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This is an interesting account, as its contrary to most of what I've heard about Bear. At my school, where the majority of students end up working in some capacity for the financial industry, Bear has a reputation as a bit of an old boys club. As this is all hearsay, I'm not sure how much weight to give it.
Interesting, but I have the impression that The Street likes to hire "PSDs." As an anecdote, check out this posting:

http://www.schlaikjer.net/reviews/100.htm

"I would also remark that many of these now very wealthy people were not born with silver spoons in their mouths (I consider myself spooned right up). The Harvard donation-dunning people loved pointing out that Lloyd Blankfein started life on the wrong side of the tracks in a school with double shifts. So say what you like about the huge income-spreads in today's first-world; it is still a place where you can go from a modest income to an obscene one with the right amount of brains, luck and getting yourself a good education."

very inspiring stuff - I would certainly place myself in this category P (cehck) S (subjective but check) D (check) - and the pedigree culture certainly lives on here in the bay area and at leading startups. Its that some hunger and willingness to get rejected that landed the author a job at Bear that needs to be applied to founders and the people that want to work at great startups - without it you got nada
If you want to read more about the PSD culture at Bear Stearns, check out Bear's long-term CEO, book: "Memos form the Chairman"

http://www.amazon.com/Memos-Chairman-Alan-C-Greenberg/dp/076...

Realistically, what happens when you try this hard for a job? Is it worth it? Does something bad happen? Is there a reason most people don't do this kind of thing?
Investment banking and strategy consulting are two of the most competitive fields to get into right out of college / biz school. Reasons being the pay is ludicrous. What the writer described is not uncommon for people who want to break in the industries and didn't attend a core hiring school.

Is it worth it? Depends on who you are I guess. You are rewarded with high salary and bonuses, you are working with some of the smartest people, but you are still restricted in a corporation environment.

Why don't most people do this? Who knows, may be they don't have the drive like the writer, or they simply don't know about these fields.

That doesn't make sense to me: if people are climbing the walls for positions, the salaries shouldn't be astronomical.

Something else must be at play.

Mean Salary at Goldman Sachs last year was $650K. Obviously, the distribution is non-gaussian, so the median salary is significantly lower.

Meaning, you start working at GS for $100K/year, because, in a few years (if you're good) you'll grow to the $1M+ category. On a risk-adjusted basis, ibanking is the most lucrative profession.

I'm not disputing that the salaries are high; I'm saying that the high salaries do not fit with the demand for the job.

There has to be another filter at work. Specifically, I suspect that luck plays a highly significant role.

Luck and Survival... Jungle smarts. Desire to become BSDs

Liar's Poker is an excellent first-person view of the NSFW work environment at Salomon Brothers.

But don't read LP - read Fiaz's top-rated (34-point) personal story of becoming a trader: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413

"After racking up some rather hefty losses, I was determined to quit at one point during month four, but because I had a habit of waking up at 4:30 am I simply "forgot" that the night before I told myself I would quit and spare myself further humiliation...by then I was warned that I was now on the red list of traders ready to be cut."

They need something to attract the talent and make them "climb the walls" for the position, especially investment banks where the work can be extremely tedious.