Career

First, do YOUR job. The goal is to build trust. The best way to do that is to consistently AND quickly create error-free work. The first iteration cycle should never be nits -- formatting, numbers, etc. need to be accurate. At a minimum: print your work, go line by line, run your line across a row of numbers and have an answer for why numbers don't make sense
You are not getting paid a salary to work 40 or 120 hours a week, you are getting paid a salary to get the job done regardless of how long it takes (and, sometimes, it takes a long time)
Be "at cause" & always demonstrate extreme ownership (do not yell at the empty boat or, worse, exhibit a victim mentality)
Details matter (and often leave clues, like a newly capitalized letter in a credit agreement in the middle of negotiations or other current assets)
Do one thing at a time, do it well, and get everything you can out of it
Read (a lot), listen to podcasts/speeches when not reading
Efficient, effective content consumption (across disciplines) is the first-step of second-level thinking
The second step involves taking a big step back (in order to see the forest from the trees), reflecting, and prioritizing (writing helps)
Have a system / process for everything, consistent action over time is key to leveling up your thinking. Start by copying others, but you must develop your own over time
Play for the team on the front of the jersey, not the person on the back
Never show up unprepared or without enthusiasm
Don't be an asshole (with your body language or your e-mails)
Know your audience, pause when you speak, and shorter is always better
Learn from others
Teach others
Institutionalize mental models: this reduces friction between 14/15, which leads to more loops, which compounds everyone's knowledge, which leads to better investments & culture
Complaining & gossiping hurts the culture, gets you nowhere, and does not solve any problems
What gets measured gets changed, for better or for worse
How people spend their time and money will tell you more about what they value than listening to what they claim to value (calendars/financial statements > words)
Good decisions are rooted in a MECE fact base (mutually exclusively, collectively exhaustive)
Measure twice, cut once
Spending more time working does not mean you are getting more done, be cautious of analysis paralysis and letting deliverables expand the time permitted by the deadline
Listen to wise people, ignore dumb people
Spend your time wisely; spend other people's time even more wisely
Be keenly aware of what you don't know - arrogance kills (culture & investments)
Treat everyone with respect, particularly the cleaning people and controller. Good things happen to good people
Have balance - stress kills
Know what you know and stand for what you know (memento mori)

Investing

"Is this a good business?" and "Is this a good deal?" are fundamentally different questions
Money is how people keep score. But, you must love the game - otherwise you won't win
Asymmetric returns are how smart people keep score
The deepest insights blend narrative with numbers/hard data - "will this business exist in 10 years?" requires qualitative insight on the industry value chain + secular trends grounded in the reality you see in the rolling 3-year revenue CAGR + margins
Good PE deals require second-level thinking just like public markets, the awesome part if the ability to be a changing force from a control position
Always be thinking about psychology
Risk is uncertainty, some of which can't be priced in
Management claims about anything are guilty until proven innocent
Timing the top/bottom is a bad use of time, positioning within the cycle is not
Purchase price is the easiest variable to control
Most information is a commodity
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful
Sequencing is underrated, in markets & strategy (AMZ: books --> everything store)
History is a guide, not the truth - develop your own perspective
Asking the right questions is everything
The most successful investors are learning machines

High level advice:

