Intellectual Caliber of People in HF
This might sound silly, but humor me, I genuinely don’t have any perspective so any help would be appreciated.
I am a student who is trying to figure out which path in finance to pursue, and I’m wondering what the intellectual caliber of actual people in HF is, and what it takes to succeed?
I have constantly read and heard that HF is generally where the smarted people go in finance. Having competed in AIME in high school, and a national math competition or too, I’d consider myself to be of a very high intellectual class, and certainly among the few smartest math students at my Top 20 school, but in the grand scheme of things, I know my abilities aren’t the worlds best; they’re a tier below. (I am just using math analogies in this point b/c they are with what I am familiar)
Is it true that HF people are the smartest of the smart? Or could I have a chance at having extreme success in the field regardless (-I’m thinking Pod shop? I know very little, but talking about different areas in the HF industry would be helpful too-)? How much of a prerequisite is strictly intellectual horsepower, to achieving those $1mm+ years people talk about in this field?
I.e. Do I need to be ex-IMO tier prowess, Putnam-fellow-level-brilliant to be world class in this field? What other characteristics could make up for what I’m missing in my intelligence?
Holy shit some of you are hopeless.
And if this is a joke, it’s ass.
😭
🤓 goofy ass
*two. And no you don’t have to be as smart as you’re thinking to succeed. Unless you want to be a quant
So if you want to be a quant, you genuinely do need to be that smart?
A lot of true geniuses work in academia and not finance
Zhuo Qun Song had 5 IMO gold medals + 1 silver and left Citadel to do a math PhD, presumably because the stuff he was doing was too easy and boring. Terrance Tao, youngest ever gold at IMO at age 12 is a professor at UCLA
You're probably looking to join a prop firm like Jane street or Jump, there was this guy who had a IMO gold medal that I know of and couldn't land at a firm and went to tech. However, if you're very good at math I'm sure it's grindable
Did your friend keep whiffing the interviews, or was the competition just incredibly stiff?
Saying you're of a "high intellectual class" and using AIME, a pretty pedestrian accomplishment, as supposed proof is crazy even for WSO.
lol you must not be in that intellectual class even if you account for self selecting bias & any background factors income etc. the cut off from AMC to AIME as two nets can differentiate largely who in terms of high school students would be at the tail end of the distribution, yeah sure it’s not IMO level or a Putnam fellow but it certainly differentiates pretty especially if you score 3+ on AIME
Lol I made AIME 3x in high school (highest score 7) and study math at a semi-target, also did pretty well in HMMT/PUMAC/other tournaments in my area. If you're gunning for competitive jobs or to be at the top of your class in math at a top school, getting 3+ on AIME isn't really very impressive or a differentiator. I don't even go to HYPSM and I've met multiple USAMO/MOP kids at my college all going for quant/high finance type roles.
nobody who is intelligent says they are "of a very high intellectual class" lol
Im going to chalk the awkwardness of the question and phrases up to being young and maybe not native English speaker, and give a genuine answer.
You do not need to be IMO medalist to succeed or break into HF, even as a quant. You do need to be good and know your stuff, but usually the barrier to entry is higher than the requirements of the job. Knowing the fundamentals of stats, ML, coding, modeling process, down cold is better than knowing a lot of non relevant advanced math.
But the other key thing is being relatively socially normal. Being awkward or obsessed about intelligence or math competitions will be a barrier. Not saying thats OP, but can be the reason other “smart” people don’t break into HF. They’re just annoying to be around 10+ hrs/day, or are such bad communicators and absent collaborators they’re a liability and not an asset.
