Investment Banker in 1907: Morgan's library rescue

The modern firm is a pyramid apprenticeship. Analysts fresh from university build the models and the hundred-page pitch books; associates and vice presidents run the deal process; managing directors win the clients and take the 2 a.m. phone call when a transaction wobbles. Pay is extreme at every level and so are the hours: a leaked 2021 survey of Goldman Sachs first-year analysts reported working weeks averaging around 95 hours.

This page follows the trade from the ruin of Florence's Bardi and Peruzzi banks in the 1340s through Jakob Fugger's purchased empire, J. P. Morgan's locked library, the invention of the Eurobond, London's Big Bang and the fall of Lehman Brothers. It covers how people actually get hired today, what the junior years demand, who reached the top of the profession — from Osaka to Lagos to Wall Street — and how much of the work AI can realistically absorb.

What does an investment banker actually do? Two things: advise and underwrite. Advisory bankers guide companies, governments and funds through mergers, acquisitions, sales and restructurings; capital-markets bankers raise money for them by underwriting new stocks and bonds and placing them with investors. Investment bankers do not manage individuals' savings or take deposits — the day-to-day work is valuation, negotiation, documents and long client meetings.