An Oxford graduate who declined job offers from McKinsey and Morgan Stanley has raised questions about why high-achieving young people continue to move towards a narrow set of elite careers, despite dissatisfaction with the work.
Simon van Teutem, who is now 27, didn’t accept jobs at two of the world’s most prestigious companies. Instead, he spent three years researching what he describes as a system that draws gifted people into professions they frequently plan to leave but few do. The Bermuda Triangle of Talent is a book based on his research.
While talking to Fortune, van Teutem recalled his graduation ceremony at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre, where many of his friends were getting ready to join prestigious organisations.
Elite Career Paths Narrow Further
Over the past few decades, the concentration of graduates in the finance, consulting and related fields has increased. Though only one in 20 Harvard graduates pursued such careers in the 1970s, that number has increased, according to Fortune. An earlier report in The Economist stated that about half of Harvard’s graduates found jobs in technology, consulting or finance in 2024.
According to Van Teutem, the trend is not solely due to financial incentives. “These firms cracked the psychological code of the insecure overachiever, and then built a self-reinforcing system,” he said.
After interning at BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley and McKinsey, he said that while the work was demanding, it lacked the broader impact many graduates initially seek. At McKinsey, he added, “I was surrounded by rocket scientists who could build really cool stuff, but they were just building simple Excel models or reverse-engineering towards conclusions we already wanted.”
Why Graduates Stay Once They Enter
Fortune reports that van Teutem had conversations with 212 bankers, consultants and corporate lawyers. He found that the most of them stayed because it got harder to leave, not because they were greedy. He said that initially prestige was more important than money. “In the initial pull, most elite graduates don’t decide based on salary. It’s the illusion of infinite choice, and the social status,” he said.
Cost Of Leaving Too Late
Van Teutem illustrated the long-term effects through the story of “Hunter McCoy,” a pseudonym for a corporate lawyer. McCoy entered a prestigious law firm intending to stay briefly but found that rising expenses and lifestyle expectations kept shifting his exit point. By his mid-40s, McCoy was still in the same firm, struggling with guilt over time missed with his family. Van Teutem said the most troubling aspect was McCoy’s uncertainty about what would be left if he walked away. “He told me he wasn’t sure his wife would stay with him,” van Teutem said. McCoy’s life reinforced van Teutem’s decision to walk away early. “It made me happy I didn’t go into it,” he said.
Rising living costs in cities such as London and New York have further intensified the pressure to pursue high-paying roles early in one’s career, Fortune reported.
Van Teutem said solutions should focus on structural design instead of moral appeals. “We’ve made risk-taking a privilege,” he added. “That’s the real problem.”
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