I am the only one who practices magic: I practice magic in the city

Chapter 364: Parasitism (First update 4223)

Emperor Wen of Wei was indeed the first productive force of mankind.

John Doe is so damn efficient. The meeting on the first afternoon hadn’t even ended yet, but Jiang Nanzhen had already received an offer from BlackRock in her mailbox, even though she hadn’t submitted her resume.

Senior Vice President of Hedge Fund Operations and Compliance at BlackRock Alternative Investments Group (BAI).

BAI is the group under BlackRock responsible for alternative investments and hedge funds.

Excluding incentives, equity and other benefits, the basic annual salary is 44.9 Malaysian dollars. He reports directly to John Doe and via a dotted line to BAI Compliance Officer Hannah Fellman, who directly reports to Matt Marlowe, BlackRock's Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Compliance Officer.

John Duy himself was surprised how smoothly things went with HR this time.

Although he was only a VP, the salary he applied for Jiang Nanzhen was already the maximum salary for a VP, and he was already prepared to bring the lawsuit directly to Matt Marlowe.

Titles in the financial industry are basically just bragging. Take VP for example. In traditional industries, a VP is already a senior management member of the entire company, and may even be the second or third in command of the entire company.

But in the financial industry, the VP level is just a team leader.

The MD or president of other companies is just a department manager in the financial industry.

BlackRock also has a number of VPs, directors, and MDs who have only connections but no abilities, and some even just get paid without having to work.

But in the past, when encountering such things, HR would always say a few words and require repeated email communication, but this time it seemed to be smooth sailing and no obstacles were encountered.

The lowest level of job grade for BlackRock employees is analyst, the next level up is associate, the next is vice president (VP), and the next is director and managing director (MD).

Of course, executives like Chief Human Resources Officer Matt Marlowe do not belong to these employee levels, but are the legendary E-level or C-level in many companies, and their external title is senior managing director.

Despite having so many levels, BlackRock is still considered to be a relatively flat company among all financial companies. Many groups do not have directors and VPs, but grassroots employees including specialists and intern analysts report directly to the MD.

During this period, BlackRock has also begun to apply AI and has started layoffs. It is said that the goal of layoffs this year is to cut 20% of employees.

Under such circumstances, someone like Jiang Nanzhen, who has almost no reliable industry experience, was hired as a VP, which is equivalent to having the words "relationship-based" clearly labeled on his chest.

The three words were deformed by my chest.

The next day, BlackRock's legal department notified Jiang Nanzhen to send a series of documents including passport information, visa information, education certificate, work history, etc., so that they could help Jiang Nanzhen apply for an O1 visa.

The trio were stunned when they heard the news.

what's going on?
In just one day, Senior Sister Jiang found a rich man to hang out with?
But looking at the white man following behind Senior Sister Jiang like a dog, it seems that he hasn’t succeeded yet?
"Tomorrow our seminar will be held in the Schubert Conference Room on the sixth floor, and the number of guests will be increased from 40 to 100. With the help of BlackRock, we have more reservations this time, so there should be about 120 people on site."

Jiang Nanzhen distributed the new schedule and meeting materials to the three people.

Holy shit, this is awesome. The conference room has expanded from 40 guests to 100? Is this the benefit of having a backer?
Wait, does this count as cheating on Lao Fang?
"Bullshit, I was the one who asked her to go!" Fang Yu snorted after receiving the tip-off call from the trio.

You ignorant youngster, how can you understand my far-reaching intentions?

Did you let him go?
The trio looked at each other, what was going on?
"No, this isn't cheating but it's a gift to a girl, right? Aren't you depressed at all?" Luo Ziming was curious about Fang Yu's broad-mindedness.

Even if your relationship is not stable, it is a bit too much to take the initiative to help others find financial sponsors.

"What the hell, I never give girls away." Fang Yu snorted again.

Not only did he get scolded for sending a girl, but he also lost subscriptions.

You ignorant kid, Jiang Nanzhen is now an angel of desire who can easily manipulate men at will. Do you still need to pay any price?

After joking aside, after hanging up the phone, the three of them looked at each other and felt that there must be something fishy going on.

Lao Fang kept saying that he wanted Senior Sister Jiang to help them arrange their itinerary, but now it seems that they are just the side dishes.

It seems that they came to Maiguo just for this dish of vinegar to make this plate of dumplings.

Nothing tastes better than dumplings.

Haixi Golden Peninsula.

As soon as Mrs. Zhao took the dumplings out of the pot and brought them over, Fang Yu picked up a steaming dumpling from the plate, blew on it twice, and couldn't wait to take a bite.

