The 22-year-old Wall Street graduate trainee: hot commodity, or tragic victim of artificial intelligence? At the moment, the answer is both.
Earlier this week, Navid Mahmoodzadegan — incoming CEO of the boutique investment bank Moelis & Co. — intimated that AI tools could take on much of the grunt work currently done by human number crunchers and PowerPoint makers. Adopted smartly, he said, AI could rationalise “the size of our pyramid”.
That sounds at odds with private equity’s frenzied recruitment of junior bankers. The peculiar custom of offering jobs that start two years hence to new employees of sell-side firms led to complaints from JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon. Apollo Global Management and General Atlantic have, in response, paused this practice of time-delayed poaching.