axon

quant research, 8y | finding order in the noise

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

Stanley Druckenmiller went 30 years without a losing year - in March 2000 he bought back the tech stocks he had sold two months earlier, and a week later: "I know I'm dead"

this is him explaining why he sold everything in January and couldn't stand watching it keep going up, the week Quantum went from up 14% to up 1%, and the day he walked into Soros's office and said he was quitting

he says he missed the top by about an hour. not a day. an hour

the lesson isn't the loss. he already knew the rule, broke it anyway, and instead of trading his way out he liquidated, sent 200 clients a letter saying he might not come back, and walked away for four months

bookmark & watch to the end - what he did after the loss is the whole point ↓

[axon @axonqq]

Stanley Druckenmiller went 30 years without a losing year - in March 2000 he bought back the tech stocks he had sold two months earlier, and a week later: "I know I'm dead"

this is him explaining why he sold everything in January and couldn't stand watching it keep going up, the week Quantum went from up 14% to up 1%, and the day he walked into Soros's office and said he was quitting

he says he missed the top by about an hour. not a day. an hour

the lesson isn't the loss. he already knew the rule, broke it anyway, and instead of trading his way out he liquidated, sent 200 clients a letter saying he might not come back, and walked away for four months

bookmark & watch to the end - what he did after the loss is the whole point ↓

[axon @axonqq]

Citadel founder Ken Griffin shared the story of an immigrant family that arrived in America with zero dollars.

"The parents told the two sons, we will be temporarily poor. And they were dirt poor. Today, both sons are centimillionaires."

This is how the head of a $60+ billion hedge fund hires elite talent, builds world-class teams, and views the true American dream.

Here are the core principles driving Citadel's hiring philosophy:

1. Never hire for conformity: "Don't try to clone yourself. Try to find people who are really bright, but completely different than you are."

2. Global operational scope: "The head of my commodities business grew up in Australia. My co-CIO grew up in Ecuador. The head of my fixed income business grew up in Taiwan."

3. True merit over corporate metrics: "Diversity doesn't matter as a checklist on a piece of paper to fill in some blank for a government body. It matters because different perspectives build resilience."

Wall Street spent decades filling out compliance forms. Citadel built a global powerhouse by focusing purely on raw drive and cognitive diversity.

Bookmark this breakdown and watch the 60-second clip below.

[axon @axonqq]

@0x_fokki thx for sharinh broski

[axon @axonqq]

Citadel founder Ken Griffin shared the story of an immigrant family that arrived in America with zero dollars.

"The parents told the two sons, we will be temporarily poor. And they were dirt poor. Today, both sons are centimillionaires."

This is how the head of a $60+ billion hedge fund hires elite talent, builds world-class teams, and views the true American dream.

Here are the core principles driving Citadel's hiring philosophy:

1. Never hire for conformity: "Don't try to clone yourself. Try to find people who are really bright, but completely different than you are."

2. Global operational scope: "The head of my commodities business grew up in Australia. My co-CIO grew up in Ecuador. The head of my fixed income business grew up in Taiwan."

3. True merit over corporate metrics: "Diversity doesn't matter as a checklist on a piece of paper to fill in some blank for a government body. It matters because different perspectives build resilience."

Wall Street spent decades filling out compliance forms. Citadel built a global powerhouse by focusing purely on raw drive and cognitive diversity.

Bookmark this breakdown and watch the 60-second clip below.

[axon @axonqq]

Chamath Palihapitiya asked his CTO a simple question about their AI budget.

The answer was terrifying: "Our token costs are doubling every 45 days."

He just took over as CEO at 8090 after a $135 million round. This isn't a prediction. It's his own company's invoice.

Here is the brutal truth about corporate AI spend, why CFOs are blind to it, and what happens next:

"I sat down with my CTO today. I said, how are we doing on token spend."

The actual productivity gain from that doubling bill?

"Maybe 5% max."

Why nobody stops the leak:

"CEOs and CFOs have no idea how much is going on inside their organizations."

The real crisis isn't adoption. It's paying 100% more every month for 5% output.

Expect this exact pattern to shatter upcoming tech earnings calls.

Bookmark this and watch the full breakdown below.

[axon @axonqq]

Paul Singer took $50,000 from his mother’s dresser to launch a hedge fund.

Soon after, he lost 88% of it.

Here is how he turned total devastation into a $72B empire, and why he says markets are facing a catastrophic collapse today.

"You could not name a way to lose money that Dad and I did not hone to the finest edge."

"My desire never to lose money again came from real devastation and wanting to get my parents' money back."

His brutal warning about today's financial system:

"Markets are as risky as I've ever seen. Decades without a massive crash have lulled people into believing they'll always get bailed out."

Today, Elliott Management manages $72,000,000,000.

Bookmark this and watch the full breakdown below.

[axon @axonqq]

@mojeskoqq very good bite

[axon @axonqq]

Chamath Palihapitiya asked his CTO a simple question about their AI budget.

