Morning Coffee: Bank CEO says juniors working 80-90 hour weeks don't mind, if they're treated right. Uproar as Amazon reverts to full time in-office

It's often the case that the senior bankers who are the most enthusiastic about junior bankers working all night have come through the system themselves. Like Kay French, a former MD at BofA, they like to reminisce about the 4am camaraderie. 

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Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard, does not have this excuse. After graduating, Peter became an academic. After being an academic, he founded a think-tank. Then he went into government. Only then, did he become a banker.  

Nonetheless, Orszag has been exposed to ultra-motivated 22-year-olds for long enough to think he has the measure of them. Speaking to David Rubenstein on Rubenstein's Bloomberg show, Orszag said his observation is that young bankers don't actually mind working 80-90 hour weeks, with some caveats.

Firstly, the work itself must be "interesting and important," said Orszag. It must not be "make work," he said, without defining what this might be in a pitch book context. Secondly, staff still need some "agency" to focus on what's important in their own lives. This is why Lazard allows its people in New York to work from home twice a week. 

In Orszag's appraisal of the situation, analysts and associates are therefore subject to some trade-offs. Interestingly, they doesn't seem to involve pay. In a good year, Lazard associates can earn $330k, including a $200k salary. However, the bank is also known for being demanding: people there said they worked an average of 85 hours a week last year. Maybe that's ok.

Separately, while Lazard's junior bankers work from home 40% of the time and possibly get to go shopping and visit the dentist, Amazon has decided it wants its people in the office five days a week. 

The motivation, as ever, is coming from the CEO. “We’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective," declared Andy Jassy yesterday. 

Amazon staff are less enthusiastic. Business Insider says they have taken to Slack to bemoan the policy. "Please do note that this is (in a lot of cases) significantly more strict and out of its mind than many teams operated under pre-covid. This is not 'going back' to how it was before. It's just going backwards," said one. 

Meanwhile...

Even if Andrea Orcel doesn't end up acquiring Commerzbank for Unicredit, he wants to be involved and says he'll be presenting some strategic ideas to management. (Bloomberg) 

JPMorgan bankers who advised the German government on the 4.5% sale of a stake in Commerzbank invited Unicredit to participate and increase its stake to 9%, even though Berlin had previously said it didn't want to sell to Commerzbank. (FT) 

Deutsche Bank might try and block Andrea Orcel's purchase of Commerzbank by buying all or part of the German government's remaining 12% stake. (Bloomberg) 

An AI firm wants to change junior bankers' lives. “The fact that we’re paying people, like, $300k to format cells and fix column widths, it’s just mind-blowing to me. I really hope that with the invention of this and other tools, investment professionals will never have to remember an RGB code again, like the color coding of their firm’s palette.” (Bloomberg) 

Barclays now has co-heads of investment banking in Europe. It promoted Alisdair Gayne, its head of UK investment banking, alongside its existing head, Tim Main. (Bloomberg) 

Jamshid Ehsani is the big Apollo executive no one has heard of. He's global head of principal structured finance and is a 'hard-charging dealmaker, prone to speaking sharply to colleagues.' (FT) 

Citi is feeling a bit enthusiastic about hiring for wealth management in Asia, with people based out of Hong Kong. “What you’re going to see is us looking to add talent on a selective basis.” (Bloomberg)  

Another 10 people left Eisler. (Bloomberg) 

Citadel is hiring macro PMs in London. (Reuters) 

29 year-olds who love being in the office are making TikTok videos of themselves in it. “It was lonely and depressing, and I wanted an in-office position.” (WSJ) 

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