You probably think that Friday’s initial public offering for Blackstone, a listing expected to net co-founders Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson a combined payout of up to $2.6bn, has set a new standard for what it means to be successful among New York’s financiers. You are right. But even at a time when it has become possible for bankers earning multi- million-dollar salaries to feel underpaid – a few have actually said this to me, with not nearly enough irony – some highly employable thirty-somethings are making a very different life choice. Having landed lucrative jobs on Wall Street or in consulting, they are taking their MBAs and leaving to work for NGOs that are trying to save the world.

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto (on whose advisory board I serve), first alerted me to what I would love to call a trend but, for now, can in fairness only characterise as a number of compelling examples. Some of his best and brightest students, Prof Martin said, were leaving top private-sector jobs to work full-time for philanthropies.