Price of Anonymity: How much does it cost to run a successful fund without the general public knowing about you?

One reason why the regulators attack the Wall Street banks is that they are too visible. If you work at Goldman Sachs, it's impossible to remain anonymous. There are always people who are trying to find some dirt from your past or from projects you are currently involved in.

What surprised me when I first read the hedge fund journal was that I didn't know some of these names, their names don't even come up on Bloomberg, but their AUM is extremely large. There are some successful financiers, not billionaires but multi-millionaires that we don't know about. This got me thinking about the cost of anonymity.

It goes without saying that we have to operate rationally. The marketers motto "no publicity is bad" doesn't work in finance, in fact, we want to remain invisible unless we have to. The unwanted attention brings unwanted scrutiny about how you are making money. Once that arb-opportunities are gone, you have start again.

You want to be known by people that matter, movers and shakers (who tend to know one another), but remain completely invisible to the general public who are completely clueless what goes on in the financial world and how that is impacting their day to day lives. And any visibility in the general public is bad for financiers, it never brings anything good. Just think about this point when you are creating your LinkedIn profile. Those that want to be visible do not have real access to the world of finance; so called venture capitalists with a few millions, in my view.

The downside of being anonymous is the cost of funding. Undoubtedly it's higher and takes more effort, but as long as you are known by your peers, by those that matter, you should be good because some of those movers and shakers are public figures. They have to be, you can't run Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan without the general public taking a snap-shot of you. And these public figures tend to be well-connected with the real money investors.

So how much does it cost to run a successful fund without being detected? I certainly don't want my name available in People Search on Bloomberg terminal. I don't want to hide, I just think the unwanted attention is irrational, not required and no amount of our effort should be spent on "handling" such unwanted attention.

What I say about the business world generally does not relate to women, but this one does. Women say it's a sexual harassment if the attention is unwanted. It's a relationship if the attention is wanted. So, they want to be visible to those who matter, remain invisible to those who don't.

Some women enjoy any attention, they say. Maybe they are desperate? :)