On cycle vs off cycle:
- On cycle: really only an option for pedigreed candidates in the "buy box" (i.e., target school + BB banking or MBB consulting). This is increasingly frowned upon by folks in the industry (see Jamie Dimon comments) + universities but nonetheless remains the primary avenue for large cap PE funds.
- Off cycle: there are plenty of great opportunities off cycle and even opportunities to join large cap funds as a lateral. I went this route in large part because my consulting job history made the traditional on cycle route difficult (i.e., I was at a smaller consulting firm before joining BCG and not the traditional 2+2 candidate).
- Most importantly: you usually get 1 shot with a PE fund. Whether it happens on cycle or off cycle. Whether you engage as a first year banking analyst or 3rd consulting associate. So just make sure you've done the prep (see below) before you begin responding to those head hunters + setting up coffee chats.
Navigating Headhunters: have you shit together before you speak with any headhunters. Treat it like an interview.
- List of headhunters: Henkel Search Partners (HSP), Amity, CPI, Ratio, Oxbridge, CarterPierce, Bellcast Partners, SG Partners, Dynamics Search Partners (DSP)
- List of PE firms x Headhunter
How to prepare: complete Peak Frameworks course front-to-back, begin practice modeling tests leveraging the bank below + asking friends in your group. When tired of modeling, read up on the industry via the annual reports highlighted in the industry background section or one of the many book s below. However, know that lights-out modeling + accounting is a gating factor to securing later stage interviews where you can flex your industry understanding. In other words, spend more time modeling than reading until you can build a beautiful model with 0 errors in <45 minutes.
- Also, figure out which PE firms you want to work at and why. Study their deals. Network with their current and former associates. At a bare minimum, you should be capable of articulating something along the lines of "I'm interested in Middle Market firms in NYC focused on buyouts in business services & industrials." (sector / strategy / geography). If pivoting out of your banking coverage sector / consulting project experience area or geography, then you need to have a good reason. Coffee chats w/ specific firms & sector specific reading are good reasons for the former; spouses/family/SO's are good reasons for the latter.
Why working in PE is worth it: unparalleled learning, exposure, and compensation at a young age. It's without a doubt a "career accelerant." I always encourage folks to try it out pre-MBA because you can always go back to banking or consulting, or leverage the PE skill set into start-ups/technology or hedge funds. However, there's diminishing returns to Y3-Y5 in banking or consulting unless you plan to stay in those careers until MD/Partner.
Money: It's okay to go into it for the money, that's only human. And certainly motivated me. But just know that money motivation will only take you so far, you have to develop a love for the game & a genuine desire for deal making in order to be successful in this highly competitive field. Accurate compensation can be found out at the bottom of the page.

Note: I've only included below resources I myself have fully consumed/subscribed & felt helpful in building foundational understanding. I hope to include my summaries/notes to the site with time, but for now here's the list. Indicates Strong Recommendation

