Re:Interview with a Hedge Fund Manager: "I'm sure today I wo...
by nostrademons on Sunday January 20, 2008 @11:00PM
(#101434)
Everybody knows it in the sense that a debt collector knows that they're ruining people's lives, but it's kinda swept under the rug. We also had the experience of people saying "yeah, we don't really know how well our algorithms our doing, so if you can develop software to tell us, we'll pay you big bucks." (Though, last I heard, nobody had actually paid big bucks for the software we did develop.) But it's the kind of truth that nobody really wants to face, so they just kinda acknowledge it and then go about their business.
I'm not so sure. I interviewed at a Wall Street company that was programming data channels headed into the black-boxes. They boasted that 30% of trades were dealt with by computers. I mentioned that that should probably be enough to drive some pretty serious feedback effects. I asked: in principle, if these black-boxes handled all the trades, where would the decision to trade or not come from.
Instead of a blank stare, I was presented a cold, nervous look. He said "basically all these algorithms have been worked out in the 70's and 80's, in Academia. Nobody really knows what they're doing, or why they're doing it. But they are trying to compete by getting more data faster than the next guy. If everyone trades the same, as long as you trade faster, you'll win."
I asked if it was moral to play such a risky game with the economy.
I didn't get the job.