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What a bizarre article. Firstly, most hedge fund managers are very socially capable and convincing, which is how they manage to get other people to invest with
by ergo98 16y ago
What a bizarre article.
Firstly, most hedge fund managers are very socially capable and convincing, which is how they manage to get other people to invest with them. The Bernie Madoff's of the world aren't hidden in a basement. I really, really don't get the "geekish" angle around hedge funds.
Secondly, many hedge funds have been doing great during this economic turmoil. Hedge funds make money during turmoil. That's their bread and butter.
- sprout 16y agoI think you may need to re-read the article. There's one line in there where he almost says what you think he said: >The social butterflies at the banks got swept up in the popular enthusiasms. The contrarians at the hedge funds made money betting against them. The well-connected bankers knew they’d get bailed out if anything went wrong. The solitary hedge fund guys knew they were on their own and regarded their trades with paranoid anxiety. But I think he pretty clearly regards hedge fund managers as 'princes,' not 'grinds.'
- ergo98 16y ago"Grinds, on the other hand, tend to have started their own company or their own hedge fund. They’re often too awkward to work in a large organization and too intense to work for anybody but themselves. " "During the last few years, for example, the princes at Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers behaved with incredible stupidity while the hedge fund loners often behaved with impressive restraint." In the section you quote he was directly contrasting them - grinds versus princes. He clearly thinks hedge fund guys are anti-social geeks, which is nothing short of bizarre. I work in the hedge fund industry, dealing with a lot of hedge funds. Such an observation is incredibly off the mark. Many of the hedge fund guys not only have great social capabilities, they have so much confidence that they didn't want to be a grind at a place like Citibank, so they went on their own. Article is 180 degrees backwards from reality.
- sprout 16y agoWhen he speaks of "the contrarians at the hedge funds" it sounds to me like that's a distinct group from "hedge fund loners." At least that's how I read it, not that hedge fund managers are a homogeneous group.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoI work at a hedge fund, and have interviewed at a number of others. Most of the places I've spoken to are run by a "grind", though they often have a "prince" to talk to the outside world. Depending on which fund managers the author spoke to, I can easily see him getting the impression that hedge funds are run by grinds. Or, probably more precisely, that the world of hedge funds has a place for grinds, whereas the world of big banks does not. (Admittedly, my experience is skewed since I generally targeted small quant funds, ideally without customers.)
- eru 16y ago"Without customers", do you mean operating solely on proprietary capital? Or does it mean "no customers, yet"? (Please pardon my ignorance in this matter.)
- yummyfajitas 16y agoIt means "trading their own money". "No customers yet" is actually worse than having customers, since you need to worry about actually finding them in addition to making money for them.
- eru 16y agoThanks. I was just a bit confused by the wording. The last finance person I talked to, made much of the difference between `hedge-funds' and `prop-shops'.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- madair 16y agoYes, it is bizarre, and is David Brooks, apologist extraordinaire for the class system (us v them), so that's not a surprise. Matt Taibbi regularly takes down his articles, this looks like a perfect candidate for such a takedown.