Any insight into Situational Awareness?
Curious what yall think of this mega Ai-infra levered beta fund. Obviously the returns are great but wondering if anyone knows how this kid grew aum to 10bn+ in such a short amount of time even accounting for the sizeable seed check from silicon valley billionaires.
crazy to think someone with no HF background can amass this much AUM and go full on gambling in this insane AI infra bull market.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, there isn't specific information about the "mega AI-infra levered beta fund" or the individual behind it in the provided context. However, the rapid growth of AUM (Assets Under Management) in such cases often ties back to a few key factors:
Seed Capital from High-Profile Investors: As you mentioned, a sizeable seed check from Silicon Valley billionaires can provide a strong foundation. High-profile backers not only bring capital but also credibility, attracting additional investors.
Market Timing and Strategy: Leveraging a bull market, especially in a high-growth sector like AI infrastructure, can lead to outsized returns. This performance can quickly attract more capital, as allocators often chase returns.
Marketing and Networking: In asset management, raising AUM is as much about performance as it is about effectively marketing the fund and leveraging networks to attract investors.
Levered Beta Strategy: While risky, a levered beta strategy in a booming sector can amplify returns, making the fund appear highly attractive in the short term.
If you're looking for deeper insights into how AUM grows rapidly, the WSO dataset highlights that AUM can grow through: - Investment Gains: Strong performance in a hot market. - Organic Flows: Attracting new investors based on returns and reputation. - Acquired Flows: Potentially acquiring assets or merging with other funds.
For more detailed discussions or similar cases, exploring threads on hedge fund strategies or AUM growth on WSO might provide additional context.
Sources: Is Anyone Bullish on the Future of Asset Management???, Working in FIG (Financial Institutions Group) - An Overview., Working in FIG (Financial Institutions Group) - An Overview., Is Anyone Bullish on the Future of Asset Management???, PERE 100 2020
is he really an industry thought leader? didnt see any research paper nor insightful research piece. not tryna be a hater but regurgitating bottleneck on every part of AI infra chain doesnt sound like a thought leader
Did you read his essay? A surprising number of his predictions must've sounded like an outlandish bull case when he wrote in 2024 but quite a few have been hit.
May be a strong term. But would say he was pretty early on it in June '24 when he wrote the blog, not regurgitating anything that was obvious at that point in time. He clearly laid out the direction, then backed it up with a super concentrated portfolio tied to the theme thats blown it out of the water performance-wise.
Not going to get money from the traditional allocators but plenty of wealth out there looking for clear direction and returns lol
It's amazing in the age of AI you don't even bother googling the guy's background before posting your silly question on WSO.
The name of the fund is literally the name of the essay that made him famous.
Dude's a certified genius (look at his academic record) and came out of OpenAI + wife's at Anthropic. When he started raising was when the AI boom was really starting to kick off so he had an easy case made for why he will understand the needs of AI companies and downstream beneficiaries of increasing demand for their models. He secured 2-3 large anchors and that + the news cycle basically did the rest of the work for him.
The LPs who seeded his fund come from venture and clearly have some very high conviction views on technology. Leopold has the relatively unique profile of being a meaningful contributor (and well-connected) in AI research while also having an unusually strong academic pedigree in a non-related field (econ). Ultimately the LPs just decided it was worth a swing. Easy to forget in hf world that there are allocators who have more appetite for risk and are willing to accept the kind of variance in performance one might expect from a highly directional levered beta fund
He doesn’t run a HF or high mgmt fees I think. Just a long only model I believe
you can literally just check is 13fs to see this is false lmao
He is a certified baller. Extremely sharp team otherwise too. Former OpenAI researcher that walked away from 8figs+ of equity to be a whistleblower. He's extremely well networked in the AI circles which naturally also helps him to see the future. In addition to being married to Anthropic CoS, he used to be roommates with Dylan Patel from SemiAnalysis as well as Dwarkesh from the podcast and Sholto Douglas from Anthropic.
He's now running 20bn+ and was up 90% in April, on top of being up 200% in 2025.
Back of the envelope on those returns in a 2/20 model and Leopold is going to be the quickest / youngest person to become a billionaire in history of finance.
Why do you think structure has anything near 2/20 or any incentive fee at all?
I know LPs in his fund.
The glaze on this kid is real on this sub lol. I read his blog articles and nothing really astounding - regurgitating what other researcher friends that I have would have said.
If you longed anything in the AI infrastructure value chain for the past two years (which a lot of retail traders have also done), you would have made insane gains anyway so why the glaze? this is just a right place, right time kind of situation for this kid
posted twice for some reason
yep. i made $xx mm pnl from 100k by picking similar ai small caps last few years. its not hard. thread sounds like a bunch of risk averse ppl who are just realizing AI is god
He is undoubtedly very intelligent and the blog composite / 'book' he wrote, the literary work Situational Awareness itself, is a great philosophical work.
However, do some digging and you'll find that what his hedge fund likely is is just a quasi-discreet vehicle for Altman to make liquid profits from his insider knowledge that he can't trade on.
