I have a pet theory: there are managerially-minded university graduates who value prestige more than power or pay. In the post-War era, they became beige-suited company men. In my generation, they went corporate finance. Today, they work for private equity.
Banking was great. Everyone–from liberal arts to engineering majors–could putz around for years in a pre-defined and prestigious path with moderately above-market pay and the potential to become rich. (Most don't.) It was also a field that could absorb a lot of grunt work, because most of what these folks did was format PowerPoints and populate Excel templates.
After the GFC, bulge-bracket finance became less prestigious right when technology lowered the industry's hunger for grunts. Silicon Valley took up some slack, but at least until the pandemic hiring boom, there was a modicum of technical gating factors.
The entire time, corporate and industrial America needed administration. But working at a chemical plant in Baton Rouge isn't sexy. You know what is sexy? Working for KKR.
So KKR's partners buy the plant, hire the college grad, give them a few weeks' training and "deploy" them to Baton Rouge. That will be their "project" for years. There are perks: they get to fly in from a city, for instance. But overall, the partners can acquire this labor cheaper than their portolio companies. (Ask anyone who isn't a partner at a private equity firm what they do, and it's on a spectrum between administrative assistance and middle management in a random business.) It's what consulting did in another era, re-branded for what young people willing to take less pay and power predict their peers and parents find prestigious (and what they consider safe).
Banking was great. Everyone–from liberal arts to engineering majors–could putz around for years in a pre-defined and prestigious path with moderately above-market pay and the potential to become rich. (Most don't.) It was also a field that could absorb a lot of grunt work, because most of what these folks did was format PowerPoints and populate Excel templates.
After the GFC, bulge-bracket finance became less prestigious right when technology lowered the industry's hunger for grunts. Silicon Valley took up some slack, but at least until the pandemic hiring boom, there was a modicum of technical gating factors.
The entire time, corporate and industrial America needed administration. But working at a chemical plant in Baton Rouge isn't sexy. You know what is sexy? Working for KKR.
So KKR's partners buy the plant, hire the college grad, give them a few weeks' training and "deploy" them to Baton Rouge. That will be their "project" for years. There are perks: they get to fly in from a city, for instance. But overall, the partners can acquire this labor cheaper than their portolio companies. (Ask anyone who isn't a partner at a private equity firm what they do, and it's on a spectrum between administrative assistance and middle management in a random business.) It's what consulting did in another era, re-branded for what young people willing to take less pay and power predict their peers and parents find prestigious (and what they consider safe).