what a tool you are!!! You also send money to murderers and rapists?
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Michael Lewis Article on Goldman and Serge Aleynikov
- Thread starter satchel
- Start date
*what made GS a dirty player in this particular context? Just another example of preconception. Do you really think they are any dirtier than any other ibank, hedge fund, your local meat packer, your lottery vendor, the chicken farm, or sewage facility? Dream on!!!
* Simple answer why GS did what they have done. Its called "scare potential suitors". the law stipulates maximum sentences for specific crimes. So, you have an issue when a judge speaks the verdict at some times and now you have an issue that a jury decided? Which part of just and fair do you feel is violated here? Why do you not have a single problem with torturing terrorists in Guantanamo in order to make a point, why you do not mind a CIA whistleblower who is chased around the world for speaking out what every upright citizen and person with clear conscience should have done but you have a HUGE issue with GS making sure the thief gets the maximum prison sentence possible? Because its evil GS?
* Oh I reached your own conclusion point 1: There you go, we seem to agree.
But ..." that code was code he had taken from an open source?" Lol, what a bollocks. Then he should have kept his dirty, gluey little thief fingers off GS's machines and should have downloaded the open source code. Well he can now practice speeding by escaping from a nice chocolate kiss he can expect each night in federal penitentiary. I hope they grill his Russian ass.
* Simple answer why GS did what they have done. Its called "scare potential suitors". the law stipulates maximum sentences for specific crimes. So, you have an issue when a judge speaks the verdict at some times and now you have an issue that a jury decided? Which part of just and fair do you feel is violated here? Why do you not have a single problem with torturing terrorists in Guantanamo in order to make a point, why you do not mind a CIA whistleblower who is chased around the world for speaking out what every upright citizen and person with clear conscience should have done but you have a HUGE issue with GS making sure the thief gets the maximum prison sentence possible? Because its evil GS?
* Oh I reached your own conclusion point 1: There you go, we seem to agree.
But ..." that code was code he had taken from an open source?" Lol, what a bollocks. Then he should have kept his dirty, gluey little thief fingers off GS's machines and should have downloaded the open source code. Well he can now practice speeding by escaping from a nice chocolate kiss he can expect each night in federal penitentiary. I hope they grill his Russian ass.
Quote from Pekelo:
OK, after reading the article and the responses, here is my take....
Apparently, Serge was an incredibly naive dude, but I don't hold it against him because others, similar geeks mentioned in the article also don't know much about real life. Maybe Machiavelli should be required reading material in high school.
So here is the story in short: GS the dirty player is finally catching up to its competitors in the HFT game due to Serge's work. Then Serge is leaving for a competitor. GS screws him royally,twice because Serge gave them a smoking gun.
Why did GS do it? Well, obviously this was what the other geeks didn't get either:
"The real mystery, to the insiders, wasnât why Serge had done what he had done. It was why Goldman Sachs had done what it had done. Why on earth call the F.B.I.? Why coach your employees to say what they need to say on a witness stand to maximize the possibility of sending him to prison? Why exploit the ignorance of both the general public and the legal system about complex financial matters to punish this one little guy?"
Dear geeks, I will tell you why. I am surprised ML didn't figure it out... :
1. To make an EXAMPLE out of him, to discourage code sharing/stealing for all the other employees.
2. To deny a competitor a valuable employee as long as possible. If they are making less money, GS might be making more.
And I will throw in even these:
3. To show legal power. Just because they can. Don't mess with GS, they have the government in their pocket...
4. Why would you leave for a competitor? Aren't you happy with us?
If you play with sharks, I would say at least being able to swim is a required ability. If you are leaving for a competitor, you would better make sure, in that time you are following all the rules and laws to the letter, so they can not fuck you.
And by the way, in the words of Serge:
âI knew that they wouldnât be happy about it,â he says, because he knew their attitude was that anything that happened to be on Goldmanâs servers was the wholly owned property of Goldman Sachsâeven when Serge himself had taken that code from open source. When asked how he felt when he did it, he says, âIt felt like speeding. Speeding in the car.â
finally someone with his senses at the right place. Guys what is wrong with the rest? Is GS grabbing some people's balls that hard that they cannot differentiate between legal and illegal anymore?
Quote from dealmaker:
I just lost a lot of respect for Michael Lewis. Sergei Aleynikov got greedy took something he shouldn't have, broke the confidentiality agreement he had signed, its industrial espionage. Goldman Sachs doesn't just go over and have ex-employees arrested for no reason, if they did 50% of the hedge funds and private equity firms wouldn't exist. Bashing Goldman Sachs for every ill around the world and specifically in US got old.
Ha, are you serious about what you said? So, you think every schmuck on this board claims to understand the basics of HFT but a coder as part of their team does not have the slightest inkling? You do not smell any stink here? Then I cannot help you...
Quote from Rationalize:
âDid you take the strats?â asked one (meaning Goldmanâs trading strategies).
âNo,â said Serge. That was one thing the prosecutors hadnât accused him of.
âBut thatâs the secret sauce, if there is one,â said the juror. âIf youâre going to take something, take the strats.â
âI wasnât interested in the strats,â said Serge.
âBut thatâs like stealing the jewelry box without the jewels,â said another juror.
âYou had super-user status!â said the first. âYou could easily have taken the strats. Why didnât you?â
âTo me, the technology really is not interesting,â said Serge.