The same Altman that presumably fired him from his role at OpenAI?
I've watched one his interviews. Definitely an interesting background and story. Of course, impeccable timing.
He’s definitely a very smart person but it’s a legitimized insider trading operation. Top tech execs are his LPs and cannot personally trade, let this supposedly genius kid take whatever % cut, and making money off of those infos.
Additionally, his dinner table discussion with his fiancée must be “hey babe we’re gonna launch this new product next week, go short all the software”.
He played the game pretty darn well
so many misinformed and low intelligence ppl on this sub glaze over this kid. how is mega levered ai infra fund indicative of high IQ when its the obv answer? its just that a lot of funds like pod shops just simply cant replicate the positions due to mandates even the SM funds.
read his articles too but nothing so eye-opening nor insightful other than regurgitating the sentiment prevalent in the valley during the time.
this seems like just knowing the right people and having them as LPs to let you go gamble super long on all AI names. needs a proper drawdown year to see if this kid can “hedge”
Ok but guarantee you most people would not have the conviction to be this concentrated in their own portfolios.
The fact that this guy did suggest alpha
Highly unlikely this was just information from startups leaking over. It is possible they already got requests for data multiple times from the regulators and still are operating so this implies they are legit.
His wife is at Anthropic, don't need to be a genius to know that X update might kill A/B/C industry LOL / doesn't count as insider trading if Oreo says that they'll launch a new cookie, which might crush Pretz
he also had a first mover advantage coming from OpenAI.
So at the end he was just lucky / opportunistic and will never replicate the same success. It was a once in a time run for him.
Aged well
revisiting this since so many idiots above keep calling him a thought leader. what a great idea to let a kid who got fired from openai and never managed risk to manage bns of ultra levered tech beta book!
Thought he had puts on semis?
yah lets totally check the 13f coming out later! what a wonderful timing btw.. no wonder why you work in PE. my opinion still stands..
He has those as of q1. And you don’t know what the expiry or strikes are
hey laka - seems like your prodigy just blew up. what a thought leader movement! stay in PE son
Does anybody know who, on the qualified institutional side, is invested in his fund? My impression speaking to other folks is that it's mostly other AI/Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, just strikes me like a big feedback loop of potentially insider information since I don't know of any proper big HF allocators investing in his fund.
Sincerely,
Confused RV monkey
Pretty sure your impression is correct, I don't believe any big pension funds/endowments invested (at least not initially, idk if that's changed) which makes sense given his age/unusual profile.
Bump - turns out he’s just a degenerate rtard who never hedged. Has legit insider info alpha pool yet still couldn’t take advantage. Who would have thought.
turns out he was basically a degen korean retail investor, mortgaging their home on levered semis to end up margin called
Who’s playing him in the biopic in 10 years
So is he margin called and out of biz? Or PBs just want more collateral ?
How levered was this guy ? Up 440% you gotta be like 4x levered no? And then added the top ?
"Situational Awareness Sells Entire Public Investment Book: CNBC"
Per CNBC they will just manage private investments for now.
He must be fuckin dying today watching his entire portfolio rally after he was forced to liquidate
Sounds like he is blowing up
Update: Citadel bought his portfolio per WSJ. Depending on timing they might've just made a nice juicy 20-30% gain in a day.. absolutely wild times
F in the chat for Leo
Goodnight sweet prince
We just witnessed absolute cinema. Young high flyer with real edge during the largest infra buildout of all-time comes from relative obscurity (no markets background, which becomes the obvious problem later), raises a sizeable fund, and runs it to 10s of billions in record time. Being heralded as one of the brightest minds in the industry, puff piece after puff piece. The irritation of the HF veterans can be felt from every BBG terminal on earth. One of the oldest heads that's come out of every major crash this millennium stronger takes notice and smells blood in the water as the market starts taking a turn.
early June-mid July - memory stocks slide, mass margin calls across retail accounts in Korea, contagion spreads across all instances of the "bottleneck" trades that have been all the rage the last 2 quarters
7/28 - Citadel predicts a "surprise" Fed rate hike and causes a panic in the market after close
7/29 - market tanks, mass deleveraging, Leo's wedding is this weekend so the timing couldn't be worse for his mental, there's no exit door and the naïve kid with 0 market background didn't think to hedge his 3-4x levered portfolio that's up several 100%s YTD, the rate hike does NOT come and the market realizes it overreacted, SA gets margin called
7/30 - Citadel waltzes in doing the Conor McGregor arm swing and buys up a big chunk of Leo's public portfolio in a block trade at a discount, later the same day the every name in the entire portfolio rallies 15-30%
Brutal lesson in why most HFs are secretive and try to stay out of the press. Paints a big ol' target on your back. Looking forward to the biopic. But I don't think this is over.
Edit: great interview TBPN threw out on the topic at close
Citadel supposedly doing ok in July too even before this. Hmmm.
Something is fishy
Fishy how?
Wonder if it's the index rebal teams propping up the returns
Absolute gold. Can't wait to hear the background noise once the dust settles.
