Fascinating idea: insane society-scale bureaucracies make puzzle solvers out of everyone. Sokoloff was Russian, born and raised in a city on the Volga River. H

Fascinating idea: insane society-scale bureaucracies make puzzle solvers out of everyone. Sokoloff was Russian, born and raised in a city on the Volga River. He had an explanation for why so many of his countrymen wound up in high-frequency trading. The old Soviet educational system channeled people into math and science. And the Soviet-controlled economy was horrible and complicated but riddled with loopholes, an environment that left those who mastered it well prepared for Wall Street in the early 21st century.