HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Also Coffeezilla's take on the interview with more context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rL35_WV3lE

⬐ skippyboxedhero

That video was remarkable. Apparently the guy couldn't code but worked as a trader at JS for three years. In my own head, that almost reflected worse on JS than SBF.

I think everyone assumed Alameda were doing something clever. In reality, they were just idiots stealing from and front-running their customers. Lol.

These moments when you see the man behind the curtain, it is just ludicrous and shakes your faith in the "system" (I worked in finance, I remember meeting a fund manager, had made 9 digits selling his company...the guy was an idiot, he had got lucky with some distribution relationships and one stock pick, the company he was trying to hire me for has had absolutely terrible performance since I met him near on ten years ago now...life is really like this sometimes, people making billions doing work they have no business doing, everyone thinking they are genius despite that obviously not being the case).

⬐ dehrmann

We're watching something similar possibly play out with Twitter. Musk bought it at its peak price and scared away a lot of big advertisers. In the near-term, it's not clear if he cut headcount enough to offset the loss in revenue. In the mid-term, we'll see if he can maintain its relevance. The long-term bet is he can find something to bring Twitter to 1-2B users that Twitter overlooked for 10+ years.

For someone who many see as a business genius, he's made a very questionable bet, and it's a reminder a lot of these people are more lucky than good.

Or maybe I'll be using the TwitterPay in five years to buy a Feather tablet so I can watch Vines.

⬐ nightski

Why would a trader at JS need to know how to code?

⬐ dibt

> couldn't code but worked as a trader at JS for three years

That doesn't seem odd. They need people good at math and/or creative problem solvers. The platform they execute on doesn't need to be rebuilt for each new strategy.

> I think everyone assumed Alameda were doing something clever.

Everyone knew the strategy they ran was to list a perpeptual futures contract for a Solana shitcoin on FTX, and short it into the ground. Their initial capital was an arb between Japan and US exchanges. That arb later disappeared. There are some rumors that the initial profits were wasted long ago, and they got new capital from investors hearing about the Japan/US arb.

⬐ skippyboxedhero

It does seem odd. Almost everyone who they hire (in these roles) can code. If you are just hiring traders, why not hire guys who can...you know...trade? Rather than some random person from MIT. The precise competitive advantage of JS is their tech.

I will say this another way...back in the early 2000s, investment banks used to hire people to do index arbs, the strat was literally press sell/buy button on Excel that will execute basket cash trades against an index, call our broker up on the floor and sell/buy futures...that was it. The strong implication is that JS is hiring people to do that kind of thing...investment banks stopped hiring these guys by the mid-2000s. The idea of the "maverick trader" who is just very creative doesn't really exist...almost all of those people who do that at hedge funds spent decades at investment banks where they had access to flow...and most of those people never graduated to hedge funds in the 2000s and just became execution traders. Again, JS is hiring these people out of college...that is weird. That is exceptionally weird. No hedge fund does this. No investment bank does this. No-one does this. A few trading houses do this (not many, Optiver is the only one left afaik...there used to be more, most went bust) but it is counter to the image that JS presents. As someone who knows a little about trading, this struck me immediately as extremely odd. Looking at their job listings...yes, it is odd (they have a job listing for traders: it says you should know how to program in at least one language).

Okay, the guy from Wintermute (who presumably knows something about trading) said he assumed they were doing something clever and was shocked when they failed. Also, they did a YouTube video which explained what some of the stuff they were doing was, that wasn't exactly surprising but I think people assumed (reasonably) they had more edge than they did (the reason they didn't was because they were cheating, nothing else).

Right, I think the current view is: they probably went bust in June/July (or whenever the earlier crash was), and some of the numbers they told other people about how much they made may have been fictional (I have read that they were losing money before they went bust but other people have said, again the Wintermute CEO, that they assumed FTX were making money because of what they were seeing in markets...again though, they were doing things that were obviously illegal so they were clearly making money from other things after Japan).

⬐ dibt

> If you are just hiring traders

I didn't say he was hired for his trading ability. I only suggested coding isn't a perquisite.

> random person from MIT

I didn't suggest that was the qualifier for them being hired. They do hire from universities like MIT, though, and I'm sure there are many alumni that stay connected to faculty for the purpose of finding candidates.

Only 23 of 123 open jobs for students/new grads on their site are for software engineers.

https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/open-roles/?type...

They say on the site: "We look for smart people with curious minds from any background."

⬐ skippyboxedhero

Again, it still makes no sense. If you aren't hiring traders (and btw, JS is hiring real traders) then why you hire someone who couldn't code into a grad program.

I will say this another way: I know fundamental hedge funds that have stopped hiring people who can't code into roles IF they have no trading experience. That is how important the skill set has become. I don't know you have any function at a QUANT hedge fund if you can't trade and can't code...like what do you all day?

Right, and click on quant trader. And look at Power Trading, Options Trading, "coding skills are a plus"...I am not saying they don't hire them, what I am saying is that this is odd when you consider anything else about JS and that the rules are probably different for someone like SBF.

⬐ smcl

Coffeezilla remarked that he's deflecting - rather than saying "there was no backdoor" he seized on a slightly clumsily worded question and replied with "I didn't implement a backdoor" then padded it out with the fluff about how he isn't a coder. The guy is flailing around saying whatever he can to try to rescue himself (and not succeeding). He also said they got $4bn minutes after declaring bankruptcy ... but that the bankruptcy lawyers are too embarrassed to use it so they're burning the company to the ground? Absolute nonsense, everything he says in these little interviews should be taken with an enormous helping of salt.

⬐ skippyboxedhero

Which isn't the same thing as saying he can't code. Everyone knows he is deflecting, the truth of what occurred is already largely public.

⬐ djaouen

I see SBF’s continued communications as a form of covert terrorism. He seems determined to take all of crypto down with him and his company!