The answer was terrifying: "Our token costs are doubling every 45 days."

He just took over as CEO at 8090 after a $135 million round. This isn't a prediction. It's his own company's invoice.

Here is the brutal truth about corporate AI spend, why CFOs are blind to it, and what happens next:

"I sat down with my CTO today. I said, how are we doing on token spend."

The actual productivity gain from that doubling bill?

"Maybe 5% max."

Why nobody stops the leak:

"CEOs and CFOs have no idea how much is going on inside their organizations."

The real crisis isn't adoption. It's paying 100% more every month for 5% output.

Expect this exact pattern to shatter upcoming tech earnings calls.

Bookmark this and watch the full breakdown below.

[axon @axonqq]

Paul Singer took $50,000 from his mother’s dresser to launch a hedge fund.

Soon after, he lost 88% of it.

Here is how he turned total devastation into a $72B empire, and why he says markets are facing a catastrophic collapse today.

"You could not name a way to lose money that Dad and I did not hone to the finest edge."

"My desire never to lose money again came from real devastation and wanting to get my parents' money back."

His brutal warning about today's financial system:

"Markets are as risky as I've ever seen. Decades without a massive crash have lulled people into believing they'll always get bailed out."

Today, Elliott Management manages $72,000,000,000.

Bookmark this and watch the full breakdown below.

[axon @axonqq]

Paul Singer took $50,000 from his mother’s dresser to launch a hedge fund.

Soon after, he lost 88% of it.

Here is how he turned total devastation into a $72B empire, and why he says markets are facing a catastrophic collapse today.

"You could not name a way to lose money that Dad and I did not hone to the finest edge."

"My desire never to lose money again came from real devastation and wanting to get my parents' money back."

His brutal warning about today's financial system:

"Markets are as risky as I've ever seen. Decades without a massive crash have lulled people into believing they'll always get bailed out."

Today, Elliott Management manages $72,000,000,000.

Bookmark this and watch the full breakdown below.

[Сarm1ne @carm1nee]

https://t.co/AEvpm1M5Sd

[axon @axonqq]

Ken Griffin, founder of Citadel, once stepped into an elevator not knowing if his firm would survive the day:

"I hope at the end of the day that we're still in business."

This is his candid breakdown of the 2008 financial crisis, the failure of Wall Street giants, and the single most critical rule of risk management.

"It was a near-death experience. There was nothing interesting about it."

"Lehman Brothers actually just flat out failed. Merrill Lynch was one of the best sales ever by a corporation - Bank of America had to be basically bailed out on the back of that purchase."

"What none of us appreciated was that in a period of crisis, access to credit would not just slow down or fall a bit - it would cease. It would end."

His ultimate takeaway from 2008:

"Don't pretend to be a bank unless you are a bank."

Bookmark and watch the full video below.

[Сarm1ne @carm1nee]

https://t.co/AEvpm1M5Sd

[axon @axonqq]

in the summer of 1929 a twenty-three-year-old made his first trade. he sold a copper company short.

two months later the crash came, and he was one of the few people on the street who made money on it.

he went back to the office for the next eighty-six years.

his name was irving kahn. he was benjamin graham's teaching assistant at columbia, he opened his own firm in 1978, and he was still coming in when he died in 2015, at 109.

the last long recording of him is a lecture to a room of students in 2005. eight thousand two hundred and ninety-two people have watched it.

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

@monokern @fleyta88 interesting

[axon @axonqq]

In 2015, Sam Altman made a statement 99% of people treated as a joke:

"AI will probably lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there will be great companies created."

Today, OpenAI is valued at over 80 billion dollars.

Entire industries are collapsing in real time, and the largest transfer of wealth in human history is happening right now while most people just watch.

He was not joking about the end of the world. He was giving you a deadline to build wealth before the rules change forever.

Are you getting ahead of this wave, or waiting to be replaced?

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

in 1975, 60 Minutes explained a new idea with a cartoon: the workers get the stock.

it was invented by a lawyer named louis kelso. the first one, in 1956, let the staff of a small newspaper chain buy the paper from its owners.

congress wrote it into the pension law in 1974. today that paperwork holds fifteen million americans and just over two trillion dollars.

kelso died in 1991, at seventy-seven.

the segment is called A Piece of the Action. four thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven people have watched it.

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

Fifteen million Americans own a piece of the company they work for. The paperwork that makes it possible now sits on top of two trillion dollars. It was drafted by one lawyer in San Francisco in 1956, so that the staff of a small newspaper chain could buy the paper from its owners.

His name was Louis Kelso.

The record of him explaining it is a 60 Minutes segment. Mike Wallace across the table, April 1975, thirteen minutes.

The order of what happened: he built the first employee stock ownership plan in 1956 for Peninsula Newspapers. He wrote the argument down in 1958, in a book with the philosopher Mortimer Adler. Sixteen years later Senator Russell Long dropped it into the pension law of 1974, and the thing took its name from a paragraph of the tax code, which is how it became famous without him.