Modeling Courses:
- Peak Frameworks (Link) **
  - This course is all you need and well worth the money ($497)
  - The instructor Matt Ting is ex-Evercore / Silver Lake / Providence
  - Walks through how to navigate on cycle, how to prep for modeling (with 5 different levels), and how to walk through a deal / project as a banker / consultant
- Note: If you have zero modeling / accounting experience, then I'd also recommend these classes: A Simple Model (Link) + Wall Street Prep (Link)
Additional Recruiting Resources:
- PE Deal Process - Overview of the Auction Process (330 pages)
- Private Equity Demystified: An Explanatory Guide (226 pages, 2014)
- Comprehensive Study Guides:
  - Private Equity Recruiting Guide, Sam Schiff (74 pages, 2016)
  - A Guide to Private Equity Recruiting, Max Lipscomb (108 pages, January 2016)
  - I find these guides helpful to give a sense of the "bar" when it comes to preparation. These were created by Morgan Stanley bankers who went on to work at Megafunds.
- 10x EBITDA
Industry Background (Reading):
- Annual reports to read every year:
  - Bain's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022) **
  - McKinsey's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022)
  - Hamilton Lane's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022) **
  - I recommend students & young professionals looking to break in read all 9 of these annual reports in order to get up to speed on current industry trends
- Topics / trends to read up on:
  - Private Credit / the disintermediation of HY & BSL markets post 2008
  - Secondaries / rise of continuation vehicles (Link to primers + market reports)
  - Barbell effect / denominator effect
  - Investing in ZIRP & the impact of rate increases on the asset class
  - Sources & costs of capital: permanent evergreen vehicles, insurance / retirement services, BDCs, retail investors
- Sources for excellent whitepapers:
  - PGIM: on the new dynamics in Private Markets, the convergence of Public & Private Credit **
  - Apollo Academy
  - McKinsey, Bain, BCG; google search: [Topic of interest] [Insert on MBB] "File type: PDF"
- Annual Reports / Investor Days from the publicly traded cohort: Apollo, KKR, Blackrock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Carlyle, Ares, TPG, Blue Owl, EQT
Industry Background (Listening)
- YouTube
  - Curated Playlist (Link)
  - Milken Institute
  - iConnections
  - NYT DealBook Summit
- Podcasts:
  - Curated Playlist of Greatest Hits (Link)
  - Invest Like The Best: the majority of this podcast is not about PE but there's many gems in Patrick's archive, some of which are captured in the curated playlist above
  - Capital Allocators, particularly the PE deals section: excellent deal deep dives **
  - Thoma Bravo's Behind The Deal / Beyond The Deal: excellent deal deep dives
  - Bain's Dry Powder: great for quick expert commentary on key secular trends / pulse checks on the market
  - Private Capital by Joe Reilly: great for interviews with more niche MM funds to better understand their culture/strategy
Selected** Books
- Industry intrigue / good stories
  - The Ceaser's Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Corruption of the Private Equity Industry (Max Frumes) **
  - Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital (Robert Finkel) **
  - How to Invest (David Rubenstein) **
  - Two and Twenty: How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win (Sachin Khajuria) **
  - Barbarian's at the Gate (Bryan Burrough)
  - The Dealmaker (Guy Hands) **
- Useful handbooks / dense desk references
  - Private Capital (Stefan Hepp) **
  - The Credit Investor's Handbook (Michael Gatto) **
  - Private Equity: A Casebook (Paul Gompers) **
  - Private Equity Deals (Ted Seides)
  - Private Equity 4.0: Reinventing Value Creation (Benoit Leleux)
  - The Private Equity Toolkit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Deals Done from Sourcing to Exit (Tamara Sakovska) **
  - Mastering Private Equity: Transformation via Venture Capital, Minority Investments, and Buyouts (Claudia Zeisberger)
  - The LSTA's Complete Credit Agreement Guide (Michael Bellucci) **
  - Valuation: Measuring & Managing the Value of Companies, 9th Edition (McKinsey) **
  - Financial Statement Analysis: A Practitioner's Guide (Martin Fridson)
  - Deal Structuring: An Investor's Guide to Better Deals (Magnus Kjoller)
  - The Private Equity Playbook: Management's Guide to Working with Private Equity (Adam Coffey)
- Portfolio Value Creation
  - Winning Moves (Dan Cremons) **
  - Intelligent Equity (Dan Cremons)
  - Amp It Up (Frank Slootman) **
  - How To Make a Few Billon Dollars (Brad Jacobs) **
  - Everything Jim Collins has written -- Good to Great, Built to Last, Be 2.0 (Link to books + Link to website) **
  - The Essential Drucker
  - In Search of Excellence
- Sociopolitical critiques (helpful to understand the gripes from the Elizabeth Warren's of the world)
  - These are the Plunderers (Gretchen Morgenson)
  - Plunder (Brendan Ballou)
- **The above represents ~30% of the "PE" books I've read (~10% if you broaden that to business) but I actually regret my N in these narrow categories being that high. There's diminishing returns after you read the classics & have a foundational circle of competence in the core subject matter. And, more importantly, there's tremendous value in cross-discipline reading. Moving beyond PE into deep readings from the fields of history, science, psychology, public markets / economics, and politics did far me far better as an investor, young professional, and dinner guest than the 56th business book.
Movies / Shows
- Margin Call (about 2008); best finance movie scene of all time
- The Big Short (ibid)
- Barbarians at the Gate (a classic)
- Industry (about banking)
X/Twitter
Resumes
- Mine recruiting from BCG for Gemspring Capital (Link)
- Mine recruiting from Gemspring for Alpine Investors (Link)
- A collection of others (Link)
Academic Papers
News / Substacks / Subscriptions
- Axios Pro Rata **
- Apollo's The Daily Spark
- NYT Deal Book
- Verdad Advisors by Daniel Rasmussen
- WSJ Pro PE (Expensive subscription but worth the depth / insight) **
- Merges & Acquisitions M&A Monitor (I don't pay for this subscription but it's an excellent MM deal wire)
- Industry specific trade magazines
Compensation
- Henkel Search Partners 2024 (Link)
- Carter Pierce 2024 (Link)
- Heidrick & Struggles 2024 (Link)