AI positions on Archegos levels of leverage, no wonder he got fked. Guy's smart but not cut out for this shit, he's like the LTCM guys, they were smart but none of them were made for this stuff...
i wouldnt compare literal nobel prize winners to a random college kid who has 0 real research output…. but yes leo is a certified retard
Would be far less interesting if bro just went with “birch creek Capital” some other random fund name generator output. Icarus over here calling himself Situational Awareness and getting blown out (in one sense) on his honeymoon. Tragic.
It's named after the research paper he published in 2024... the irony is pretty thick though.
One thing is for sure. We will remember this.
Speaking as a kid who’s working his first real job in finance, I only remember archegos from the news and am too young for the amaranth situation.
Watching this play out on real time while running the Leopold tracker in real time was incredibly special.
Rip to a legend, just remember your wings are held together w wax
Agree with most of the above that people are glazing him, but even after this collapse today, he still is going to have $5B +/- Anthropic position that he can parlay into re-entering publics once Anthropic IPOs and he has liquidity. But still a spectacular story, Archegos of this era but Archegos was a true blow up of epic proportions, this really wasn’t comparable considering Leopold still has billions left in chips. Also don’t forget he was at FTX future fund when that blew up tho lol
Lol all the compliments aged well. Turned out old fashioned hedge funds are more aware of the situation
You guys are calling a kid with billions of dollars a "retard." If you're so smart then do it yourself lmao.
Leo is a legend.
being rich is not equal to being smart nor being competent. its like saying jack ma is a smart dude cuz hes rich. but we clearly know the guy is a retard just like mark cuban too. i think your IQ is clearly too low to comprehend
If you can make money, you're smart. Especially if we're talking billions. Intelligence is only as good as what you can build and get out of the world. People like you will make a dozen excuses why this isn't true, but they're wrong.
We can go back and forth about Ma and Cuban, but regarding Leopold, he was spot on about the long term development of AI. The technology today is, in fact, playing out the way he said it would back in 2024. His only mistake was being over-levered, and even then, his fund is still up 80% YTD and has billions from its Anthropic investment.
Lol as someone who hadn't read this thread, it's hilarious watching the guys from earlier fluff this kid to the moon. Turns out he's just another arrogant moron who generated all his returns in a bull market with maximum leverage + deep inside info
That said -- I'm sure he's walking away incredibly rich. Kind of like Scamath from All-In. So he'll be fine
Youre conflating outcome with Expected value. This guy is a genius regardless of outcome
bruh i swear you must be Leo’s secret butt buddy or something. the glaze is too real. imagine a man who glazes this hard for another man lmao
So were the guys at LTCM. And they lost all their money. Being a 'genius' doesn't make you a great money manager -- most of the time it is the exact opposite. Intellectually, Leo may be a 'genius.' Practically, Leo is a retard. A rich retard, but a retard
It's weird seeing so much negativity here. I get shitting on ppl like Chamath or Sam Friedman who are not very nice ppl.
But this kid is smarter than any of us and however this resolves doesn't matter, he will end up doing very very well.
Its not like he's going on podcasts and insulting other people.
He simply has a viewpoint, and has found people that believe in that viewpoint.
I think it's because he was glazed so hard, and now in hindsight it's obvious that he was only levered a theme that was in vogue. If he was even a half decent PM he wouldn't have blown up. If he was really a prodigy he would have made a killing off the reversion trade.
Regarding people calling him a genius and that he deserves all this success because he's a genius. Obviously he's smart. Being smart doesn't mean shit. You know how many thousands of genius level mathematicians and engineers come out of India? We all talk about him, because he could SELL. He had a conviction, and the connections in silicon valley to SELL his conviction.
Yes, he was always a mediocre investor but genius salesman. It was always a Tiger-type levered beta fund without any risk management. But people underestimate how important sales skills are, this business is 90% about sales and selling investors on your vision. He would have made tons of money in fees regardless. He seems to have gotten into investor networks from effective altruism and worked for SBF.
I'm just sad Credit Suisse isn't still around to be the last prime broker to hear about this
Pour one out for the fallen chocolate boyz
So much dumb info here.
For one SA didn't have Archegos level of leverage. Every prime broker had SA post massive margins. Archegos got away with it because they hid their positions on swap, and took advantage of gaps in the margin model at CS. With SA everybody on the street knows exactly their positions since they traded heavily on cash, and the reamining swap exposures are super obvious. The PBs then can accurately assess the close out risk.
Also SA's investment thesis is basically long AI winners and short AI losers. People who invested know exactly what they were getting into. You can't even say they got blown up since their positons weren't closed out. SA basically engineering a block trade with Citadel to offload the positions to Citadel's bigger balance sheet. They are reportedly still up +80% YTD. Heck even disregarding their private investments I dont think they even lost money this year.
just bankers making 400K and angry someone could possibly be smarter. No one here wants to take any risk and then whines
i swear this laka dude just sucks Leo off on weekends. im pretty sure none of us are bankers here lol. sounds like you brainless PE dude needs to know this isnt your game and keep pumping out ppt decks retard
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