A key recruiting cycle for Wall Street is showing signs of kicking off earlier than ever

Good morning! President Donald Trump officially accepted a gifted Boeing 747-8 from Qatar. The plane has been controversial over the potential conflict of interest it poses. But what’s it like inside? Look at what’s set to be the new Air Force One.

In today’s big story, talk is swirling that private equity’s recruiting cycle is ramping up, and recent grads are on edge.

What’s on deck

Markets: A US recession could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tech: Internal memos from one of Microsoft’s AI leaders show how he plans to transform the tech giant.

Business: Things are not going great for Target.

But first, may the odds be ever in your favor.

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The big story

Ready, set, PE

While most recent college graduates are getting ready for their new jobs, a select group is considering their next one.

Some private-equity firms are setting up informal, introductory meetings with soon-to-be junior investment bankers before their caps even hit the ground. These so-called “coffee chats” are the precursor to interviews for jobs that won’t start for another two years. The process kicking off so early has hopeful financiers on edge, BI’s Emmalyse Brownstein, Reed Alexander, and Alex Nicoll write.

Welcome to Wall Street’s “Hunger Games.”

If the above sounds confusing, I don’t blame you. PE’s recruiting cycle doesn’t make much sense. Before you start working at your first job (investment banking analyst), you’re already interviewing for your second job (private-equity associate).

Take a minute to read the last sentence again if you need to.

Still, that’s how things often work on Wall Street: always thinking two steps ahead.

The summer internship that leads to the junior-banker job offer is often secured well over a year before it starts. And your best shot at getting one of those is your university’s finance club, which you need to start thinking about the second you get on campus.

Speaking of college, you’d better plan on getting into a target school if … well, you get the idea.

PE firms might eventually find themselves flying too close to the sun.

The junior-banker-to-PE pipeline has been mutually beneficial.

Banks don’t have to worry about competing with PE firms for young talent. PE firms don’t have to worry about training associates on the basics of dealmaking.

But the ever-earlier timeline hasn’t gone unnoticed, and at least one high-profile banker has called PE firms on it.

Speaking at Georgetown University last fall, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said junior bankers taking PE jobs before starting as analysts was “unethical.”

“I don’t like it, and I may eliminate it regardless of what the private-equity guys say,” he added.

To be fair, some PE headhunters tried slowing things down with an industry pact. It didn’t take long for one headhunter to break it.

Banks are in a similar conundrum. If they ban analysts from pursuing PE jobs too early, they risk losing out on talent.

After all, plenty of aspiring Wall Streeters just view banks as a stepping stone to getting a job in PE. If they start actively preventing that, what purpose do they serve them?

3 things in markets

1. Could America be inadvertently pushing itself into a recession? Doug Ramsey, CIO of The Leuthold Group, thinks it might. In a note to clients, Ramsey pointed to a deteriorating consumer sentiment, which poses a major risk to the recession outlook. He’s keeping an eye on a handful of sentiment indicators.

2. The bond market is flipping out, but Morgan Stanley isn’t fazed. Though US deficit fears triggered a sell-off in the bond market, strategists at the bank warned against hopping on the “Sell America” train. “TINA — ‘there is no alternative’ — remains a theme for now,” they wrote.

3. The stock market is flashing signals that another dip is coming — and investors should buy it, analysts at BoA say. A technical indicator suggests a near-term drop in stock prices is coming, but BoA says the market is still in a broader uptrend.

3 things in tech

1. Meta’s performance reviews are about to get harder. Managers are being told to put more employees in their “below expectations” rank — the lowest performer bucket — in the coming midyear performance reviews, per an internal memo seen by BI. The move could set the stage for more performance-based layoffs, despite 4,000 low performers being cut months ago.

2. OpenAI just bagged a $6.5 billion acquisition. Sam Altman’s company is buying IO, a hardware startup from former Apple exec Jony Ive — the guy who designed the iPhone. It shows the generative AI competition is now about distribution, not technology, writes BI’s Alistair Barr.

3. How Microsoft is bringing its “age of AI agents” to reality. In January, CEO Satya Nadella tapped Jay Parikh, the ex-head of engineering at Facebook, to lead a new unit called CoreAI, which is crucial to Microsoft’s AI ambition. Internal memos from Parikh, and viewed by BI, reveal his plan to get Microsoft focused on the macro, CoreAI’s early accomplishments, and more.

3 things in business

1. Target reports tumbling sales. In an earnings call, Target said the backlash from reframing its DEI program was one of the many headwinds that had an adverse impact on sales, but the exact amount wasn’t quantifiable. Some DEI supporters have claimed partial victory, but many say they’re not satisfied — and more protests are coming.

2. Is Musk what Tesla needs right now? BI asked four people who have worked with him, as the CEO steps back from DOGE to focus on Tesla amid falling sales and growing competition. One said Musk was Tesla’s “product manager,” but questioned whether he’s the right person to lead the embattled EV maker.

3. Big Law firms say they’re not being bribed by Trump. Nine white-shoe firms doubled down on their deals to provide a collective $940 million in pro- bono work for the Trump administration. In letters to Congress, they flatly rejected allegations that the deals were unethical.

In other news

• Remote workers flocked to jobs overseas. Now they’re being ordered home.
• Walmart says it’s cutting roles to ‘remove layers and complexity.’
• What we know about Trump’s secretive private dinner for top holders of his memecoin.
• Goldman Sachs shares 20 ‘rising star’ stocks that a growing number of hedge funds are betting on.
• Tesla is now accepting Cybertruck trade-ins. Two owners showed BI how much their vehicles have depreciated.
• Fortnite is the No. 1 game after Apple let it back on the App Store. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney tells BI it’s a ‘priceless’ win.
• Founder of AI tool for cheating in interviews predicts everyone will do it — and technical job interviews are on their way out.
• Disney could get a surprise win from Universal’s big bet on Epic Universe.

What’s happening today

• Trump hosts a gala for the top 220 holders of his memecoin.
• Immigration court hearing on ICE detention of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student who led pro-Palestine protests on campus.

• Universal Orlando Resort opens new theme park, Universal Epic Universe.

The Business Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.

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