I spent most of my career in finance including a hedge fund and several international banks.
Personally I really enjoy his books and recommend them to my friends and family.
Professionally, I have never heard his name being mentioned.
You find the same 'fluffy' management books on trader desks (varies between firms).
- Some translation of "the art of war".
- Tribal leadership and their whole "Tribe of tribes" nonsense
- its name escapes me at the moment, but some leadership book written by a US marine? Because this maps directly to finance?
- six sigma
Usually they are "management" focused chanting type material.
I've spent time at a very large and well known hedge fund and I also have family at JS.
Regardless of what the individual you responded to thinks.. Firms like this have very difficult interview processes. They are looking for something "Special" and this excludes the vast majority of applications.
I took a taxi to my interview, and the taxi driver himself told me he drives many people to the location for interviews, and drives a lot of unhappy people back (failed the interview).
It should tell you something when even a local taxi driver knows how difficult it is to get into these places.
I will try to answer your questions as well:
1) I did support work when i was at "hedge fund" - They want people who can think outside the box and be a culture fit. their culture is well known, and you either fit in or you don't. There is no "faking it".
They generally hire fresh grades from ivy league schools. This way they can indoctrinate the culture. This is not always the case, but probably 70% of their employees were done this way.
2) Many of my former coworkers are now CEO's, COO's etc. Besides the money the culture encourages you to push past your limits and grow. One guy was a developer, he's now the CIO for an international makeup company..
At the firm I worked at, it did not matter what your role was. If you wanted to change groups, you would be given a fair chance to take the tests. if you passed, you were in the new role. The tests were INTENSE... but many "techs" moved to business roles over the years.
"busting up unions specifically to disempower workers."
Let us review GM.
They knew they needed to cut down product, would the union let them?
They knew they needed automation as their labour costs are too high.
The union position was always the same, use the profits from some cars to subsidize the losses from others. How long can that go on for when you continue to lose marketshare?
Their pension is a mess as fewer and fewer workers are supporting it.
Or, you can review Daewoo motors (sold to GM).
The banks flat out told them to cut costs or no loans and they would go bankrupt. Did the unions agree to anything?
when i was in my early 20's and unaware of how the world worked i had a job as a contract IT guy at a very well known Power company. People would call me up with their problems and i would fix them. After a few months, somone took me aside and explained to me that they are really bad, as they are "using" me to avoid having to deal with other unions to do this work. I was simply unaware that "plugging in a network cable" was a union job and i just did it as it was easy enought.
The sad thing is it was union employees attempting to avoid other union employees...
Personally I really enjoy his books and recommend them to my friends and family. Professionally, I have never heard his name being mentioned.
You find the same 'fluffy' management books on trader desks (varies between firms).
- Some translation of "the art of war". - Tribal leadership and their whole "Tribe of tribes" nonsense - its name escapes me at the moment, but some leadership book written by a US marine? Because this maps directly to finance? - six sigma
Usually they are "management" focused chanting type material.