to get / stay there. I've definitely gotten lazier as I've gotten older, but if you want a seat like that, to paraphrase Ben Affleck from Boiler Room - here's what's required:
3/x) My group tied up a 40+ asset hotel portfolio. UW team was me and a VP. Did tons and tons of work to validate our work pre-bid. Got the deal by agreeing to a 21-day diligence period. I remember my MD laughing when seller agreed and saying to me "your life is going to suck"
4/x) So during this 21-day period we had to a) visit as many of the assets as we could b) write an investment memo that ended up being ~100 pages c) underwrite the portfolio on an asset-by-asset basis
5/x) I worked every single day during those 21 days. The shortest day was Easter Sunday in which I only worked about 12 hours (I'm Jewish but claimed it as a day I needed a break). We had to go see as much of the portfolio as we could.
6/x) So we broke it up and tried to go see chunks - i.e. Atlanta had 9 assets so we went there. I did a solo day trip to Baton Rouge to see three assets. Got up at 3am, drove to the airport. Flew to New Orleans. Toured two hotels in NO. Drove to Baton Rouge...
7/x) Toured another two hotels there. Drove back to NO. Flew back to NYC. Got back to my apartment at 4am. Went to work at 8am. To this day it remains the worst day of my life.
8/8) I'm sure most IB/PE/HF guys on here have similar stories, and I guess my point is that saying you work hard or grind on Twitter is one thing, but if you really want to be successful (not just in institutional investing), that level of commitment is often what's required
