Insights for careers with focuses on scaling ops, startups, and finance.

I've been doing a lot of thinking on career now that I'm back at Penn.

Entrepreneurship is arguably my favorite role. It's one that appeals to the ability to juggle many things at once (none particularly well), but well enough to build it out and pass the torch of specific duties on to other people. While entrepreneurship is the dream, I do subscribe by the effective-altruism longtermist thought that:

"If there's no organization you have a burning desire to create (or at least, a strong vision for), it's probably not time to be an entrepreneur. Instead it could make more sense to try for a job in which you're learning more about parts of the world you're interested in, becoming more aware of how organizations work, etc. - this could later lead to identifying some "gap in the market" that you’re excited to fill."

I've been personally lucky enough to have this fanatical drive and vision twice in my life -- once for Altrui Rx and once for Poly. Poly didn't work out (right idea, wrong time and wrong regulations). I still have the burning desire for Altrui Rx -- except sadly, there are factors other than my own ambitions and outside my control that factor into my ability to commit to it.

And so I've been deliberating on career.

After some more thoughtful conversations that don't simply brush off IB as for "sheep", entrepreneurship as a "cult", and VC as a "frat", I've found (somewhat deeper) insights.

Why do people do IB: because it gives transferrable financial experience, lending to strong career mobility.

VC analyst is a pretty lame role out of undergrad. Unless you have a strong path to get yourself to a Principal or Partner role from pre-existing connections, you won't be making the bang for your buck and won't have too much leverage to succeed or even be qualified for other workplaces. Being a VC analyst only seems useful if you have a CS background, product-management background, or if you're working in a healthcare firm on a gap year(s) and plan to pursue an MD. While a VC analyst job title looks cool to start out with, my understanding is that it's not ideal for "longtermists" that want to maximize their impact and career mobility.

If the goal is to develop leveragable financial/operations skillset to make yourself more valuable with to work in startups or VC long-term, the paths are either IB/PE or operating inside startups and then exiting.

With my interests lying broadly between scaling operations, startups, and finance, growth equity looks like a strong place to set my focus. There is still lots of sourcing involved, but analysts are also learning a set of hard financial modeling skills and thoughtfully looking into business models to growth-stage companies more efficient or streamline revenue. Assuming you've been networking within the startup community. there is then a lot of room to continue down growth equity or transfer into VC as a Principal. This is the risk-averse safe side that will get you training and make you a valuable asset for anyone, long-term.

The other option is joining a startup (early or growth stage) and working in the trenches through an operator role, gaining valuable experience. However, it a risk because if the company you're working for doesn't succeed, you'll likely spend your dedicated and valuable learning years without strong mentorship. If financial industry is important to you, there may not be a strong backstop to transfer career roles.