The View | Princeling hirings the road to success for investment banks?

Complaining about investment banks hiring rich children in order to win deals from their rich families is like complaining why beautiful people are more likely to receive better service than ugly ones.

Where the truth lies is somewhere in JPMorgan Chase's email trail, which revealed a candidate who was hired even though he accidentally sent a sexually explicit email to a human resources manager and was bluntly described by a senior banker as "immature, irresponsible and unreliable". Everyone knows why they are hired. No one talks about what happens to them after they are hired.

Rich Hong Kong Chinese used to be hired for their pedigree, but today the sons and daughters of influential mainland officials or businessmen are the most sought-after to pursue the country's growing financial opportunities. Western investment bankers have long decided that the offspring of rich Hong Kong families are incapable of navigating mainland culture and closing deals in the country.

No one should discriminate against someone who belongs to a privileged family. After all, everyone needs to find meaning in their lives through gainful employment. However, very few of them have genuine ambition and uncompromising work ethic. A position in a prestigious bank is an escape from the dreary prospects of managing the family's factory on the mainland.

The freshly hired rich child is regarded with some dread or derision by his colleagues. He is usually placed in positions where he cannot do much damage to a bank. Few of these children are able to rise to any leadership position because that requires years of 80 to 100-hour weeks and internecine backstabbing, not unlike the series .

Worst of all, the skills to motivate and manage well-educated and smart people who are singularly devoted to making money fail to work on someone who already has enough money for several generations.