Three division heads just quit. What’s going on? Is it just a bad place to work or what?
The word is that it’s a brutal, unfriendly place to work. Ken is supposed to be a tyrant. The firm has a well known history as a revolving door going back several years, at both senior and junior levels.
bromion Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The word is that it’s a brutal, unfriendly place > to work. Ken is supposed to be a tyrant. The firm > has a well known history as a revolving door going > back several years, at both senior and junior > levels. I agree with this. The book “The Quants” describes Citadel as an organization that has grown too big containing excessive red tape, inefficiencies, and overall poor structure. Ken is also described as a very tough boss. Dan Loebe has some public emails from Ken showcasing how ruthless he is. Off topic - Ken is also described as a Big Mac junkie and has been known to gorge 3-4 Big Macs at a time. He also keeps a collection of Ferrari’s locked in glass enclosures under constant video surveillance in the Citadel parking garage.
Have a friend how recently started at Citadel. They pay pretty well and have catered lunch (and breakfast?) every day. Granted he’s in their FI ops, but still probably better than the crappy gig I have. m
What I’ve heard is Citadel has huge turnover. People are miserable, just get in to get some experience and get out.
We would all work for Citadel in a heartbeat.
Maybe for hedge funds. They don’t seem to have their act together for the other stuff though.
ohai Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Three division heads just quit. What’s going on? > Is it just a bad place to work or what? That’s the IB in New York, not the main part of the firm.
From Wikipedia: "In response to criticisms that Citadel had a reputation for being a harsh place to work, Mike Pyles, Citadel’s Head of Human Resources stated that “When the markets change, we don’t accept lower returns. We aren’t that kind of firm. We expect the manager to go and figure out how to make money in the new market. We make no apology for it.” can imagine why some folks wudnt be too comfortable there…
^ That line of thinking sounds like the first step of someone getting ready to start a ponzi scheme.
reddevil_l3 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > From Wikipedia: > > "In response to criticisms that Citadel had a > reputation for being a harsh place to work, Mike > Pyles, Citadel’s Head of Human Resources stated > that “When the markets change, we don’t accept > lower returns. We aren’t that kind of firm. We > expect the manager to go and figure out how to > make money in the new market. We make no apology > for it.” Yeah, they did really great in 2008. STFU Mike.
but it is odd seeing a HR rep making statements like that…
Not really. It’s only odd relative to the regular cog-in-the-wheel fluffy corporate world where lack of productivity and mediocre results is the norm. Hedge funds are cutthroat. Maybe not as bad as Citadel (at some point it becomes counterproductive if the firm can’t keep anyone on board because the CEO is a douche), but in general there aren’t a lot of touchy-feely guidelines – you either win or you are out. It’s not surprising they would put a kapo in as head of HR.
reddevil_l3 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > From Wikipedia: > > "In response to criticisms that Citadel had a > reputation for being a harsh place to work, Mike > Pyles, Citadel’s Head of Human Resources stated > that “When the markets change, we don’t accept > lower returns. We aren’t that kind of firm. We > expect the manager to go and figure out how to > make money in the new market. We make no apology > for it.” > > can imagine why some folks wudnt be too > comfortable there… I don’t see why that statement is that far out there. Makes sense to me.
This is a reasonable statement to make to the press, provided of course, that they have the returns to back it up. However, if they strictly adhere to this rule, there might be issues. Imagine if they fired their managers in a year that the whole industry is down.
reddevil_l3 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > From Wikipedia: > > "In response to criticisms that Citadel had a > reputation for being a harsh place to work, Mike > Pyles, Citadel’s Head of Human Resources stated > that “When the markets change, we don’t accept > lower returns. We aren’t that kind of firm. We > expect the manager to go and figure out how to > make money in the new market. We make no apology > for it.” > Sounds sensible on the surface. If the goal is to reward managers who can figure out how to make money in the new environment (and figure out when the new environment is going to change again), that’s great. Unfortunately, in practice, it is likely to turn into: “use survival bias to assume that the future looks like the recent past.”