Humoring you but absurd way to phrase the question, could've done without the shameless plugging LOL
As mentioned on other threads I don't entirely know how true that one's "intellectual caliber" is higher necessarily in HFs, but I think the job and specific industry itself leaves less room for error and therefore weeds out those who do not/cannot succeed extremely quickly. Folks who burn out in IB/PE tend to be able to fake it for longer by virtue of the drivers of success in those industries, where hard work = success and building relationships can often times contribute to climbing the ladder quicker. Your ability to make deals happen at senior levels in PE is what gets you paid, not necessarily annual returns. IB same thing
Just means that the folks still standing in HF for the large part tend to be guys who have essentially been through the ringer and so it forced them to have to be smart. It's a hyper-specialized biz vis a vis asset class or sector so guys get super knowledgeable about specifics and that becomes their edge.
I think at large to be successful in HFs you have to be ultra curious about the world and how things work. You have to have a deep, innate passion for trying to problem solve and spot inconsistencies in data, in companies, in global economies. I'm sure that leads some folks with a higher intellectual caliber to pursue these sorts of roles vs. other areas of finance where it's more focused on microeconomics, operations, etc.
I don't really get these posts college kids make... I do XYZ and feel like I'm about this smart, can I work at a hedge fund?
This isn't a BuzzFeed quiz where we'll assign you odds of success in a career given characteristics, you should purse a career in HF if you are interested in markets and want to work at one.
Most people on this forum are fundamental equity investors (for some reason) so even if you're not trolling, you're hitting up the wrong demographic to begin with
You clearly are on the spectrum which is part of the interview process they screen for, so you will fit right in.
I worked at one of the top quant firms that hires a bunch of these IMO medalists and the reality is that most of what you do day to day is fairly rote and repetitive, and I've also worked as a founder selling boring e-commerce stuff online and frankly a lot of what everyday people do can be nuanced in a similar way to trading. If what you wrote is not a troll post, the main issue is to not be too much of a true believer in this type of narrative otherwise you'll likely be taken advantage of. The best way to do that is to touch grass and enjoy your time in college. It is true that you'll make a lot at top quant firms, but the reality is that all jobs can be intellectually a similar level of interesting if you want them to be or a similar level of uninteresting.
lmao agree on the spectrum observation. Go check out the post he made abt strategy consulting
Ngl he’s not wrong about consulting
What if I'm autistic but retarded
If not a troll post then I feel for you, prolly won't work out. Life is hard for the autists unless you're the prop trader type of autist. The Love on the Spectrum type of autist has it tough.
touch grass
My CIO is the most brilliant trader / investor with whom I've ever worked.
I'm not sure the guy could read three paragraphs of Harry Potter and summarize them for me.
He just "gets" investing. Kind of like an autistic piano prodigy.
LMAO reminds me of the clip where Steve Harvey shamed someone for not being able to even read a Harry Potter book
Only Quants are the smartest in hedge funds and investment industry. Look at Jim Simon and Edward O. Thorp both brilliant mathematicians and hedge fund managers.
That being said, many successful entrepreneurs and discretioanry analysts are average smart.
I’m not saying Jim Simons or Ed Thorp aren’t geniuses, but can we all stop with the narrow definition of “genius” as “great at math”
You can be a genius and only okay at math
Being a "genius" doesn't really matter at that level, it's more important to be contrarian and go against standard thinking. All the successful founders do that in some way. Jim Simons has said nobody would hire him anywhere today and he would fail all the interviews.
The firms do hire some math prodigies but they don't really have better careers than anyone else, I see a lot of them leave or get fired in a few years.
Yes, intelligence has a broad spectrum. Someone can be genius at other things as well.
But in reponse to OP question within the context of financial industry, You can objectively identify intelligence in Quants and math wizards than others.
Research indicates correlations between IQ and math abilities, both can be tested objectively.
And the average quant is a dime a dozen, just like the average analyst
I imagine critical independent thinking & being potentially contrarian when critical thinking demands it perhaps? NOT identical with intelligence btw
Surprised no one mentioned LTCM. Literally Nobel prize winning PhD economists blew up lol. I think there's a baseline level of intelligence needed for HF's, which in all honesty is probably average to slightly above average. But beyond that you likely see diminishing margin returns.
I’m pretty regarded and I still worked at a HF for my first 7-8 years out of undergrad.
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