Hedge Fund Manager: Goodbye and Good Luck

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2008/10/17/hedge-fund-manager-goodbye-and-f-you

by tortilla • 18 years ago

158 67 18 years ago

biohacker422• 18 years ago

Wow, a lot of common sense and then BAM - Linux & Hemp, I wasn't expecting that.

Not that I don't agree with it, but weird seeing that, I guess that guy is a hippie finance nerd. (I mean that in the best way possible).

yesimahuman• 18 years ago

No, he understands that a lot of the things holding us back are rooted in greed and politics. Resistance to hemp would be one of those.

bgutierrez2• 18 years ago

I don't know about common sense.

biohacker422• 18 years ago

I think that government doesn't work, merit is often overridden by connections, too much greed is pointless, in time we're (almost) all forgotten are all common sense things to say.

What's odd is that he would use Linux as a metaphor, who but a hacker would get that?

ChaitanyaSai5• 18 years ago

Why so much resentment for those with rich parents?. A genetic endowment of intelligence and conscientiousness is also a stroke of luck, There's a good chance that his regressed-to-the-mean progeny will avail some of that financial fortune and social capital in getting ahead.

mwerty2• 18 years ago

Luck has nothing to do with it. The point was that we'll have a better society when we filter aggressively for morons. Wealth playing a role in the selection process weakens our ability to do that.

ChaitanyaSai5• 18 years ago

The author bemoans the fact that he was handicapped in his early life by his unlucky (un-wealthy) circumstances. Being born into money, or with a good intellect, sporting ability, or looks (to name a few other valued traits), that isn't luck?

Being born into money is somehow different from the others?

Wealth is a proxy for one of the other talents. Wealth has always played a role in our selection process. Smarts, at some point, lead to an accumulation of wealth. Wealth signals, a lot more often than not, good genetic material that was awarded in previous iterations. Wealth offers the carriers of this material a better chance at survival, even if the current generation has regressed to the no-good-frat-boy mean. And if the chances are not availed, wealth is squandered in a few generations.

The idea that the wealthy, but dumb get a free ride, ultimately jeopardizing the entire system is foolish. There will always be smart people around to either guide them and their finances for a percentage, or fleece them and penalize them for their ignorance.

Enron filtered aggressively for morons. A fat lot of good it did them. A society is only a larger collection of vested interests.

prospero4• 18 years ago

Intelligence is a capacity, not a trait. You don't get opportunities in life simply because you're smart, you get them because you've built upon your intelligence, applied it, and in some way proven yourself. Inherited wealth exists irrespective of effort.

ChaitanyaSai5• 18 years ago

"Inherited wealth exists irrespective of effort." I look at it from a pan-generational perspective. If the correlation of your habits/traits/capacities with those of your progeny was purely random, then yes, your progeny has lucked into wealth. What if I assume a significantly greater-than-chance correlation? Then, your offspring can be considered to be minor perturbations of yourself, now attempting to continue success in the same or other fields. If, you agree, that these capacities are inherited, then you must answer why giving these lucky offspring an advantage is bad.

nihilocrat2• 18 years ago

> You don't get opportunities in life simply because you're smart,

I really wish I knew this earlier. For a significant part of my adolescence, even through part of college, I believed intelligence alone would prove your worth. Now, I feel like people think you're actually dumb if you don't have a list of major accomplishments in your wake; you tend to get that feeling when interviewing for a job.

ashishk• 18 years ago

it's great to see people who can be so irrationally ambitious at first but become rational AFTER they've achieved significant success

bgutierrez2• 18 years ago

I don't think it was rationality or a lack of it. It sounded like he couldn't stomach the business anymore.

Or, he didn't feel like exposing his wealth to the markets for a while. Let's see if he ever comes back.

stcredzero• 18 years ago

"reigned in?" He asserts that the top-tier schools have been producing straw men -- suckers for the other sides of his trades. I think he's right. The level of education in this country has fallen across the board.

sundeep• 18 years ago

yeah , that was very jarring.

is it weird that it was? he's clearly a very intelligent and accomplished man ..

_ouxp• 18 years ago

So intelligent he was able to figure out that Adam Smith was secretly an American!

redorb• 18 years ago

Always good to see someone get out while the getting is good ...

j2d2• 18 years ago

Marijuana was not made illegal promptly after WW2. It was illegalized during Nixon's presidency in 1970.

jbenz2• 18 years ago

"They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten."

The only thing that motivates me in my professional life more than money is history. I would like to be remembered. I would like a student of history to read about me in 100 years and think that I left this place better than I found it.