Kelso died on 17 February 1991, in San Francisco. Age seventy-seven.

The current count: six thousand six hundred and nine plans, fifteen point one million participants, and just over two trillion dollars in assets.

The tape survives for one reason. The firm that posted it was founded by a man who worked under Kelso on the 1974 bill. It has been on YouTube since 2 July 2013. Free. Thirteen minutes and one second.

Four thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven people have watched it.

Fifteen million are living inside it.

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

In the Second World War, one office in Washington set the ceiling price on most of what an American could buy. Its deputy administrator was a Canadian-born economist who, thirty years later, spent thirteen television hours explaining where money comes from.

His name was John Kenneth Galbraith.

The series is The Age of Uncertainty, made by the BBC with CBC, KCET and OECA. It premiered on 10 January 1977. Episode six is the one about money, broadcast on 14 February 1977.

In it he walks through the Bank of Amsterdam, John Law and his Banque Royale, the founding of the Bank of England, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and ends in the Great Depression. Four centuries, one point: money was never a natural fact. Every version of it was an invention, built by people who needed to be paid.

He had already written the book on the last part. The Great Crash 1929 came out in 1955 and has not been out of print since.

Galbraith was the American ambassador to India under Kennedy, from 1961 to 1963. He died on 29 April 2006, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Age ninety-seven.

The episode has been sitting on the Internet Archive since 21 April 2016. Fifty-seven minutes and thirty-five seconds. Free. Seven hundred seventy-six people have opened it.

Almost none of them work with money for a living.

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

Joe Louis earned 4.6 million dollars in the ring. He kept about 800 thousand of it

this is the documentary about where the rest went - and about the twelve years he spent as the most famous man in America while other people owned his income

he turned pro on 4 July 1934 against Jack Kracken and was paid 59 dollars

he held the heavyweight title from 1937 to 1949. eleven years and eight months, still the record in any division. twenty-five straight title defences

in May 1950 the IRS said he owed more than 500 thousand dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties. by the end of that decade it was over a million

in 1953 his mother died and left him 667 dollars. the IRS took that too

he started professional wrestling in 1956. he finished as a greeter at Caesars Palace, shaking hands with tourists in a casino lobby

he died on 12 April 1981, aged sixty-six

seventy-five minutes - free - six years on the Internet Archive - three hundred and seventy-five people have watched it

he was the best in the world at selling his hours. that was the whole problem

bookmark & watch today ↓

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

The equation underneath modern option pricing was published in 1973. Two men wrote it. Only one of them lived to collect the Nobel Prize for it.

His name was Fischer Black. He died in 1995. The prize came in 1997, and it is not given to the dead. On camera, Myron Scholes says the quiet part out loud: he thought of Fischer Black, his colleague, who unfortunately had passed away.

Then the film does something braver than a tribute. It follows the formula into a hedge fund.

Long Term Capital Management opened in 1994 with two Nobel laureates on the masthead and three billion dollars. The first year it returned twenty percent. Then forty-three. Then forty-one. It carried assets against liquid capital at roughly thirty to one, and its positions around the world came to one and a quarter trillion dollars.

Roger Lowenstein describes what the end looked like from inside. They began losing a hundred million a day, day after day, until there was a day they lost half a billion dollars.

The rescue took 3.6 billion dollars from fourteen firms.

The film is sixty minutes long. Free. Six years on the Internet Archive, downloadable, subtitles included. Fifty thousand people have watched it.

They were right for four years. The tape is about the fifth.

[axon @axonqq]

https://t.co/MSqd3cuPuZ

[axon @axonqq]

Bill Ackman on going from $18 billion to $4 billion: "I borrowed $300 million"

this is him walking through the stretch when Pershing Square almost stopped existing - and what he was doing while investors were walking out the door

"We'd had about $18 billion in capital - after returning money to redeeming investors, we were down to $4 billion"

on the loan he took out against himself: "the biggest unsecured personal loan JPMorgan had ever made to an individual"

what the firm looks like on the other side of that: "The firm is now about 48 people"

"Most firms managing $35 billion don't run with just 48 people, especially since we do accounting in-house"

bookmark & watch the full conversation ↓

[Lyrics @lyricsxbt]

https://t.co/KPUreJB2W0

[axon @axonqq]

Stan Druckenmiller on going from 25% of the fund to 100%: "we only got seven and a half billion done"

this is him on In Good Company telling how one Financial Times editorial moved his position - and what George Soros said when he heard the size

"I did a billion and a half or like 20, 25% of the fund, short the pound"

then he read the editorial and moved:
"I decide to take Duquesne and the quantum fund to 100%"

Soros heard the size and told him it was small:
"this is a one-way bet they come along very very rarely"

"We should put 200% of the fund in this trade"

"it was done by noon the next day"

and the lesson he says he took from Soros:
"it's not whether you're right or wrong, it's how much you make when you're right, and how much you lose when you're wrong"

bookmark & watch today ↓

[Lyrics @lyricsxbt]

https://t.co/KPUreJB2W0