The Last Page

I recently had a conversation with a new acquaintance who works at a hedge fund. Excited by the opportunity to talk to someone on the “inside” of the crisis, I peppered him with questions, trying to avoid any particulars about what happened to him on the frontlines of the financial meltdown. Admittedly, beneath my mostly innocent intentions was a thin layer of schadenfreude. The question that yielded the most illuminating response was the simplest. I wanted to know what someone working at a hedge fund actually did. Deflating my working theory of hedge fund research involving ceiling-high stacks of reports on companies, he explained that his job was mostly mathematics. “It’s pure numbers—I look for patterns and write computer programs to pick investments that resemble those patterns.” He added a bizarre analogy: “Basically, it’s my job to predict who will be the next Oprah. I don’t need to interview every little girl; I look at Oprah’s demographic profile and bet on all the little girls that have similar profiles.”