âYou werenât interested in how they made hundreds of millions of dollars?â asked someone else.
âNot really,â said Serge. âItâs all one big gamble, one way or another.â
You have a tech guy who is writing code for low latency automated options market making strategies, but he is only interested in the distributed networking and mq code. He views options market making as "one big gamble" - while this is actually one of the lower risk lines of business.
It's a great example the chasm between developers and traders.
He is supposedly a NYC top 20 HFT coder, yet, he has no idea about how the business works, which is tragic, to the point of being humorous. It speaks volumes about developers being a replaceable commodity, while traders are the only talent that matters.
This game is pretty simple. Go and poach developers from telcos or imbedded / mechatronics companies. Pay them up to $100K and they will do anything you want.
Yeah actually. I see it every day. Almost every HFT coder is an arrogant nerd sitting in a back-room cost center, far enough away from the business to not interfere, nor stink up the room with their often lack of social awareness and poor personal hygiene.Quote from CalVolibrator:
Ha, are you serious about what you said? So, you think every schmuck on this board claims to understand the basics of HFT but a coder as part of their team does not have the slightest inkling? You do not smell any stink here? Then I cannot help you...
Worlds apart. The full article gives rare insight into that reality.
He was apparently one of the best coders on the street, yet as usual, traders don't know or care who he is. A replaceable tech drone.
Incorrect!!! I am a quant trader and there is no way in hell a hft developer is not in constant contact with the guys that design and profile strategies (quants), and the quant traders. Please stop making up stories. A high frequency software developer need sto closely work with hard ware engineers, the quant trading team and also with frontUI and indirectly quant traders to understand exactly the requirements. Do you honestly believe quant traders have the patience and insight to write up a clear, concise, and well-understood spec sheet that developers can use and never have to sit down face-to-face to clarify things?
Quote from Rationalize:
Yeah actually. I see it every day. Almost every HFT coder is an arrogant nerd sitting in a back-room cost center, far enough away from the business to not interfere, nor stink up the room with their often lack of social awareness and poor personal hygiene.
Worlds apart. The full article gives rare insight into that reality.
He was apparently one of the best coders on the street, yet as usual, traders don't know or care who he is. A replaceable tech drone.
Sounds like a good environment for the developers in your shop. Presumably you are in a quant hedge fund, market maker or similar (?)
I am writing from the point of view of a global investment bank (blah blah), as a pier and competitor to GS.
The environment is as I described. No BS. A severe divide between perceived cost and profit centers, complete with Indian outsourcing support headaches. Developers come with high hopes, and usually leave in disgust having learnt nothing about trading.
The description in the article of a "ball of rubber bands" is entirely accurate.
I am writing from the point of view of a global investment bank (blah blah), as a pier and competitor to GS.
The environment is as I described. No BS. A severe divide between perceived cost and profit centers, complete with Indian outsourcing support headaches. Developers come with high hopes, and usually leave in disgust having learnt nothing about trading.
The description in the article of a "ball of rubber bands" is entirely accurate.
I worked for 3 tier1 investment banks, and one tier2 bank each time on the prop trading side in a quant trading capacity. So, no market making involved at all. And my developers worked each and every single day with me, whether on medium frequency strategies or higher frequency.
I think you confuse general IT at banks with highly talented programmers that are paid directly out of the pockets of trading desks. I worked with guys from HKU, Stanford, CMU, and others, not a single indian guy (not saying that there are none) but you saying there is any outsourcing involved means you clearly do not understand how front office quant teams source programming capabilities.
I think you confuse general IT at banks with highly talented programmers that are paid directly out of the pockets of trading desks. I worked with guys from HKU, Stanford, CMU, and others, not a single indian guy (not saying that there are none) but you saying there is any outsourcing involved means you clearly do not understand how front office quant teams source programming capabilities.
Quote from Rationalize:
Sounds like a good environment for the developers in your shop. Presumably you are in a quant hedge fund, market maker or similar (?)
I am writing from the point of view of a global investment bank (blah blah), as a pier and competitor to GS.
The environment is as I described. No BS. A severe divide between perceived cost and profit centers, complete with Indian outsourcing support headaches. Developers come with high hopes, and usually leave in disgust having learnt nothing about trading.
The description in the article of a "ball of rubber bands" is entirely accurate.
Hmm, I am in a similar role currently. I think things may have changed post financial crisis. Perhaps the old world you worked in had budget for tech guys on the desk? It's "do it yourself" in my world. The alternative is to write a spec and wait for 3 months. Entirely hopeless.Quote from CalVolibrator:
I worked for 3 tier1 investment banks, and one tier2 bank each time on the prop trading side in a quant trading capacity. So, no market making involved at all. And my developers worked each and every single day with me, whether on medium frequency strategies or higher frequency.
I think you confuse general IT at banks with highly talented programmers that are paid directly out of the pockets of trading desks. I worked with guys from HKU, Stanford, CMU, and others, not a single indian guy (not saying that there are none) but you saying there is any outsourcing involved means you clearly do not understand how front office quant teams source programming capabilities.
I do not think it has to do with now and then but where you work. I never experienced what you witnessed and I worked in such banks all the way before the end of 2009.
Quote from Rationalize:
Hmm, I am in a similar role currently. I think things may have changed post financial crisis. Perhaps the old world you worked in had budget for tech guys on the desk? It's "do it yourself" in my world. The alternative is to write a spec and wait for 3 months. Entirely hopeless.