Quarter Life Crisis

Dan Pink sent me his quarter life comic book - Adventures of Johnny Bunko - a few months ago. It was quick read but I just haven’t gotten to writing about it. Anyways, it was a pretty entertaining piece - quick to read, nice artwork, with some good career and life lessons for quarter life crisis-ers that are a not quite as generic and more digestible than what you get in most self help books.

Here’s a few questions for his inspiration for writing this book:

‘as it happens, quarter-lifers (and folks a bit younger) were indeed part of the inspiration. at visits to colleges and companies, people would often ask for advice — and i realized that their premises about work were all wrong. (example: everyone seemed to have a “plan.”) then i realized i had the same mistaken premises at their age. so i decided to key the book around the six things i wish i’d known 25 years ago.”

“The demand for VC jobs is way in excess of the supply and probably always will be.”

That just about sums it up. It’s understandable why VC jobs are so highly coveted. I’ve had a flavor of VC and I must say it is pretty exciting. You learn about different industries on a daily basis, work with all sorts of experienced and brilliant people and get a lot of exposure in the community. However, getting a job as an associate at a VC firm is tough. Probably one of the toughest jobs to get. Every year, thousands of MBAs, burnt out I-bankers, and management consultants at the end of their 2 year rotations are looking to move into VC. These people are the creme of the resume crop so competition is intense.

This chart shows that job posts for VC’s are dropping substantially making supply demand gap even bigger.