硅谷与华尔街人才争夺战的思考：金融与科技逐渐走向融合
编者按 ： 埃里克·普瓦里耶（Eric Poirier）是 投资管理软件公司 Addepar 首席执行官。
戈登·盖柯（Gordon Gekko）的追求也折射出这代人中最具才华、最聪明的一批人的梦想。今天，优秀的大学毕业生不再将华尔街作为职场上的第一选择，而是纷纷涌向硅谷和其他顶尖高科技中心，试图用改变世界的应用和机遇来挑战现状，给这个世界带来真正且持久的影响。有关“硅谷与华尔街人才争夺战”的讨论热度仍然不会消减，而且根据常理，你一定会被吸引到硅谷，从事对这个社会很有意义的工作。
这种说法越来越常见，但准确吗？答案也很简单，不准确。这种争论往往会以“我们 PK 他们”的心态展开，这种心态具有误导性；事实是，一些看似毫不相关的行业，却得益于新出现的机遇和金融科技领域的创新，越来越有可能走到一起。
不过，在深入探讨这个问题之前，我们先来看一看引发“硅谷 PK 华尔街”讨论的相关统计数据。
条条大路通硅谷？
科技行业正在走向复兴，而且当前这个阶段完全可与受到互联网热潮推动的 20 世纪 90 年代末期和 21 世纪初期的科技繁荣时期相媲美。涌向科技行业的毕业生比例 逐年稳步上升 ，就如同 越来越多的学生进入 STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）领域一样 。
另一方面，美国顶尖大学中从事金融工作的 MBA 比例却逐年下滑，即便金融行业已经从 2008 年金融危机的阴影中走了出来。例如，在 2013 年哈佛大学商学院的毕业生中，最终只有 27%的人从事金融工作，这一比例甚至低于 2008 年和 2009 年金融危机最为严重的时候。
这些数字进一步模糊了金融与科技之间日益密切的联系，这种联系在对金融科技投资的快速增长中体现地尤为明显。根据 Accenture 的最新调查结果， 全球金融科技在 2014 年获得的风险投资已经突破了 120 亿美元 ，大概是金融科技公司在 2013 年获得的投资（40.5 亿美元）的 3 倍。这充分表明金融服务行业正在越来越多地采用新兴技术，而科技行业与金融服务行业之间的相互依赖越来越明显。
有鉴于此，核心问题也就变成了金融服务机构如何才能吸引那些最近流向硅谷创业公司的年轻人才，如何才能充分利用金融科技当前不错的发展势头。
与金钱无关
简而言之，千禧一代人觉得，他们可以在科技行业发挥最大的作用；在科技行业，创新无处不在，非传统思维也成为最新时代思潮的一部分。随着大学生的职业目标从常春藤联盟转向谷歌园区，以及他们纷纷加入前途远大、有机会成为“下一个大事件”的创业公司，很显然科技行业已经超越金融行业，成为一个对众多顶尖院校毕业生更具吸引力的地方， 即便科技公司的平均收入仍然低于大多数金融服务机构 。
这最后一点不应该被忽略。尽管工资以及相关金融期权仍然是主要的招聘工具，但毫无疑问，有才华的毕业生进入就业市场的方式正在发生变化。
除了收入，他们还希望自己的人生更有意义：参与打造某种新的东西，或是改变某个进程的基本性质。金融服务一般被看作是一个广阔市场内更为传统的行业，如今，谷歌、苹果、Facebook 和各种各样的小型创业公司经常被打上“创新”和“灵活”这样的标签，但在我们提到大型金融服务机构时，却极少会用到这样的字眼。
这并不意味着金融服务机构吸引后备人才的关键，在于改变他们的“休闲星期五”（Casual Friday）政策（这是一种几乎完全遭到华尔街排斥的做法），而是更多地与改变组织构建和运营的方式有关，鼓励他们在科技利用方面更加灵活，对改变传统流程的态度更加开放。科技如今是而且一直是支撑金融行业发展的重要推动力。
因此，金融服务机构越来越侧重于转变外界对他们的误读，即他们厌恶改变，崇尚“尝试、失败、再尝试”的理念，这种理念已经深深扎根于硅谷和其他高科技中心。在硅谷创业公司工作，意味着你可以直接对社会带来影响，以有意义的方式“拥有”成果，相比之下，华尔街传统上给人的感觉更官僚。
合二为一
放眼未来，几年内我们会看到金融和科技的联系越来越大——到时做一些你既感兴趣又有意义的工作，就不一定是在硅谷了。
这篇报道的内容已经开始有所体现。我们可以看到，除了传统上的风险投资公司，传统金融服务机构（如摩根大通、 Fidelity 和 T. Rowe Price），也越来越多地参与到快速增长的私营科技公司的大规模融资中来。最近几年，IPO（首次公开募股）的比率一直在下降，因此， 共同基金和其他一些机构投资者不断转向私营科技公司 ，寻求提升回报率的方法，这确实是合理的选择。
同时，硅谷的公司也在改变针对消费者的金融服务流程，为了完成这些流程，他们开始与银行系统合作，而不是竞争了——这种趋势越来越明显。变化最明显的是借贷、支付和加密货币领域，Prosper 和 Coinbase 等公司身上就在发生着这种变化。
在这个信息时代，金融领域未来的领导者已经不像从前了。他们是一个按需团体，习惯于看到立竿见影的效果。如果需要做出改变，那么就可以进行改变。如果一项计划庞大且无效率，那么就需要放弃它而制定更简单的方案了。
金融服务相对于其他行业更加顽固，不愿改变现状，这已经不是第一次了；就在 30 年前，场内交易的自动化是不可想象的（还有人记得那种公开喊价的方法吗？）。今天，在很多大型交易中，很难再找到场内经纪人了。同样，在出现彭博终端（Bloomberg Terminals）之前，也很难想象华尔街的作用不可动摇——但是，交易者们曾经要用笔和纸谈论股票的价格，现在只能通过手机进行交易。
