The Triple Jeopardy of a Chinese Math Prodigy

[JSOP]

Not sure if you guys read all of it or not. He could no longer come up with good alpha, so started stealing from others by decompiling their code.

I thought a coder's block is being stuck on how to turn ideas into codes but he certainly still has alphas or ideas of his own. That's what I thought. That's why at first he was just curious as how the others were coding it. If he's truly not able to come up with good alphas anymore and the codes that he stole is already obsolete, he's not valuable anymore and should be no threat to UK, why are they still keeping him, wasting UK taxpayer's money? He's a Chinese national; he's not even a UK citizen, so kick him back to the Chinese.

No, I think du Putros is just on a sadistic personal vendetta against him now to try to set an example of him.

 

[Clubber Lang]

He already did. This is the triple jeopardy. You obviously didn't read the article.

I read the entire article
He hasn’t served 5 full years yet.

“He walked out of Harmondsworth Detention Centre this March 16, three years and seven months after he was first incarcerated.”

He is now serving a 13 month term that will can end in December (early for good behavior.)

 

[Clubber Lang]

this isn't the first time on a thread where you have suggested throwing the book against a purported law- breaker

Law and Order otherwise society collapses.

But seriously, the guy stole codes that were worth tens of millions!
Five years is getting off easy IMO

 

[JSOP]

I read the entire article
He hasn’t served 5 full years yet.

“He walked out of Harmondsworth Detention Centre this March 16, three years and seven months after he was first incarcerated.”

He is now serving a 13 month term that will can end in December (early for good behavior.)

The issue is he's triple-jeopardied for the same crime that he committed. He's not supposed to be punished 3 times for the same crime. Even mass murders don't get that. He was already punished for theft the first time and was sentenced for 4 years and he served that already and should've been let go. He shouldn't have been tried again for the same crime under Private Prosecution. This Private Prosecution is a gross violation and abuse of the fair judiciary system and human rights that's guaranteed to all. This is taking law into your own hands just because you can afford to do so and that's not right. UK always touts themselves as the world leader on human rights. Where is Xu's human rights then in this case? When it's convenient and fitting for them, everybody just looks the other way. Where is Amnesty International? Journalist Without Borders? Why aren't they reporting this?

 

[Clubber Lang]

The issue is he's triple-jeopardied for the same crime that he committed. He's not supposed to be punished 3 times for the same crime. Even mass murders don't get that. He was already punished for theft the first time and was sentenced for 4 years and he served that already and should've been let go. He shouldn't have been tried again for the same crime under Private Prosecution. This Private Prosecution is a gross violation and abuse of the fair judiciary system and human rights that's guaranteed to all. This is taking law into your own hands just because you can afford to do so and that's not right. UK always touts themselves as the world leader on human rights. Where is Xu's human rights then in this case? When it's convenient and fitting for them, everybody just looks the other way. Where is Amnesty International? Journalist Without Borders? Why aren't they reporting this?

OK gotcha
I completely agree with you about that.
Seems like some judges and others are taking payouts to make sure he never sees the light of day.

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

How true how true. While Xu's acted criminally I feel as well disgusted with the entire systematic trading industry. Mostly it is firms who exploit the true alpha generators. Quants who toil for a few hundred k mostly get grossly underpaid. Same story over and over. Every phone interview an attempt at gleaning valuable information from the unassuming/naive interviewee. Big promises at the beginning but rarely if ever a follow through in the job offer agreement and hence no tangible evidence of profit shares. How many times have I come across the same in the past and have heard and still hear stories like it.

Jane, World quant, Virtu, Hudson River, and others are a den of thieves when it comes to IP. Overpromise and underlay. Have no qualms at perusing code new employees bring in (most certainly knowing it comes from previous firms). Misleading employees about salary expectations. But fiercely protect their own IP. I have zero compassion for them.

Many highly intelligent quants are too plain naive and stuck in their academic realm to get out of their sweat shops and start on their own. And the biggest reason, I think is that many of them are less afraid of hell than confrontation. They have a wife at home possibly kids, and they can't muster up the balls to go on their own. So they stay in those shops and make a comfortable middle class salary (after taxes and private school tuitions are paid) and seem happy at first. They would make a killing even without the millions of investments necessary to start a hft outlet today. They might have to take a break due to non competes but after a few months they could start fresh, possibly team up with others as independent players and reap a fortune. Instead you hear the same stories over and over how many of those shops make hundreds of millions while their core alpha teams get paid a few hundred k a head.

It's the usual story. You join a fund and they are oh so happy for you to share your alpha, but the moment you want to walk out, it's them who taught you and it's a grand secret. Everyone seems to think that other peoples IP is free for all and their own is priceless.

Unlike the Oleynikov case, this one seems to be pretty clear cut - he de-complied and stole the code for his own use.

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

Total bull. Not a single quant I have ever known or heard from made a mil or more any year. Well perhaps a handful did but 99 out of 100 don't. It's a fucking sweat shop industry but kids from lower middle class families take the 400k a year knowing they are worth 4mil but are too afraid to get confrontational and risk a highly secure income.

Top quants make millions of dollars a year with bonus. He worked for Goldman Sachs for couple years before. Probably he has millions.

 

[GRULSTMRNN]

Lol are you kidding me? Tier 2? Even in Tier 3 or 4 China or however you define it flats are most likely more expensive than at any place between the coasts in the US. 192 sft flats in HK just sold for around 400k-500k usd. Less in China but still. 400k gbp gets you nowhere today in China.

In Tier 2 China even just the 400k GBP is enough to retire on comfortably. But as @hoffmanw points out, it wasn't his 1st gig so I'd peg his NW something higher.

But say he wants to go to Shanghai, 100K USD equivalent startup cash and the IP if it still works, he is still set.

 

[d08]

Having had an experience very slightly similar to Xu's, it's not pleasant. Although the thing with Xu is, he took the work of others and not just his own - that's pretty much stealing however you look at it. But I'm sure G-Research employees also use methods obtained elsewhere.

I have no sympathy for the suits either, they always feel they deserve 80% of the profits while doing 20% of the work. I prefer to earn less and stay away from them because the backstabbing and paranoia is tiresome. There's a reason most of the 'nerds' nowadays form companies while excluding the suits in everything except maybe the law part.

 

[d08]

But say he wants to go to Shanghai, 100K USD equivalent startup cash and the IP if it still works, he is still set.

Even the suits admitted that most of the stolen code is not working any longer as is, it's not in their interest to admit this. Read the article.