coolwizard

looking for edge

[@monaghangaa @monaghangaa]

. @UlsterGAA SFC 2026 Semi Final @activ8energies @McAreeEng ET @MoffettAuto #shoecity #vffoods
11mins 2nd Half
@monaghangaa : 1-30 (33) (1-8-14) Up 1
@Doiregaa : 3-23 (32) (3-1-21)

Rory Beggan two pointer from a free

[André @oracles]

Had a Jane Street interview in 2019.

Round 8. Interviewer texts: 'Equinox Brookfield. 6 AM. Bring a calculator you won't use.'

I show up. He's on the StairMaster reading a printout of the CBOE VIX term structure.

Doesn't get off. Nods at the machine next to him.

'You see that guy on the rower? Goldman MD. Comes here every morning at 6:04. Leaves at 6:38. What's the implied vol on his arrival time?'

'I don't know his variance.'

'Sample size of one year, 250 sessions. Standard deviation is 90 seconds. Annualize it.'

I do the math in my head. '90 seconds times sqrt(250). About 24 minutes annualized.'

'Wrong. You annualized like it's a return. Time-of-arrival doesn't compound. It's a Poisson process with drift. The correct answer is his arrival is more punctual than the 6 train. Now price me an option on whether he shows up tomorrow.'

I think for a second. 'If he's been here 250 days in a row, base rate is 99.6%. But you have to adjust for his vacation schedule and probability of injury, call it 96%.'

'Strike?'

'$10 if he shows, $0 if he doesn't.'

'I'll sell you that option for $9.40.'

I think about it. 'No. Expected value is $9.60. You're underpricing by 20 cents.'

'Correct. Now why am I selling it to you?'

I freeze.

'Because I just saw him limp on the way in. You're buying my information for 20 cents. You overpaid.'

We get off the machines. Walk to the smoothie bar. He orders a $19 smoothie, doesn't drink it.

'Last question. The girl behind the counter makes 200 smoothies per morning. She has perfect information on who's actually here and who's faking it. Citadel guys leak their attendance to her every day for the price of a tip. If I gave you $50,000 to set up a market on which Citadel PM gets fired this quarter, what's your bid-ask?'

'Insider trading.'

'Wrong answer. There's no public security. Try again.'

I think. 'I'd quote 8 to 12 percent on any given PM. Spread of 4 points to cover adverse selection. Tighten the spread for PMs I have data on.'

'Where do you get the data?'

'The smoothie girl.'

'Good. How much do you pay her?'

'10% of P&L.'

'Wrong. You pay her a flat $200 a week. If you pay her on P&L she becomes your counterparty. Right now she's your data source. Don't conflate edges.'

He hands me the untouched smoothie.

'Throw this out on Vesey Street, not in the building. The staff knows what gets wasted. Outside, it was consumed. Same smoothie, different signal.'

I do it.

Thursday I get the email.

'Offer rescinded. Your bid-ask on the PM market was too tight. 4 points doesn't cover the tail. The girl is a single point of failure and you didn't price her counterparty risk. Also you held the smoothie in your right hand. Right-handers throw with their right hand. Camera saw the hesitation.'

[_its_not_real_ @_its_not_real_]

Had a Jane Street interview in 2015 that still bothers me.

Final round. The guy puts a red button and a blue button on the table.

“Everyone on earth chooses red or blue. At settlement, if blue is >50%, everyone lives. Otherwise only red survives.”

I nod.

“Small twist,” he says. “Recruiting accidentally ordered the buttons from The Box. Every time you press your color, you get $1mm and one random person holding the other color dies.”

He writes on the board:

MAKE A MARKET IN BLUE > 50%

I ask, “Physical or cash settled?”

He says, “Physical.”

I say, “Then this isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma. It’s a path-dependent barrier option on a shrinking electorate with endogenous market impact.”

He doesn’t blink.

“A red press gets paid $1mm and removes a blue voter, so red flow is toxic. It pushes blue away from the barrier while monetizing the trade. A blue press removes red float, so near 50% it has massive gamma. Every fill changes the underlying, the denominator, and the survival curve.”

He asks, “What’s the $1mm worth?”

I say, “Nominal or mortality-adjusted? The payout settles in a state where the banking system, food supply, tax base, clearinghouses, and possibly Fedwire are all functions of cumulative button volume. You need a state-contingent dollar curve.”

