[daniel-s]

Learn Python, automate your work.

Develop a relationship with someone that knows Python, have them automate your work.

Alternatively, learn VBA if you live in Word.

Alternative 2, just learn to be more proficient with the tools that you use.

If there's something that I have discovered it is that many people's office jobs could be automated—or at least much more efficient—if they were developers.

Any task that you do that involves any kind of data, developing reports that can be templated, Excel, could all probably be automated.

[zero-sharp]

How will python help him with meetings and emails? This doesn't sound like a technology problem. Not only that, but he's already working crazy hours. And you're suggesting that he spend more time on work?

He's asking for ideas on how to make a career transition with the understanding that his salary will most likely get reduced by 90%.

[ishtanbul]

Im looking forward to the msft copilot integration in office that can answer my emails and write transcripts of calls with to-dos. It will save time, but i think it will just up the ante since the culture is what got us here. And the risk of deals failing means you have to work on many at a time and accept as much as 100% swings in comp year to year. I would love to learn python, i figure with chatgpt i can learn it quickly. I learned vba with it and built bigger, crazier financial models but i still work the same amount… even my boss who is 50 is doing the same hrs.

With ai is it even worth it to try to get started in software or robotics? I feel like i will not be able to get a job bc these systems are advancing so fast, they will take the jr jobs first.

Value in my industry is really created from relationships (origination). The modeling and analysis work can probably be automated away with ai in a short time. I’m trying to bring the firm in that direction so that i can manage that.

[ghaff]

As you say it's the culture of investment banking, Big Law, and some other subsets of certain industries. Those subsets pay extremely well but things like weekend work are just part of the package.

I'm not at all convinced AI is going to radically change the culture of most industries in the relatively near term. There have been enormous changes to the tooling for all kinds of tech over the past few decades and I don't really see big changes to the work culture--other than the pay for software development at "tech" companies often increasing relative to other types of engineering. (It's not clear to me that sort of differential is sustainable.)

[cxr]

At $500k+ annually, you can hire a secretary.

(It sounds like you're in a position where you feel like you're compensated well enough that you'd be open to taking half the pay if it meant you could maintain the same return on investment: i.e. put in only half the work.)

By bringing up Copilot, it shows that you're already dabbling with adjacent ideas. Would love to know if/why you haven't considered this already and more about your work, including what parts, if any, make it a non-starter.

[zero-sharp]

If we started having chatgpt respond to emails in my current job, I would bet that we'd lose all of our clients. I can't imagine automated communication in the context of personalized and nuanced interactions, especially when money is on the line. I'm sure somebody will tell me I'm wrong though...

[ishtanbul]

Yeah, i think about 50% of them require a ton of thought and context. But some do not. If it could draft and just let me approve, i could save hours. This is just jevons paradox though.

[rexreed]

The secret is automation that does things while you're doing other things. Parallel not series. I've even seen people secretly hire foreign virtual assistants to do their low value tasks for pennies while the employee focuses on the higher value tasks.

[zero-sharp]

So I'm assuming that your comment is in reference to me casting doubt on the usefulness of automation in meetings, emails, and other forms of communication.

The point is that there's plenty of high level, technical, and nuanced communication that can only happen between experts. The expertise isn't documented anywhere (unless you count previous email exchanges), it's not somehow represented in a database, and often times decisions are highly specific to one particular situation. Asking a non expert to fulfill this role is difficult enough. I'm not convinced that this is a problem solved by technology.

[ghaff]

I'm honestly not sure what I would use an admin for if you gave me one. A lot of what an executive admin does is dealing with the calendars of people who have far more demands on their time than they have time. And getting the status on various projects from people. Generally speaking, other than travel sometimes, I don't really have a lot of "Make it So!" tasks that I could delegate to an admin/assistant.

There are things that I'm not good at that I'm better off not spending time hacking at to do a mediocre job--e.g. web stuff generally or design--but that's really something else.