Well, I’ll tell you this: they don’t all work at Goldman Sachs, and they certainly aren’t all ranked in Institutional Investor. Over the course of my recruiting career, I have worked with a huge variety of hiring institutions and analysts covering nearly every sector I can think of.

Maybe the craziest recruiting story I have is placing the same senior biotech analyst three times in one year—and he wasn’t fired even once. How did that happen? I got him his first publishing-analyst role at a boutique in Florida. Three months later, they exited the research business. Next I placed him in San Francisco at Wells Fargo. Guess what happened there? Wells Fargo also exited research. I’m showing my age here: they later got back into it through an acquisition.

Finally, my good buddy by that point took a job with a regional investment bank in Chicago, and that’s where he stayed. It worked out well for him—he collected three salaries that year under the terms of his contracts. Always something to keep in mind when you sign on the dotted line.

Even this extremely talented biotech analyst, with a PhD and an MBA and three solid salaries in one year, didn’t make nearly as much as any of the ten people I have in mind. I know you can’t handle the suspense, and since you’re probably reading this from your desk at work, I won’t tease you anymore.

The answer is simple: Wall Street rewards entrepreneurs more than anything else. All ten of those analysts left their seats and founded their own research boutiques. None of the highest-paid research directors at the most prestigious investment banks in the world make as much as these ten self-starting entrepreneurs.

The best recruiting advice I can give any talented sell-side analyst is this, in the words of one of my heroes, Dr. Ben Carson: take the risk.

Edward Storm can be reached at edward@thestreetscoutllc.com.