I've always been surprised that the most controversial (IMO) opinion in my book is something I've never been called out on. It is my belief that you cannot be a successful professional trader (quant or otherwise) without having a genetic pre-disposition for the management of stress. A good analogy would be that only certain people have the disposition to be an ordinance disposal expert. You can learn the math, and the markets, and the incentives, and the models and the economics, and the patterns and everything else. But what no one can teach you and in my opinion you have to be born with, is the ability to sleep at night while your entire professional career dangles from a very fragile thread. Few people actually possess this disposition. People in academia (as a rule) have the opposite disposition, which is why in spite of their intellect, exceptionally few academics have been successful in trading.

A kid who knows how to raid in WoW is unironically a better hire than 99% of non gamers. They develop team skills, coordination, leadership, how to master the respect of 40 people, how to share loot, maintaining a raid schedule, showing up on time, clear direct communication, how to get along with unique personalities, creating and executing on strategies, failing and trying again (perseverance), delayed gratification, etc. Invaluable skills are developed during raiding that are transferrable to the real world.

Spending a large fraction of your time gaming is a huge negative signal for hiring, because it shows you’re the kind of person willing to waste your time on totally pointless and addictive pastimes that ultimately achieve nothing.

Yesterday we closed the book on XBTUSD — the contract that started it all. Launched on 13 May 2016, it was the longest-running perpetual swap contract in crypto. And until we are told otherwise, the longest running derivatives contract of any kind, given TradFi still trades on contracts that expire. Let's take a trip down memory lane one last time 💔