Ex-WorldQuant Head of Data Strategy Matt Ober on why quants don't care about the stock market, & why prediction markets become a new asset class.
Matt Ober (Ex-Chief Data Scientist @ Third Point | Ex-Head of Data Strategy @ WorldQuant | Now GP @ Social Leverage)
"Nobody actually really cared about the stock market. I bet if you asked people there when Nvidia was reporting, nobody had a clue."
We cover:
- The WorldQuant thesis: out-consume the world on data, out-manage the world on money
- How a Chico State grad found the job on Craigslist — then walked into a room of PhDs
- Revere, the alt-data goldmine only quants understood
- Tracking CEOs' private jets to front-run M&A
- WorldQuant's factory vs Third Point's fine-art boardroom
- Selling data science to analysts who thought it was a joke
- Why you sell beta, not alpha — alpha erodes, beta is sticky
- The "degenerate economy," and why he can't hire interns anymore
- Prediction markets as the next asset class — bigger than options and futures
- The only edge left in an AI world: your network
Thanks a ton
@obermattj for coming on the pod!
Highlights:
(00:00) Intro
(01:18) The WorldQuant thesis - more data, more money
(02:00) Building the alt-data stack
(03:00) Revere - the dataset only quants understood
(04:50) A finance major among PhDs
(09:40) Trading datasets like stocks
(10:30) Why quants don't watch the market
(12:30) WorldQuant Ventures is born
(16:30) Factory vs. boardroom
(18:30) Data's wild west at Third Point
(23:15) Tracking private jets to front-run M&A
(24:20) Igor vs. Dan & the power of network
(32:10) The degenerate economy
(36:25) Patience & outworking everyone
(38:55) Alpha vs. beta, markets & careers
(46:10) Somebody's gotta sell
(51:20) Prediction markets, the new asset class
(53:30) The DoorDash earnings call
(56:35) Going mainstream
(01:03:10) The single source of all edge