Morning Coffee: Working for Ken Griffin at Citadel might be a bit intense. New $3.5m banking job may prove ephemeral

If you work for Citadel, the hedge fund, you might earn a lot of money: pay at Citadel in London varied between $550k and $21m in 2024. You might also get to reinvest in Citadel's funds: $19bn of Citadel's $68bn of assets under management come from employees. But you must also perfect the method of working within the purview of Ken Griffin.

The New Yorker has spent a long time talking both to Griffin and to those in his purview. In a long article it suggests that there is an art to working with Griffin. It does not involve interrupting him if he pauses mid-sentence and stares at something with his "unsettlingly bright" blue eyes.

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Griffin has interviewed 10,000 people, says the New Yorker. He's always liked to hire inexperienced talented people who impress him in these interviews. They are given high levels of responsibility early on. But Ken Griffin will not tolerate careless mistakes from employees riding on Citadel's size and success. Nor does he like it when employees wait for "softballs" and easy wins. There's a "grind-it-out reality that defines most of the life of an investment firm," Griffin tells the New Yorker, "You have to see the details the competition hasn't seen." He suggests that he might be childlike in his own curiosity; his mother changed the mobile over his crib every week when he was a baby.

Persistent curiosity requires work. The average portfolio manager at Citadel manages a lot more money than his or her counterpart elsewhere. The average Citadel equity portfolio manager reportedly turns over his portfolio 10X a year. There is no resting on laurels. It's all about "idio" or idiosyncratic trades. At the fund level, it's also about diversification.

In Griffin's purview, softball cruisers aren't tolerated. Nor are people who "gild the lily." Nor are people who like the sound of their own voice. “This is not a place where a long windup is well received,” Jim Esposito, the grinding president of Citadel Securities, told the New Yorker. 

If you are one of the intolerables, you may not last. Griffin doesn't say so, but the New Yorker spoke to various people who variously claimed that Citadel likes to keep employees on their toes by sometimes letting people go. In a possible reference to Gogol, one former employee allegedly told the New Yorker he personally kept a "book of souls" detailing people who left his team. Citadel didn't comment for this article, but a spokesperson told the New Yorker that the firm has "deliberately built a high performance culture."

Working for Citadel can be a lot of fun too. Griffin pays for staff outings from his own money. Sometimes people share burgers. Once a year, there's a Halloween party where Ken Griffin has dressed variously as the Iron Man, Buzz Lightyear and a velociraptor. Griffin likes to play Call of Duty. He likes to collect art. He likes beautiful things. “It was a gift to be there and a gift to leave,” one former Citadel employee told the New Yorker. 

Separately, if you're a person who likes to inhabit the latest buzzy job and you're finding there's no desire to hire "digital transformation specialists" during these days, you could become a chief AI officer instead. 

Bloomberg reports that being a chief AI officer is a thing and that banks are paying $3.5m to people who become one. There is a shortage of talent. You need to know about AI. You need to know about AI strategy. You need to know about AI training. You need to navigate all the other people with opinions about AI who are in HR, technology and the vicinity of the CEO or COO. 

If this sounds good, you can do a course on becoming a chief AI officer at a top business school. Imperial College has one costing £8k, which sounds like a good investment for a $3.5m job. Just don't expect it to last. “Any chief AI officer should operate on the premise that they should not have a role in the future, declared David Hardoon, who did the role for a year at Standard Chartered and then left again.

Meanwhile...

Blackrock is into cutting 200 people from its workforce every six months. (Bloomberg) 

Bridgewater employees were given an opportunity to sell their shares back to the company. All but four said no. Other investors are not so sure. (Bloomberg) 

Enthusiasm for the SpaceX offering appeared inversely correlated with financial market proximity and “sophistication”. (FT)

Refine your AI interview technique. “One candidate had two screens running, one with the scripted answer. The HR director could see the reflection in his glasses”. (Financial News) 

A 44 year-old banker was arrested for pushing a female pedestrian into the path of a bus 10 years ago. A US banker was previously interviewed by police. (Daily Mail) 

The UK Financial Conduct Authority will be able to impose larger fines on individuals based upon their net assets. (FT) 

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