I'm always happy to chat / mentor about breaking into Private Equity and my experience working in middle market private equity with Gemspring Capital ($3.8B AUM) + Alpine Investors ($18B AUM). I've worked with over 50 young professionals on this topic -- get in touch!

Succeeding as an Associate:
- Tips for Success on the Job
- Associate Expectations
- Associate Keys to Success
Becoming A Great Investor:
- Placeholder
Develop relationships with peers at advisors + other firms
- Placeholder
Resources
- Financial Due Diligence Primer (Link)
- Legal Training Primer (Link)
- Tax Due Diligence & Structuring Fundamentals (Link)
- Price Adjustments & Purchase Agreements (Link)
- SRSA M&A Deal Terms Study (Link); excellent for understanding propensity of deal structures in the MM & things like convincing sellers RWI is unnecessary/off-market for deals <$50M TEV or earnouts that are 20% of TEV are actually better than market
Use Checklists:
- Mauboussin's Measuring the Moat is excellent for business diligence (Link)
- Charlie Munger's List of Mental Biases / Psychological (Link)
- My Master List for Investing (Link)
- Due Diligence Checklist (Link)
Learn how to ask good questions:
- When interviewing management teams
  - List of questions I made over the years (Link)
- When interviewing candidates
  - Brad Jacob's provides an excellent interview question bank (Link)
  - Graham Duncan's "What's going on here, with this human?" (Link)
- When talking with your manager
  - "What should I do more of, what should I do less of, and how can I take my performance to the next level?"

High level advice:​​

On cycle vs off cycle:

On cycle: really only an option for pedigreed candidates in the "buy box" (i.e., target school + BB banking or MBB consulting). This is increasingly frowned upon by folks in the industry (see Jamie Dimon comments) + universities but nonetheless remains the primary avenue for large cap PE funds.

Navigating Headhunters: have you shit together before you speak with any headhunters. Treat it like an interview. ​

List of headhunters: Henkel Search Partners (HSP), Amity, CPI, Ratio, Oxbridge, CarterPierce, Bellcast Partners, SG Partners, Dynamics Search Partners (DSP)

​​

​

Note: I've only included below resources I myself have fully consumed/subscribed & felt helpful in building foundational understanding. I hope to include my summaries/notes to the site with time, but for now here's the list. Indicates Strong Recommendation

​​​​​

Modeling Courses:

Peak Frameworks (Link) **​

This course is all you need and well worth the money ($497)

The instructor Matt Ting is ex-Evercore / Silver Lake / Providence

Walks through how to navigate on cycle, how to prep for modeling (with 5 different levels), and how to walk through a deal / project as a banker / consultant

Note: If you have zero modeling / accounting experience, then I'd also recommend these classes: A Simple Model (Link) + Wall Street Prep (Link)

Additional Recruiting Resources:

PE Deal Process - Overview of the Auction Process (330 pages)

Private Equity Demystified: An Explanatory Guide (226 pages, 2014)

Comprehensive Study Guide​s:

Private Equity Recruiting Guide, Sam Schiff (74 pages, 2016)

I find these guides helpful to give a sense of the "bar" when it comes to preparation. These were created by Morgan Stanley bankers who went on to work at Megafunds.