Alas, this motivation doesn't stick well in my head, and the money is always there for the taking.

I like his point that people simply earning money will not be remembered. He's made his money, and he's OK without being remembered. He can now relax (Which by the way, is why money is such a high motivating factor for me, personally. I don't particularly love the sight of money, but I believe it can buy peace of mind.)

jhancock4• 18 years ago

I'm not trying to be insulting. But your post is interesting. You claim not to be motivated by money, but are motivated by a desired to be remembered (fame). I can't properly dissect the ego, but I think both the desire for money and fame stem from similar places. That is, I'm not sure they're that different.

I have often though that if we ever do want a society based on merit and humanity, we need to get control of runaway egos. Maybe this requires a gene modification, so maybe we are too many years from it. Who knows. I would love to locate and find remedy for the "asshole gene".

fallentimes4• 18 years ago

I'm actually the opposite of the OP. I would like to have enough money for myself, friends & family never have to worry about it in my life time. But I never ever want to be famous.

One of my great fears would be having complete strangers (not founders, not YCers, not HNers) regularly recognize me. Starting your own business, no matter what it is, certainly causes some loss of privacy, but I'd prefer that 100 years from now no one gives a shit about who I was or what I did. Because if they did, it more than likely means I did something wrong.

jbenz2• 18 years ago

Actually, I did claim to be motivated by money. I said the only thing that motivates me more than money is history.

I don't necessarily associate fame (or celebrity) with being remembered. There are many great filmmakers or company founders who have left an important mark on history and have easily walked into a mall without getting recognized.

That is how I would like to be remembered. Being super famous in my own time would not be very cool at all.

I know this sounds like egomania, and maybe part of is that., but this is what it boils down to: I want to leave this world in a significantly better place than I found it. And I'd like that legacy to last for a while.

(I had to avoid writing: "And I'd like people to know it". Wow, that does sound terrible. Maybe I need I do need to rethink that particular philosophy.)

master• 18 years ago

Here is a man who understands how to live.

tortilla• 18 years ago

I guess this is a perfect example of "fuck you money."

marvin2• 18 years ago

To his defense, he didn't actually say "fuck you" - that was a gracious editorial spin.

niels_olson• 18 years ago

:s/gracious/gratuitous/

noodle• 18 years ago

"so long and thanks for all the fish"

bkj123• 18 years ago

Where can I track political contributions as well as voting records? I'd like to see which politicians received the most contributions from various industries and compare it with their voting record. Is anyone doing this already?

blakeweb• 18 years ago

I seem to remember hearing about something similar this past weekend at http://conference.freeculture.org in berkeley, but I can't recall it.

If you're interested in the area, I'd ask Joshua Tauberer, razor.occams.info, who made http://govtrack.us/. He's really into it and I think could quickly give you a complete overview of what's been done and what hasn't.

nihilocrat2• 18 years ago

Here's a list (might want to double-check with other sources) of contributors from the video game industry:

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/10/01/game-biz-types-leanin...

You know, after spending years and years to get Spore out the door, I can understand why Will Wright would be fond of dinosaurs...

gills• 18 years ago

Here's one the Seattle Times maintains for tracking earmarks: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/favorfactory/favo...

andreyf2• 18 years ago

Is anyone doing this already?

Close: opensecrets.org

JulianMorrison3• 18 years ago

1. I've got mine.

2. I'm taking my ball and going home.

3. The sky is falling.

4. Y'all can have socialism. We'll call it "meritocracy".

5. Also, weed is kinda groovy.

neilc2• 18 years ago

Exactly. The guy is plainly a crackpot. Making 866% return in a single year makes you lucky, not necessarily intelligent or prone to have an intelligent take on the problems of society. His suggestion for government is particularly laughable:

*My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man's interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles.

neilk• 18 years ago

Why is this laughable?

rms• 18 years ago

>The guy is plainly a crackpot.

I'm guessing he smokes a lot of weed.

andreyf2• 18 years ago

4. Y'all can have socialism. We'll call it "meritocracy".

If I remember correctly, socialists rile against "meritocracy" precisely because it veils the unfair "merit" of those who can afford private tutors (or prep schools).

dejb• 18 years ago

He made 866% betting AGAINST the subprime collapse? (from the opening sentence of the article). That doesn't make sense. Surely they must mean betting FOR the subprime collapse. Or am I missing something?

ojbyrne• 18 years ago

Yes, if you click on the "866 percent" link it says he bet against the subprime market. Sloppy wording.

popschedule• 18 years ago

This guy is truly a bad ass.

Hedge Fund Manager: Goodbye and Good Luck

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