Leeks, shrimps, sea cucumbers with their intestinal walls removed, pork with 60% lean meat and 40% fat...

One bite and the juice overflows.

"Oh! You kid! Aren't you afraid of getting burned?" Mrs. Zhao picked up the chopsticks on the table and tapped Fang Yu on the head.

This temperature, of course, had no effect on Fang Yu, but Fang Yu still huffed twice, his eyes a little red, and smiled: "It is quite hot, mainly because the dumplings you made are so fragrant, I want to eat them just by smelling them."

Mrs. Zhao was delighted to hear this: "You can leave later. I have packed a lot and put the raw ones in the refrigerator. You can take some away when they are frozen solid."

Tong Yongshan rolled his eyes. This kid is just a sweet talker. He usually comes here without even mentioning any fruit. He just takes things back as if he is going back to his own home. You actually believe it.

Looking at Fang Yu again, he was really eating from the plate without even raising his head.

"Eh? Old Tong, Xiao Jiang sent me a WeChat message saying that he dropped out of school and joined BlackRock?" Mrs. Zhao brought up another plate of dumplings, placed it in front of Tong Yongshan, and asked casually.

Tong Yongshan put down his pad and went to get a pair of chopsticks. "I also received a WeChat message. Xiao Jiang dropped out of school a while ago and said she still had to go to work. Let her drop out. She is really not suitable for academic work."

Mrs. Zhao sighed for a long time, and Fang Yu thought that she was not suitable for academic research, but was suitable for being fucked.

As Tong Yongshan spoke, he felt a little hopeful.

Fortunately, I have strong self-control and did not make any mistakes that would ruin my reputation.

He is dull, but not stupid. He understood what Jiang Nanzhen's test was about from the beginning.

Although his moral values ​​and family values ​​prevented him from taking any action, when Jiang Nanzhen took the initiative to flirt with him, he was very clear that he still enjoyed it to some extent.

He was also afraid that he would lose control one day and cause irreversible consequences.

so far so good.

It seems that this girl has hooked up with someone again, otherwise it would be impossible for her to enter BlackRock so easily without even asking him for a letter of recommendation.

As a top quantitative economist, although he is not a consultant or director of BlackRock, he is a senior consultant to MSCI.

The recommendation letter he wrote still carries some weight for BlackRock.

Many investors are familiar with the four letters MSCI, but few know what these four letters actually represent.

Morgan Stanley Capital International. The MSCI Global Index is one of the most important indices in the financial market, and this is also one of the company's main businesses. It charges service fees by licensing the MSCI Index to financial institutions such as ETFs.

Another major business of MSCI, which actually overlaps with BlackRock, is their Barra risk control model.

This model system is not as comprehensive as the Aladdin system, but it is far superior to BlackRock's Aladdin in terms of risk prediction.

The reason why BlackRock's Aladdin has been able to capture such a large market is not because of its powerful performance.

On the one hand, it is the strong push of the Federal Reserve, and on the other hand, it is also because it is cheap.

The usage fee of the Aladdin system is very cheap. More than 250 financial institutions around the world have connected to Aladdin, which contributes more than 500 million US dollars in revenue to BlackRock each year.

This means that on average each institution only paid around two million Malaysian dollars.

This is simply a drop in the bucket for large financial institutions with annual IT budgets ranging from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Aladdin system is indeed comprehensive and powerful, but in many aspects, the Aladdin system is not top-notch. For example, in terms of the core risk management model, it lags far behind MSCI's Barra multi-factor model and is not as good as Axioma.

Why did Tong Yongshan become a senior consultant of MSCI?

Because of the strong factor model and nonlinear analysis that Tong Yongshan developed twenty years ago, the accuracy of the Barra model in assessing and managing risk exposure in investment portfolios has been greatly improved.

He receives more than 200,000 Malaysian dollars in consulting fees from MSCI every year.

Tong Yongshan can also use some of MSCI's internal resources.

For example, if he encounters a mountain accident in a remote place, if he has a satellite phone, he can call an MSCI helicopter for rescue.

If you have a recommendation letter from an economist of Tong Yongshan's level, it is very easy for a quantitative person to get an analyst position at BlackRock, and it will also be easy to be converted to an associate later (I really don't know how to translate this into a job title).

Now Jiang Nanzhen got the position of VP without relying on his connections, and was even assigned to the compliance department, which only has power but no obligations. It is obvious that at least middle and senior management with considerable influence in BlackRock are involved in the operation.

"Master's wife, I've already eaten three plates. I can't eat any more."