现在，金融领域进行着同样的争论，而且声音越来越大。金融服务组织机构的各个阶层都出现了新一代的投资者和经纪人，我希望看到 20 年来我们熟悉的世界也发生同样的巨变。
现在是那些金融机构愿意放弃“我们 PK 他们”心态（这种心态源于硅谷和华尔街之间的较量）的绝佳时机，他们可以成为具有深远意义的合作伙伴：科技人员和金融人员一起工作的话，他们的效率会更高，工作方式也会更透明。这种新思维必将推动新技术的推广。
毫无疑问，时代在变；那些能更快意识到这种现实并顺势而为的人，将在竞争中占据优势。
A Closer Look At The Silicon Valley Vs. Wall Street Talent War
Eric PoirierCrunch Network Contributor
Eric Poirier is the CEO of investment management software company Addepar.
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Gordon Gekko is but a distant blip in the rear-view mirror for this generation’s best and brightest. In lieu of Wall Street, today’s top graduates are flocking to Silicon Valley and other top technology hubs in droves, drawn in by visions of challenging the status quo with world-changing apps and the opportunity to make a real, lasting impact in the world. Talk of the “SiliconValley vs. Wall Street Talent War” continues unabated — and popular wisdom suggests that you need to be anchored in Silicon Valley to do meaningful work these days.
While it’s an increasingly common narrative, is it accurate? In a word, no. The “Us vs. Them” mentality that this debate often takes is misleading; the reality is that there is an increasing opportunity for seemingly disparate sectors to unite through the budding opportunities and innovations in fintech.
Before digging into that, though, let’s look at some relevant statistics that fuel the “Silicon Valley vs. Wall Street” debate.
All Roads Lead To Silicon Valley?
The technology sector is experiencing a renaissance that rivals even the frenzied, dot-com-driven heights of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The rate of graduates flocking to technology has steadily increased on an annual basis — as has the number of students enrolling in STEM fields.
The rate of MBAs from the nation’s top universities who go into finance, on the other hand, has been shrinking on an annual basis, even as the sector has largely recovered from the 2008 crisis. Consider, for instance, that 27 percent of graduates from Harvard Business School entered finance in 2013 — a lower rate than during even the depths of the recession in 2008 and 2009.
