[rjf1990]

It makes sense if you understand how the deal process works.

It's unlike other industries where you can plan ahead and delegate accordingly. If you're building software, you have the luxury of a 6 month plan with set milestones and deadlines. With deals, the work changes several times per day based on demands of the client. If you're the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company bidding on another company worth several hundred million, you're going to have questions and requests every step of the way. Investment bankers have to respond to those requests in real time.

Because of the dynamic nature of these deals, 2 people working 40 hours per week is less productive than 1 person doing 80. Each person on a deal has to be intimately familiar with the deal, and hold a lot of information in their head. The incremental communication (and potential for miscommunication) that would occur between 2 40 hour workers simply wouldn't work.

A few big deals per year is what you see - they only get paid when a deal goes through. Depending on the division, it's not uncommon for 1/10 deals to go through, and that doesn't even include the pitching that does on.

Also, it's not 80 hours of straight work (most of the time). There's a lot of down time while you wait for clients to respond. Another reason why 2 40 hour workers wouldn't replace 1 80 hour worker.