Co. has had great success, though some difficulties last/this year.

Had the chance to talk personally to him last year (i.e. rather relaxed setting, after an event thus no part of PR for his co./fund). A clever, down to earth guy, quite interesting anecdotes and with very reasonable logic behind his arguments.

I don't know the innerworkings of his organisation (culture, etc.) but I would work for him.

 
hungaroe:
Had the chance to talk personally to him last year (i.e. rather relaxed setting, after an event thus no part of PR for his co./fund). A clever, down to earth guy, quite interesting anecdotes and with very reasonable logic behind his arguments.
omg is ur face still glowing from his radiant prestige???
 

Sure. Depends on the compensation and what my other options are. I personally would much rather work at a large macro HF, so if given the option, i would take soros, tudor, moore, Brevan Howard, Caxton, over paulson. I might also take passport as well because they approach global equities from a more macro-perspective.

Paulson has done a great job of scooping up amazing talent. They basically take the best students from harvard business and harvard jd/mba. The caliber of the young associates there is astounding.

 
Arbitrage1980:
... Paulson has done a great job of scooping up amazing talent. They basically take the best students from harvard business and harvard jd/mba. The caliber of the young associates there is astounding.
I wouldn't call HBS MBA students amazing talent... They're commodities until they get the right experience. The same applies to all b-school grades unless they already have specific experience.
 
Relinquis:
Arbitrage1980:
... Paulson has done a great job of scooping up amazing talent. They basically take the best students from harvard business and harvard jd/mba. The caliber of the young associates there is astounding.
I wouldn't call HBS MBA students amazing talent... They're commodities until they get the right experience. The same applies to all b-school grades unless they already have specific experience.

Sure. The HBS guys who get into paulson have relevant experience. Obviously they're not hiring a non-profit girl who squeaked into HBS with a 700 GMAT and sob stories about "leveraging her MBA to help the world's forgotten voices."

 
Best Response
Arbitrage1980:
Relinquis:
Arbitrage1980:
... Paulson has done a great job of scooping up amazing talent. They basically take the best students from harvard business and harvard jd/mba. The caliber of the young associates there is astounding.
I wouldn't call HBS MBA students amazing talent... They're commodities until they get the right experience. The same applies to all b-school grades unless they already have specific experience.

Sure. The HBS guys who get into paulson have relevant experience. Obviously they're not hiring a non-profit girl who squeaked into HBS with a 700 GMAT and sob stories about "leveraging her MBA to help the world's forgotten voices."

nah i'm talking about the guys who just did investment banking beforehand. "talent" usually requires that someone has had quite a bit of experience investing or something similar. The guys getting hired with 7 figure packages on the buy side tend not to be fresh MBAs, rather folks with several years experience.
 
Relinquis:
FinancialNoviceII:
Enough with this preftigious bullshit, it makes you sound like a fucking dick.
I think it makes them sound childlike... similar to "you mad" and other internet / teenspeak. There must be something systemic in contemporary capitalist culture that produces young adults with stunted ability to express themselves linguistically.
It doesn't make you look like a dick, it just makes you look like you failed second grade spelling. If the intention is to make yourself look smart, competent, or special by miffpelling words, you kinda contradict yourself.
 
Relinquis:
FinancialNoviceII:
Enough with this preftigious bullshit, it makes you sound like a fucking dick.
I think it makes them sound childlike... similar to "you mad" and other internet / teenspeak. There must be something systemic in contemporary capitalist culture that produces young adults with stunted ability to express themselves linguistically.

Same premise, more eloquently described. Thank you kind sir.

 

Paulson gets a ton of shit right now and there is no excuse for how much he has been down the last 18 months but I think there is a total bandwagon effect. Its become hip to hate on Paulson. Maybe its a natural reaction to all the lingering jealousy/envy people felt towards him in 2007-2010. I know some very smart people that were short housing/financials/mortgage insurers etc in 05-07 but didn't get the timing right or make the bet in nearly enough size. Maybe the "greatest trade ever" was reckless and could have gone supremely wrong and we are seeing his lack of portfolio management coming into play now.

All of this being said the fund has a huge permanent capital base, Paulson's own money. He internally reset the highwater marks for employee bonuses. They aren't going anywhere and he is paying his employees. He has been right on gold. The two trades that have really worked against him, financials and gold miners, have been made by a lot of other smart people. Berkshire is loaded up on financials and Greenlight has been holding onto their Barrick/Gold Miner ETF for the last couple years.

I'm happy at my current fund, but I think everybody completely writing off Paulson is being a bit premature. Managers have cycles of underperformance. People thought Buffet was done and out of touch in 1999. I'm sure Paulson is still a very good place to work.

 
Gray Fox:
Paulson gets a ton of shit right now and there is no excuse for how much he has been down the last 18 months but I think there is a total bandwagon effect. Its become hip to hate on Paulson. Maybe its a natural reaction to all the lingering jealousy/envy people felt towards him in 2007-2010. I know some very smart people that were short housing/financials/mortgage insurers etc in 05-07 but didn't get the timing right or make the bet in nearly enough size. Maybe the "greatest trade ever" was reckless and could have gone supremely wrong and we are seeing his lack of portfolio management coming into play now.

All of this being said the fund has a huge permanent capital base, Paulson's own money. He internally reset the highwater marks for employee bonuses. They aren't going anywhere and he is paying his employees. He has been right on gold. The two trades that have really worked against him, financials and gold miners, have been made by a lot of other smart people. Berkshire is loaded up on financials and Greenlight has been holding onto their Barrick/Gold Miner ETF for the last couple years.

I'm happy at my current fund, but I think everybody completely writing off Paulson is being a bit premature. Managers have cycles of underperformance. People thought Buffet was done and out of touch in 1999. I'm sure Paulson is still a very good place to work.

Part of it may be jealousy, but when your fund gets destroyed in 2011 and is down 50% this year, it raises major concerns about Paulson's risk management, expertise, and overall acumen. He is a trained merger arb guy who ventured into other areas beginning in 2006.

I'm sure virtually everyone on WSO would kill to work at paulson, although there are other hedge funds I personally prefer.

 
TheLastCall:
I'm sure virtually everyone on WSO would kill to work at paulson, although there are other hedge funds I personally prefer.

I sure won't kill to work at Paulson ,or anywhere else for that matter. Paulson's fortune may soon turn for the better as they finally clean the red tapes to go ahead and sell their illiquid real estate portfolios. With those sales they can potentially make a killing and make up for a lot of the losses.

Too late for second-guessing Too late to go back to sleep.
 

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