[buckwild]

Have you ever worked in the finance industry? Those guys will kill their own family if it will get them a $5K raise.

I worked in the california mortgage industry before going to college. These guys would convince families living paycheck to paycheck to buy/refinance REALLY expensive homes. If they were on a 30 year fixed, we get them on an option-arm. If they are on an option-arm, we get them on a 30-year fixed.

This is all typical finance stuff. But here comes the kicker--they would actually outright LIE about interest rates and had a few shady notaries to back them. They would say you have a 1% interest rate (for 30 years) when it was really a 5 year option-arm and screw people. The worst part is, CA has some sort of law that protects mortgage lenders from unhappy customers after 5 years time (exactly when the 1% interest rate would fly to the market rate). Needless to say, several people left the company when we found out. Some folks reported them to the BBB--I don't know what happened to those scumbags though. I really hope people like that stay out of science.

[SkyMarshal]

> I don't know what happened to those scumbags though.

Unlike the S&L crisis, exactly none of them got indicted and all of them got bailed out, except Bernie Madoff whose schemes were totally orthogonal to the financial crisis.

[iamdave]

Not that your point of people taking an "at all costs" approach to career advancement is missed, but I'm not sure about your analogy re: the finance industry. He's an engineer, not someone trying to close deals on mortgages or equity loans, none of that is his domain.

I work in finance software (specifically regulatory compliance) and it's arguably one of the most supportive and communicative industries to be on the engineering side of.

Until you start having to deal with compliance regulations, then it becomes a chore.

[michaelochurch]

I was in a group doing arbitrage. I can't say anything first-hand about mortgages.

Real-estate people (not including architects) are scummy. All of them. It's the filthiest business around. Real-estate finance people are bound to be scummy. I agree.

I wasn't saying, "There are no slimeballs in finance". I just think that, from a boots on the ground perspective, there isn't much difference between Wall Street and the hottest startups of VC-istan.