Scott Galloway’s Career Lessons for Investment Bankers: Growing Professionally & Living Well

Scott Galloway’s reflections paint investment banking not as a value judgment of the finance industry, but as an early-career gauntlet: one that he neither enjoyed nor excelled in, yet found deeply formative. This tension—between distress and development—runs through his narrative and underscores a broader professional truth: early career misalignment does not preclude later success.

Galloway’s experience at Morgan Stanley (beginning immediately after college) was characterized by discomfort: he disliked the work, felt incompetent in certain areas, lacked patience and maturity, and was unsettled by competition and hierarchy. He states, “I hated investment banking; they hated me; I was terrible at it.” [2] He also says he “knew I wouldn’t be successful at a big company.” [3] These are not presented as excuses but as insights into what was mismatched between his personality, values, and the structure of large firms.

Yet despite—or because of—the misalignment, Galloway credits investment banking with indispensable lessons: how to endure rejection, operate under scrutiny, read a room, pay close attention to details, and operate in high-pressure environments. He stresses that while the work was tedious (reading and proofreading prospectuses, facing demands to be perfect, absurd hours) he learned discipline that later became useful. [2],[3]

More broadly, Galloway repudiates the “follow your passion” advice in favor of what he calls “workshopping”: early exploration of multiple domains to assess where you are relatively good, where you can grow, and where feedback suggests future strength. Passion, in his view, often emerges after competence and recognition—not before. [3] That separates realistic career development from romantic notions.

Strategic implications for individuals: early discomfort may signal misalignment but is also fertile ground for valuable skills. Thus, staying long enough in early roles to mine lessons—but equally recognizing legitimate indicators to shift—matters. For organizations and talent managers: structuring early-career rotations, destigmatizing failure, and facilitating feedback can help harness the latent benefits of tough entry roles.

Open questions: What is the optimal duration in an early-career “trial period” to allow meaningful growth without damaging morale? For people who don’t extract value from such environments, how can alternate paths (small firms, startups, consulting) weigh in? And how do culture, class, and personal background affect the capacity to tolerate early-career discomfort?