Fang Yu finished another plate of dumplings and wiped his mouth: "Teacher, I just happened to discuss something with you. I sold the strong factor model based on machine learning that we developed to the 404 Fund."

"Now Si Ling Si wants to invite you to be an independent director and senior consultant. The annual salary is 500,000 Malaysian dollars. It will not affect your other work. You just need to put your name on the list. Are you interested?"

Tong Yongshan was stunned. The intellectual property rights of the paper belonged to Youzi Technology. He and Guoli only had the right of authorship. Naturally, he had no control over who the technology was sold to.

Moreover, the reason why the paper is important and may even be named the paper of the year by ETCA is that the paper reveals the powerful potential of strong factor models under deep learning.

It doesn’t matter how difficult the paper is. As long as someone has paved the way, major financial companies will naturally follow suit.

To put it bluntly, the academic significance of that paper far outweighs its commercial value, just like Newton's three laws of mechanics. Is it important? Of course it is important. These may be the most important laws in human history.

But how many people would spend money on this?
The three-person group he approved can retake the exam separately, so they naturally know that the 404 Fund was nominally set up by Fang Yu and his roommates, and this guy is most likely behind it. This guy is transferring money from one hand to the other, and he also wants him to stand up for this fund company. What does he want to do?
It can't be that he has a change of heart and wants to honor his master, right?
Just as I was thinking this, Fang Yu continued, "However, I have to tell you in advance that 404 may have a conflict of interest with MSCI in the future. 404 doesn't care, but MSCI may be at risk at that time."

Tong Yongshan pondered for a moment. Five hundred thousand Mai Yuan was already a considerable amount. It could be said that it was higher than what all the independent directors he served as concurrently gave him. It seemed that this kid really had a change of heart and showed respect for his teacher.

But is there a conflict of interest in business with MSCI?
Are you thinking too much?

How can other companies challenge MSCI?

Don’t even think about index business, as it has little to do with technology and is more about relationships and foundation.

Risk analysis and management?
That's possible, but do they have so much data to learn from?
Tong Yongshan didn't know that the Woking system had been running for nearly half a year.

“You want to apply machine learning in strong factor models to risk analysis?”

Tong Yongshan drank a mouthful of dumpling soup and sweat started to form on the tip of his nose.

"It's not me, it's Si Ling Si." Fang Yu emphasized again, "In fact, they have already deployed it, and the progress is pretty good now."

Tong Yongshan shook his head: "Even if the strong factor model under machine learning outperforms the traditional model, it is impossible to compete with MSCI. This is not a simple technical issue."

“If you really come up with something that’s usable, I’d better go find MSCI and help you sell it.”

Fang Yu snapped his fingers and said with a smile, "As expected of a teacher, you guessed what I, no, Si Lingsi, wanted to do right away."

Tong Yongshan seemed to be unconcerned but in fact he snorted complacently, "Can't I see what you are thinking?"

Then Fang Yu changed the subject: "But, I, ah, no, it's 404 that is not planning to sell this system to MSCI, nor to anyone else."

Tong Yongshan frowned, "Are you kidding me?" Then he suddenly thought of something, and his pupils shrank slightly.

"Do you want to sell your company or be acquired? Who do you plan to sell it to?"

Fang Yu chuckled and raised his thumb: "Teacher, you are right. Indeed, my, no, it is Si Lingsi's idea to sell all assets including personnel and risk control models as a whole after issuing two more funds."

“Sold to BlackRock.”

Sell ​​to BlackRock?
Tong Yongshan couldn't help but be stunned, and then he suddenly understood why Fang Yu had just said that there might be competition with MSCI in the future, thus creating a conflict of interest.

BlackRock's Aladdin system is inferior to Barra and Axioma in terms of risk management module algorithms. If the strong factor model based on deep learning developed by Fang Yu and his team has strong performance, it can indeed make up for the shortcomings of the Aladdin system.

By then, BlackRock might really be able to acquire them.

However, the friction between BlackRock and Youzi Technology some time ago was no secret. How come he wanted to sell the company to BlackRock all of a sudden?

Something is wrong.

This kid, is he trying to make money from BlackRock?

Tong Yongshan thought he understood Fang Yu's intention.

"My senior sister is also going to Blackrock, so maybe we can work together then."

Fang Yu blinked.

Cutting leeks? Haha.

Don’t they just like to play the game of parasitism and possession?

Then let them have a taste of what it feels like to be possessed by a parasite.

I want the 5 trillion dollars managed by BlackRock!
The first update will be 4000 words, and the second update may be after 12 o'clock.



(End of this chapter)