These numbers obscure the broader marriage between finance and technology, which can be evidenced in the massive growth of investments in financial technology, or fintech; according to a recent Accenture study, global investment in fintech ventures topped $12 billion in 2014 — more than three times the $4.05 billion invested in fintech companies in 2013. This is indicative of the financial service industry’s increasing adoption of emerging technology, fostering a greater interdependence between the tech and financial services industries.
With this in mind, the question shifts to what financial services institutions can do to attract more of the young talent that has recently gravitated toward Silicon Valley startups, and how they can harness the momentum of fintech in particular.
It’s Not About The Money
Simply put, the tech sector is where millennials feel they can make the most impact. It’s where innovation happens and outside-the-box thinking is part of the current zeitgeist. Be it transitioning from an Ivy League campus to the Google campus or joining an up-and-coming startup with a chance to become the next big thing, the tech sector has clearly surpassed finance as the more appealing career path for many graduates of top institutions, even if the average tech salary falls short of those offered by most financial institutions.
Working at a Silicon Valley startup allows people to have a direct impact and “own” results in a meaningful way, whereas Wall Street is traditionally more bureaucratic.
This last point is not to be overlooked. While salaries and associated financial options remain a major recruiting tool, there has undoubtedly been a change in the way talented graduates are approaching the job market.
More than salary, they want to be impactful: a part of building something new, or changing the fundamental nature of a given process. Financial services is generally seen as one of the more traditional, if not lucrative, industries within the broader market — but it’s rare that you see the words “innovative” or “agile” mentioned in context with a large financial institution in the way that you do with a Google, Apple, Facebook or any host of small startups.
This is not meant to say that the key for financial services institutions looking to lure back talent is simply a matter of changing their Casual Friday policies (a practice Wall Street has almost universally rejected, anyway). It’s more a matter of changing the way organizations are structured and operated, and encouraging more agility in terms of technology adoption and an openness to changing long-tenured processes. Technology is and has always been a critical enabler of finance.
Financial institutions are thus increasingly focused on shifting the perception that they are change-averse and embracing the “try and fail and try again” ethos that has permeated SiliconValley and other high-tech hubs. Working at a Silicon Valley startup allows people to have a direct impact and “own” results in a meaningful way, whereas Wall Street is traditionally more bureaucratic.
When Two Become One
The coming years will see a deepening of the relationship between finance and tech — and a broader acknowledgement that you don’t have to be based in Silicon Valley to do interesting and meaningful work.
The writing is already on the wall. Consider the uptick in traditional financial institutions like J.P. Morgan, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price increasingly participating in high-profile funding rounds for fast-growth private tech companies in addition to (and often in place of) traditional venture capital firms. The rate of IPOs has slowed in recent years, so it makes sense that mutual funds and other institutional investors are increasingly turning to private technology companies as a means to boost returns for investors.
There’s also an increasing trend of Silicon Valley companies that are changing consumer-facing financial services processes and working with, not against, banks to do so. This is most notably happening in the lending, payments and crypto-currencies spaces, with companies like Prosper and Coinbase.
The future leaders of finance have been weaned during the Information Age. They’re an on-demand group accustomed to seeing immediate results. If a change is needed, it can and will be made. If a design is bulky and inefficient, it’s time to blow it up and develop something simpler.
This isn’t the first instance in which financial services have been more change-averse than other industries; just 30 years ago, it was unthinkable that floor trading would be automated (anybody remember the Open outcry system?). Today, you’re hard-pressed to find a floor broker at many of the major exchanges. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine that Wall Street existed before the advent of Bloomberg Terminals — but there was once a time when traders were indeed forced to price bonds with pencil and paper, and trade exclusively over the phone.
The same type of conversations are happening in finance today, and they are becoming louder and louder. A new generation of investors and brokers has penetrated the ranks of financial services organizations, and I expect a similar sea change from the world we’ve known for the past 20 years.
There’s a tremendous opportunity present for those financial institutions willing to push back against the “Us vs. Them” mentality currently ascribed to Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and instead embrace meaningful partnerships where the hoodies and the suits work together in a more impactful, transparent way that fosters increased adoption of new technology.
There’s no doubt that the times are changing; those who are quicker to recognize and adapt to this new reality will be the ones to come out on top.
来源：techcrunch
Eric Poirier
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