[chkdsk]

There literally are no similarities between what you described and the original topic.

There was no exponential growth or betting or downsides here. The Jr. bankers billed a metric-ton of hours and made their firms truckloads in fees. They're probably just disappointed all those late nights were essentially for nothing.

Saudi Aramco is still a 1.5 trillion dollar company. Just not a publicly listed one. A public listing wouldn't change the value of the company. This is not some hot high-growth tech IPO that retail investors would clamor over.

[JumpCrisscross]

> those late nights were essentially for nothing

Except they weren't. If a junior banker was placed on the Aramco deal team, that tells you they're well regarded. You don't put your C team on the Aramco deal. Furthermore, a client of this calibre brings together powerful people from across the firm and industry. The juniors will have had a chance to network with them. That's huge. (Not to mention, everyone at these firms gets paid salary, benefits and bonuses.)

I'm not harping on this to be mean. Downside management matters. That seems to have gone out the door around cryptocurrencies. These bankers made something if the deal failed and a lot more if it went through. Cryptocurrency investors had no such levers with which to manage downside risk (apart from limiting exposure). Savvy investors (and bankers) get rightfully suspicious at all-or-nothing propositions like the one cryptos collectively pitched.

[chkdsk]

Certainly, the networking and prestige of being involved in that deal has value. But personally I'd still be disappointed having to stay up preparing a deck until 4am that ultimately led nowhere.

But, again, I'm still a little confused why we're bending over backwards to try to relate this back to crypto somehow? Are there not enough crypto discussions on HN already?

[JumpCrisscross]

> I'd still be disappointed having to stay up preparing a deck until 4am that ultimately led nowhere

Disappointed but not devastated.

> I'm still a little confused why we're bending over backwards to try to relate this back to crypto somehow?

I think it's one commenter. Unfortunately, it reflects a prevalent (and wrong) hypothesis from the cryptocurrency community that the investment risks inherent to cryptocurrency are normal. They're not.

[tschwimmer]

Thank you for confirming this. I read the other post and was actually worried I was dumb for a second because I couldn't see the parallels at all.

[SilasX]

>A public listing wouldn't change the value of the company. This is not some hot high-growth tech IPO that retail investors would clamor over.

Why would that make a difference? Generally, an asset the same risk/return profile will be more valuable if it's highly liquid, right? Which an IPO would do.

[gaius]

The Jr. bankers billed a metric-ton of hours and made their firms truckloads in fees.

Yes and no. A lot of that work if not most would have been essentially speculative in the hope of getting a big payoff if the deal went through.

The lawyers on the other hand would have billed hourly.