your argument has some merit, but it loses its value only in one regard.... if we are all risk adverse because we might not hit a home run like bill gates or steve jobs, then we would cease to advance... there are risks to everything, like you said... one can make smart or dumb decisions and thereby take the risk that will yield the most, however... conditions will not always be there or will be as clear cut when it comes to what advantages you might have when taking risks... with regards to trading and working at an IB... usually, you have a better chance getting in straight out of college... and you would start as an associate... get paid little, but get exposure in FA/TA program for 3 years or so... once you are a grad, you need MBA/MS and chances are you will need to be in a top tier MBA program (wharton will get you in anywhere) ... and you will still come in as an associate, but at least you will make a bit more $$$ and will be in the floor or not, depending what you get in under... now, neither of those things guarantee you will ever trade a penny... most IB's have had to do away with their prop trading, so the "traders" are really brokers, and sure... you are trading with other "traders" at large firms and taking the business from funds and buy side... and possibly even making markets if in cash equities... but in the end.. those opportunities are few and are mostly managed by algo... so the days of the execution traders are long gone... but there is certainly opportunity on the Quant side as well as on the sales side.. where knowledge of the product portfolio is required and also a good salesmanship/womenship is required... given those are client facing... dont take me wrong, you will make $$$$$ on that north of $500K+ with bonus...and maybe from there you can become a PM, etc... anyhow, just my 2 cents..
NewWurld (and fellow Minnesotan), I believe in past posts you've referred to direct work experience with an investment bank and also to some kind of business that uses petroleum products as a feedstock. In this back-and-forth about trading, and your comments about i-banks and hedge funds being the preferred route, I think you're leaving out hedging/trading in the commodity market as a valid career path if one wants to ultimately speculate with his own or OPM. Lots of desks, departments and hedge funds around the world are populated by people that started in exchange-traded commodities, and for all I know some former iso-butanol swap traders have made it big, too.
Brighton, I'm not from minnesota but I did go to Diluth once for a wedding. I liked the town. It had that industrial gray look (which I find beautiful). I was narrowly focused on prop trading (sitting around thinking about whether a stock will go up or down) which has little value outside of that specifically. Hedger for a company is defintely a valid career path. I don't know the path to those seats. I remember reading that the reason a lot of those guys came from small shops and prop firms is that a lot of banks were scrambling to find people in the early 2000s. There weren't many energy traders as they all got blown out a generation earlier.
Some good advice here. Taking a job in the industry will open her eyes as to what she is up against. To win at the speculation game you need to beat some of the smartest, most cunning, ruthless, well capitalized, mean SOBs on the planet at their own crooked game. You should not sugarcoat it. And the Livermore story is spot on. Do you want to wager every day of your life the risk of financial ruin for the chance to prove you are smarter and have a stronger stomach than your competition? It's a hell of a way to make some easy money. Aging bull markets then to lure many to what is not really their calling.
well, in that case you dont have to go to an IB at all... (and I am not being sarcastic btw...) there are plenty of trading divisions within any company that will use natural resources and its derivatives... Pepsi and Coke have one of the largest (IMO, and that I know off) aluminum trading operations... GE is another one with a huge treasury department and trading operations in FX markets... so the path's to learning to trade are quite diverse, but everyone focus here on the IB world which is why from my part I've offered opinions on that mostly...