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Comment by mjpuser | Hacker News Reader

I just checked out glassdoor, and it seems like they don't know what their product should be since top execs don't want to agree on anything.

> We have too many executives for a company this size - most don't add much value except for fighting with each other and politicizing issues. The CEO lives in HongKong and remotely manages this crew of distrusting, non-supportive and close-minded execs. The HR function is practically a joke. You don't ask questions, challenge their decisions or speak up - they'll threaten to fire you if you did. They have not been able to productize their technology, their trading business has not picked up and their sales pipeline is pretty dry for the other businesses. They have laid off a large number of people recently and financial trouble seems to be brewing - lot of marketing smoke in here!

> Focus on one product and give it more time.

> Productize, productize, productize.

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Which is really odd, since if they had any idea of what they were doing, they wouldn't need to sell. Trading is among one of the few industries out there where you don't need to have anything like a customer.

What you do is make money, and if you're making money, well, you don't need to ask anybody else for money. This tells me that its a bunch of executives who either don't know anything about trading and/or don't have any coherent strategy, and are really just trying to throw enough buzzwords out there to get investor capitol.

>" Trading is among one of the few industries out there where you don't need to have anything like a customer."

Trading yes but a hedge fund or any fund really implies customers no?

Hedge funds have customers because the majority of them don't beat the market in the long run.

If a hedge fund is consistently highly profitable, they stop taking customers. For example, see RenTec's Medallion Fund, which is only open to its own employees.

Depends on their Sharpe and capacity. Really, only prop shops have no customers, and even those were often backed by someone in the early days. RenTech's Medallion fund doesn't have customers, but it did for much of its history, and they have lower Sharpe programs with more market depth (and many customers).

That said, the track record for Bay Area hedge funds trying to do things "the Silicon Valley way" without experienced founders (experienced in trading) is pretty grim. The ones who succeeded had a track record of doing it before.

>"Hedge funds have customers because the majority of them don't beat the market in the long run"

Interesting do you have any data to look at regarding that? How do they justify their 2 and 20 then?

Well, originally the purpose was to 'hedge' your other investments. Typically, hedge funds invested in ways that would do well when the rest of the market struggled. Even if they don't best the market over the long run, they could be worthwhile investments to protect your wealth during ,Arlen downturns.

Right, they don't hedge at all now do they? Its mostly just high speed trading?

In short, having someone do HFT with your money can be a hedge because HFT strategies often do better when markets are volatile and other funds lose money.

Exactly, if they can't extract their wealth from the market, they extract it from their customers.

"Trading is among one of the few industries out there where you don't need to have anything like a customer."

Yes, but knowing how to trade is obviously very important, it's not just picking stocks, it's risk management, regulatory issues, and tons of industry specific knowledge.

That said - if they have 'tech that works' they should be able to partner with a few financial people and wrap a fund around it without too much trouble.

That so much negativity is on Glassdoor is really a bad sign.

Peter Muller has the most succinct summary of this that I've seen in his (very worthwhile) opinion piece on proprietary trading [1]:

Sharpe Ratio, Marketing department

≤ 0: Runs the firm

0.25: Very important; involved in all investment decisions; major focus on asset gathering

0.5–1.0: Secondary

1.0–2.0: Almost superfluous

≥ 2.0: What marketing department?

[1] https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~charvey/Teaching/BA453_2004/...

For others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_ratio

> if they had any idea of what they were doing, they wouldn't need to sell

Having spent some time in the industry, I disagree, you're always trying to maintain or increase AUM. Funds constantly sell to existing and future limited partners (investors). Internal prop trading desks sell to management in order to keep their allocated VaR and to risk for similar reasons. Traders themselves sell to their boss and peers. VCs sell their top quartile-ness. All of the above sell to their junior staff to keep them around.

The thing is you don't know if you are good or lucky until many years into your career and someone has to put up the capital until then. Even the top funds with great track records can one day stop producing results, at which point people abandon ship.

> Trading is among one of the few industries out there where you don't need to have anything like a customer.

You can usually make a lot more money with Other People's Money than with in-house money.

I mean sure, but take glassdoor with a huge grain of salt, people make up crap to post on there all the time.

The company I work for is around 100 people, but the few postings I have seen that are negative and descriptive are on the mark. Maybe Tolstoy was right about unhappy companies as well.

Curious to what your are referring to, related to Tolstoy (or Tolstoj as I like to write his name). Can you elaborate? Thanks!

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

It's called The Anna Karenina principle. Tolstoy posited an analogy in his novel Anna Karenina that "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Interestingly, Peter Thiel starts his book Zero To One with a reference to the Anna Karenina principle by showing a corollary in business: "All happy companies are different, all unhappy companies are alike."

Not OP, but this might be the reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle

After a certain number of reviews, Glassdoor becomes a more honest reflection of a company's actual state than anything else.

It's certainly more truthful that marketing fluff pieces like this.

Absolutely. It's a great resource, I have used it regularly since it launched.

People still make up fiction and post it on there all. the. time. Keep that in mind.

Its like a Cohen Brothers Film: Lots of stuff happens that is really entertaining, but at the end of the movie you have learned nothing.

I agree as well. I've noticed many problems in my current organization but it is really telling when people are complaining about the same things I'm seeing. The problems really exist, people have fought to fix them and failed, management either doesn't care or want to fix them.

Yes there will always be people that were fired writing things up as well as others just lying (competitors). Like you said, at some point when there is enough smoke you should expect a fire.

I've also worked places that were pretty effective at getting glassdoor to take down the negative reviews. They could always find some sort of explanation for how the negative ones didn't meet the terms and conditions and glassdoor seemed relatively ok with taking them down.

Sounds to me like a shopfront to build up an emotionally weighted patent Portfolio to then beat others around the head with.

Hope it fails

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