Industry Background (Reading):​

Annual reports to read every year:

​Bain's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022) **

McKinsey's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022)

​Hamilton Lane's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022) **

I recommend students & young professionals looking to break in read all 9 of these annual reports in order to get up to speed on current industry trends

Topics / trends to read up on:

Private Credit / the disintermediation of HY & BSL markets post 2008

Secondaries / rise of continuation vehicles (Link to primers + market reports)

Barbell effect / denominator effect

Investing in ZIRP & the impact of rate increases on the asset class

Sources & costs of capital: permanent evergreen vehicles, insurance / retirement services, BDCs, retail investors

Sources for excellent whitepapers:

PGIM: on the new dynamics in Private Markets, the convergence of Public & Private Credit **

Apollo Academy

McKinsey, Bain, BCG; google search: [Topic of interest] [Insert on MBB] "File type: PDF"

Annual Reports / Investor Days from the publicly traded cohort: Apollo, KKR, Blackrock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Carlyle, Ares, TPG, Blue Owl, EQT​

Industry Background (Listening)​

YouTube

​Curated Playlist (Link)

Milken Institute

iConnections

NYT DealBook Summit

Podcasts:

Curated Playlist of Greatest Hits (Link)​

Invest Like The Best: the majority of this podcast is not about PE but there's many gems in Patrick's archive, some of which are captured in the curated playlist above​

Capital Allocators, particularly the PE deals section: excellent deal deep dives **

Thoma Bravo's Behind The Deal / Beyond The Deal: excellent deal deep dives

Bain's Dry Powder: great for quick expert commentary on key secular trends / pulse checks on the market

Private Capital by Joe Reilly: great for interviews with more niche MM funds to better understand their culture/strategy

Selected** Books​

Industry intrigue / good stories

The Ceaser's Palace Coup​: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Corruption of the Private Equity Industry (Max Frumes) **

Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital (Robert Finkel)​ **

How to Invest (David Rubenstein) **

Two and Twenty: How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win (Sachin Khajuria) **

Barbarian's at the Gate (Bryan Burrough)

The Dealmaker (Guy Hands) **

Useful handbooks / dense desk references

Private Capital (Stefan Hepp) **

The Credit Investor's Handbook (Michael Gatto) **

Private Equity: A Casebook (Paul Gompers) **

Private Equity Deals (Ted Seides)

Private Equity 4.0: Reinventing Value Creation (Benoit Leleux)

The Private Equity Toolkit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Deals Done from Sourcing to Exit (Tamara Sakovska) **

Mastering Private Equity: Transformation via Venture Capital, Minority Investments, and Buyouts (Claudia Zeisberger)

The LSTA's Complete Credit Agreement Guide (Michael Bellucci) **

Valuation: Measuring & Managing the Value of Companies, 9th Edition (McKinsey) **

Financial Statement Analysis: A Practitioner's Guide (Martin Fridson)

Deal Structuring: An Investor's Guide to Better Deals (Magnus Kjoller)

The Private Equity Playbook: Management's Guide to Working with Private Equity (Adam Coffey)

Portfolio Value Creation

Winning Moves (Dan Cremons) **

Intelligent Equity (Dan Cremons)

Amp It Up (Frank Slootman) **

How To Make a Few Billon Dollars (Brad Jacobs) **

Everything Jim Collins has written -- Good to Great, Built to Last, Be 2.0 (Link to books + Link to website) **

The Essential Drucker

In Search of Excellence

High level advice:

Navigating Headhunters: have you shit together before you speak with any headhunters. Treat it like an interview.

Peak Frameworks (Link) **

Comprehensive Study Guides:

Industry Background (Reading):

Bain's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022) **

Hamilton Lane's Annual Report (2024, 2023, 2022) **

Annual Reports / Investor Days from the publicly traded cohort: Apollo, KKR, Blackrock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Carlyle, Ares, TPG, Blue Owl, EQT

Industry Background (Listening)

Curated Playlist (Link)

Curated Playlist of Greatest Hits (Link)

Invest Like The Best: the majority of this podcast is not about PE but there's many gems in Patrick's archive, some of which are captured in the curated playlist above

Selected** Books

The Ceaser's Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Corruption of the Private Equity Industry (Max Frumes) **

Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital (Robert Finkel) **

Movies / Shows

News / Substacks / Subscriptions