I think there are probably a few forces leading to there being a lot of young people at big banks. One is that they will hire a lot of junior analysts and many of them do not last while others will move to smaller firms that require more experienced staff because they can’t train people straight out of college.
When I was at university, the people I knew who wanted to work in finance seemed to be planning to work stupidly hard for some number of years and make a load of money and then retire. So maybe an alternative reason is that many people choose to retire at a relatively young age. But those people didn’t exactly have much actual experience in investment banks and so maybe they were just wrong or maybe those ideas are more predominantly held by people who are keen on investment banking while in university than in investment bankers at large.
Or maybe the old people all turn up at a different time or spend all their time meeting with clients outside their office (or half the time with clients so they arrive at the office at weird times), so you just don’t see them if you watch.
To be clear I don’t want to suggest that I disagree with what you say, just that there may be other forces at play than a bank’s desire to fire senior staff.
When I was at university, the people I knew who wanted to work in finance seemed to be planning to work stupidly hard for some number of years and make a load of money and then retire. So maybe an alternative reason is that many people choose to retire at a relatively young age. But those people didn’t exactly have much actual experience in investment banks and so maybe they were just wrong or maybe those ideas are more predominantly held by people who are keen on investment banking while in university than in investment bankers at large.
Or maybe the old people all turn up at a different time or spend all their time meeting with clients outside their office (or half the time with clients so they arrive at the office at weird times), so you just don’t see them if you watch.
To be clear I don’t want to suggest that I disagree with what you say, just that there may be other forces at play than a bank’s desire to fire senior staff.