Three years ago, I didn't have a 'job.' I had a 'book.' My algorithms managed a capital base larger than the GDP of a small country. My annual bonus was considered a rounding error. I was one of the people in the room who knew a 'market crash' was just the scheduled transfer of wealth from the anxious to the patient. It was the safest, most respectable path to being powerful.
It was also intellectually bankrupt. A trap of infinite leverage and zero meaning.
While I was backtesting high-frequency strategies that proved what I already knew, I watched the financial news. I saw a CEO lie about earnings, and on my screen I could see the exact flow of institutional capital already exiting his stock. He wasn't lying to me, or to his peers. He was performing for the real audience: the people at home who believe the news is real. The marks.
That's when I had my epiphany. My real job wasn't predicting the market. It was predicting the behavior of the people who believe in the market. And frankly, it was too easy. The opponent wasn't a grandmaster; it was a child reaching for a shiny object.
So I quit. I didn't make a bet; I cashed out of the whole casino. My managing director thought I was having a breakdown. My peers thought I'd lost my nerve. They couldn't comprehend walking away from the machine.
Six months later, I was sitting in a cafe, watching the same cycle play out on a TV in the corner. The same lies, the same manufactured panic, the same predictable outcome. And I felt nothing but a profound, quiet satisfaction. That was my 100x return: the deafening silence of no longer having to pretend any of it was real.
That's when I understood. Significant wealth isn't made by finding a 'new paradigm.' That’s the marketing slogan. It's made by knowing there are no new paradigms—only the same timeless, weaponized human emotions of fear, greed, and hope, playing out on a different stage.
This publication is my proof-of-thought. My motivation isn't deal flow; it's the intellectual sport of documenting the absurdity. I'm not building a business. I'm indulging a habit. I share a fraction of my observations because it sharpens my own thinking to articulate the con.
This is not a guide to a new frontier. This is an autopsy of an old game. Most of what I write will be cynical, dismissive, and uncomfortable. It is not for everyone. But for a select few, it will feel like coming home.
By the time you feel hope, you're already the mark.
