David E. Shaw and the Ultimate College Hedge
When I was an undergrad Prof. Joe Traub (famous for applying Quasi Monte Carlo to derivatives) passed away and they had a whole lecture series in memorium. David Shaw showed up and, having bailed on Columbia CS because they didn’t want to fund his ideas on algorithmic trading, was straight up like fuck this department y’all are dumb and could have been billionaires. It was pretty crazy, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more uncomfortable squirming in an audience!