Attention, New MBAs in Finance: AI-gony Arrives
March 6, 2025
Another post from the dinobaby. Alas, no smart software used for this essay.
I did a couple of small jobs for a big Wall Street outfit years ago. I went to meetings, listened, and observed. To be frank, I did not do much work. There were three or four young, recent graduates of fancy schools. These individuals were similar to the colleagues I had at the big time consulting firm at which I worked earlier in my career.
Everyone was eager and very concerned that their Excel fevers were in full bloom: Bright eyes, earnest expressions, and a gentle but persistent panting in these meetings. Wall Street and Wall Street like firms in London, England, and Los Angeles, California, were quite similar. These churn outfits and deal makers shared DNA or some type of quantum entanglement.
These “analysts” or “associates” gathered data, pumped it into Excel spreadsheets set up by colleagues or technical specialists. Macros processed the data and spit out tables, charts, and graphs. These were written up as memos, reports for those with big sticks, or senior deciders.
My point is that the “work” was done by cannon fodder from well-known universities business or finance programs.
Well, bad news, future BMW buyers, an outfit called PublicView.ai may have curtailed your dreams of a six figure bonus in January or whatever month is the big momma at your firm. You can take a look at example outputs and sign up free at https://www.publicview.ai/.
If the smart product works as advertised, a category of financial work is going to be reshaped. It is possible that fewer analyst jobs will become available as the gathering and importing are converted to automated workflows. The meetings and the panting will become fewer and father between.
I don’t have data about how many worker bees power the Wall Street type outfits. I showed up, delivered information when queried, departed, and sent a bill for my time and travel. The financial hive and its quietly buzzing drones plugged away 10 or more hours a day, mostly six days a week.
The PublicView.ai FAQ page answers some basic questions; for example, “Can I perform quantitative analysis on the files?” The answer is:
Yes, you can ask Publicview to perform computations on the files using Python code. It can create graphs, charts, tables and more.
This is good news for the newly minted MBAs with programming skills. The bad news is that repeatable questions can be converted to workflows.
Let’s assume this product is good enough. There will be no overnight change in the work for existing employees. But slowly the senior managers will get the bright idea of hiring MBAs with different skills, possibly on a contract basis. Then the work will begin to shift to software. At some point in the not-to-distant future, jobs for humans will be eliminated.
The question is, “How quickly can new hires make themselves into higher value employees in what are the early days of smart software?”
I suggest getting on a fast horse and galloping forward. Donkeys with Excel will fall behind. Software does not require health care, ever increasing inducements, and vacations. What’s interesting is that at some point many “analyst” jobs, not just in finance, will be handled by “good enough” smart software.
Remember a 51 percent win rate from code that does not hang out with a latte will strike some in carpetland as a no brainer. The good news is that MBAs don’t have a graduate degree in 18th century buttons or the Brutalist movement in architecture.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2025
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