Does Anyone Know How Ken Griffin Did It?
Hi WSO, I'm wondering if anyone on here knows how Ken Griffin managed to learn to trade convertible arb strategies while at the same time getting a degree from Harvard. Was he a top student at Harvard? Did he miss class to trade? I am a bit surprised how he managed to be a successful trader while being preoccupied with academic responsibilities. I am currently a student at a Uni majoring in Stats and trading a personal account on the side (nothing crazy - long term value based approach), but I am barely managing to keep up with school as it is. If anyone on here has any insight as to how people like Ken Griffin managed to do both I would love to hear about it!
This is one of the most ridiculous questions I have seen
Then why comment on it? I am genuinely interested in how someone managed to accomplish two difficult things at once and do not see anything wrong with that.
Unless somebody here personally knows Ken Griffin - how would anybody know how he did this? Perhaps it is in a book he's written or a memoir? If that's the case it is public knowledge and you can find it yourself. You're asking a question about the personal detail of someone's college experience.
Maybe is was the same way Marissa Mayer worked as the CEO of Yahoo? 20+ hr days
Maybe he didn't go to class? Maybe he sat in class but was trading/researching the entire time? Maybe he actually hired mathematicians at Harvard to look into specific questions he had?
Couldn't you have said this initially? Either way, thanks for your response. I asked because it wouldn't be a first for someone on here to personally know someone as high up in finance as Ken Griffin. Its a normal question and if it was public knowledge then its a much better use of my time to check if someone here knows before I go reading books on him.
Ivan, don't you know all about arb?
Lol. I know everything after a nice phone call with an insider.
During his freshman year at Harvard…in 1986…he traded stock options out of his dorm room. In his sophomore year…Griffin launched a convertible-bond arbitrage fund. That year, the 1987 stock-market crash hit, and Griffin struck it rich. When he returned for his senior year, he had $1 million in investors’ money for the same strategy. I spent most of my time at Harvard trading, he says.
...after a 15 second google search. Hope this helps
If you want to learn a little more about the background of Ken Griffin (and other quants), I recommend reading The Quants by Scott Patterson. While it isn't a biography of Ken, it gives a pretty good insight into how he managed to get to where he is today.
Thanks. I'll check that out.
In general, there are tons of examples of this. If you are truly passionate about something, you will find a way to find the time and energy to do it.
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