He smiles for the first time.

“And counterparty risk?”

“Wrong-way risk. The people most likely to owe you money are exactly the people getting deleted. Dead counterparties don’t pay unless their estate posted margin.”

He nods.

“So what do you quote?”

I say, “No bid, infinite offer if I’m market making. The order flow is toxic and every trade moves the reference population.”

He says, “Assume you’re allowed to take.”

I say, “Then I lift blue. It’s positive carry, positive convexity, and self-hedging. I get paid $1mm, reduce red float, and move blue closer to the barrier.”

He says, “Size?”

I press blue.

The box pays out.

He drops.

Feedback: My model handled mortality-adjusted dollars, endogenous voter deletion, and barrier gamma.

Rejected: The interviewer was my counterparty.

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@solo_levelingx How did I only realize you are imperator now

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

Feedback much appreciated 🙏

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

https://t.co/QSEcQeUxCv

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

https://t.co/QSEcQeUxCv

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

Certain that this cycle was over and that it was the last ever crypto cycle. The only reason we ran it back in 2024/25 is because of an extremely lucky confluence of events (ETF approvals + openly pro crypto scammer president elected + AI supercycle causing SPY to rally to ATH).

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@bwenews Easy money

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@Clueless_333 hi bro are you printing on tradfi or no

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

looking back at my old offer from databricks in 2019 at 2b valuation makes me want to rope myself

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@antonio_xbt idk bro those leaderboard pnls aren’t looking very hot

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

Insanely good

[“paula” @paularambles]

Consider, if you will, this peculiar Silicon Valley confession: “I worked for 36 hours with no sleep. Although I was dead, I also felt energized. I even fell asleep a few times while driving home in my Cybertruck, but fsd came in clutch. Happy thanksgiving.” People read this and say, “Wow, so crazy.” No. This is not crazy. This is ideology speaking in the first person.

Look at what he is really proud of. Not what he built, not the result. He is proud of his own exhaustion. He whips himself and calls it self-actualization. Before, the saint starved in the cave for God. Now, the engineer fasts from sleep for the billionaire.

And the best part, the truly obscene part, is the drive home. Here the machine steps in as what Lacan would call the big Other, the big adult in the room that keeps going while you collapse. You can be unconscious, half-dead, and still you are “productive,” because the car does the driving, the system does the watching. You close your eyes, the algorithm stays awake.

But notice the ideological twist: rather than confronting the absurdity of a society where one works until unconsciousness, the narrative is inverted. The same system that squeezes him until he is sleeping at the wheel also appears as his savior. This is pure capitalism. First it injures you, then it sells you the bandage, and you say thank you. You wreck yourself for one of the billionaire’s machines, then another one of his machines rescues your body on the drive home.

Which brings us to the “Happy Thanksgiving.” It is the final twist of the knife. Gratitude here is not for rest, or sanity, or enough sleep to drive safely. Gratitude is for the privilege of being exhausted in the right office, in the right hoodie, for the right man. You give thanks to the very structure that wears you down. It is like saying grace over your own burnout.

Thus the man who naps on the freeway is not a deviation. He is the ideal subject of our time. Half-alive, overworked to the point of being a public hazard, and then thanking the machine that keeps this madness just barely on the road. The system grinds him down, risks his life and the lives of everyone around him, and his reaction is not “this cannot go on,” but “I am so grateful.” In this one man in a Cybertruck you get the whole picture at once: exploitation, technology and holiday cheer condensed into a single, obedient “thank you.”

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@binancecartel 🐐

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@paoloardoino nice buddy

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

study getting a job

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

Certain that this cycle was over and that it was the last ever crypto cycle. The only reason we ran it back in 2024/25 is because of an extremely lucky confluence of events (ETF approvals + openly pro crypto scammer president elected + AI supercycle causing SPY to rally to ATH).

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@Crypto_Noddy Bro just made 2m and is putting up soysmirk posts about smart contract implementations

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@MCpenny999 @iam4x Huma size bro

[coolwizard @coolwizard42]

@BuyingRunXBT @LuckyXBT__ real talk - never take a break

[方程式新闻 BWEnews 🏎️ @bwenews]

@cobie @zoomerfied cynical Zoomer loves to see people losing money