Tier List of Grad / Early Talent & IQ

[CelestialEmpire]

(In 2026) - Ranked by a blend of barriers to entry, intellectual horsepower required, NPV of lifetime earnings, upside ceiling, selectivity, prestige, exclusivity. Not biased since I'm somewhere in Tier 4. All roles are ONLY referring to the crown jewel segment of a respective business (Ex: Not talking about enterprise software salesman at Anthropic or private wealth managers at GS).

S Tier - Mega Actor/Singer/Rapper (50 Mil+ On Insta), PM/Presidents, Centibillionaire+

AAA Tier - Brady/LeBron/Jordan/Ronaldo/Messi Tier Athletes

AA Tier - Frontier Labs (OpenAI/Anthropic/Grok/Deepmind)

A Tier - NFL/NHL/NBA/MLB, Semiconductor / Compute (Nvidia/TSMC/SK Hynix/ASML/AMD/Micron/UMC), Top Quant (JS/RenTech/Citadel/2Sigma)

B+ Tier - AI / Tech Adjacent Megacaps & Decacorns (SpaceX/Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon/Cursor/Lovable/Databricks)

B Tier - PE MF (Flagship Corp. Buyout Funds Only) (KKR/APO/BX/TPG/H&F/EQT), Tiger Cub HF (Lone Pine/Viking/Tiger Global/Matrix)

B- Tier - Elite RX / M&A (PJT/CVP/EVR/Q/Allen & Co/Dyal/LAZ), MM HF (Citadel/P72/Balyasny/Millennium), Attractive Rich White Young Influencers (500K+ Followers, Models, Nepos, etc)

C Tier - Tier 2 PE / M&A (GS/MS/JPM/BOFA/Permira/Apax/Ares/New Mountain), Tier 1 Consulting (MBB), Top VC (Sequoia, etc)

D Tier - Tier 3 PE / M&A (Latest Fundraise Between 3-5 Bil, RBC/UBS/DB/BMO/JEF/WF), Corporate BigLaw (K&E, etc), Top RX Consulting (A&M, etc)

E Tier - S&T, ER, Tech SWE, Surgeons, Tier 2 Consulting (Oliver Wyman, Strategy&, EY-Parthenon)

F Tier - LMM PE (Sub 1 Bil Fundraise), Foreign Balance Sheet Bank IB (BNPP/Mizuho/Nomura)

Subhuman Tier - Any normal white collar jobs like accounting, FP&A, IT, low tier influencers (ethnic, old, poor, ugly, etc)

Below Subhuman Tier - Any sales, blue collar or retail / food service jobs (Mechanic, door to door sales, farmer, McDonald's cashier, Walmart stocker, etc)

JFL Tier - Uber drivers, DoorDash drivers, any third world country jobs (Ex: farmer in Nigeria, cargo boat worker in Indonesia, food market hawker in India, janitor in Turkey)

 

[CelestialEmpire]

E tier is the cutoff for a decent life NGL, but try to get into C tier or above (realistic for anybody upper middle class or above whos smart, hardworking, goes to an ivy/ivy adjacent school, have nepo connections)

 

[captain steve]

 

[tenmacel]

(In 2026) - Ranked by a blend of barriers to entry, intellectual horsepower required, NPV of lifetime earnings, upside ceiling, selectivity, prestige, exclusivity. Not biased since I'm somewhere in Tier 4. All roles are ONLY referring to the crown jewel segment of a respective business (Ex: Not talking about enterprise software salesman at Anthropic or private wealth managers at GS).

S Tier - Mega Actor/Singer/Rapper (50 Mil+ On Insta), PM/Presidents, Centibillionaire+

AAA Tier - Brady/LeBron/Jordan/Ronaldo/Messi Tier Athletes

AA Tier - Frontier Labs (OpenAI/Anthropic/Grok/Deepmind)

A Tier - NFL/NHL/NBA/MLB, Semiconductor / Compute (Nvidia/TSMC/SK Hynix/ASML/AMD/Micron/UMC), Top Quant (JS/RenTech/Citadel/2Sigma)

B+ Tier - AI / Tech Adjacent Megacaps & Decacorns (SpaceX/Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon/Cursor/Lovable/Databricks)

B Tier - PE MF (Flagship Corp. Buyout Funds Only) (KKR/APO/BX/TPG/H&F/EQT), Tiger Cub HF (Lone Pine/Viking/Tiger Global/Matrix)

B- Tier - Elite RX / M&A (PJT/CVP/EVR/Q/Allen & Co/Dyal/LAZ), MM HF (Citadel/P72/Balyasny/Millennium), Attractive Rich White Young Influencers (500K+ Followers, Models, Nepos, etc)

C Tier - Tier 2 PE / M&A (GS/MS/JPM/BOFA/Permira/Apax/Ares/New Mountain), Tier 1 Consulting (MBB), Top VC (Sequoia, etc)

D Tier - Tier 3 PE / M&A (Latest Fundraise Between 3-5 Bil, RBC/UBS/DB/BMO/JEF/WF), Corporate BigLaw (K&E, etc), Top RX Consulting (A&M, etc)

E Tier - S&T, ER, Tech SWE, Surgeons, Tier 2 Consulting (Oliver Wyman, Strategy&, EY-Parthenon)

F Tier - LMM PE (Sub 1 Bil Fundraise), Foreign Balance Sheet Bank IB (BNPP/Mizuho/Nomura)

Subhuman Tier - Any normal white collar jobs like accounting, FP&A, IT, low tier influencers (ethnic, old, poor, ugly, etc)

Below Subhuman Tier - Any sales, blue collar or retail / food service jobs (Mechanic, door to door sales, farmer, McDonald's cashier, Walmart stocker, etc)

JFL Tier - Uber drivers, DoorDash drivers, any third world country jobs (Ex: farmer in Nigeria, cargo boat worker in Indonesia, food market hawker in India, janitor in Turkey)

Rentech, TGS, Tower etc have similar barrier to entry as AI lab, way above JS, citadel etc

2sigma, p72, citadel, millennium all relatively similar overall quant or not, tiger clubs aren't as big or famous as these more newfound firms

Uni profs are extremely gated and have massive upsides depending on the department as well

 

[tenmacel]

E tier is the cutoff for a decent life NGL, but try to get into C tier or above (realistic for anybody upper middle class or above whos smart, hardworking, goes to an ivy/ivy adjacent school, have nepo connections)

Accountant shops clear 7 figs decade+ in like surgeons and swe lmao incorporate them