Citadel’s Ken Griffin: Programmer Turned Billion-dollar Hedge Fund Manager

Great Bloomberg Markets article on the (usually) secretive Ken Griffin, founder of Chicago-based Citadel Investment Corp., among the most successful hedge funds on the planet:

Citadel employs 72 Ph.D.s, including former mathematics professors and astrophysicists. They’re the heart of the firm’s Quantitative Research Group, which develops proprietary mathematical models to support traders. They staff so-called Ph.D. Row, the south side of the 36th floor, an area dominated by erasable floor-to-ceiling white boards full of complex math formulas. The area resembles a scene from the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind, a biography of math genius John Nash. There’s so little empty space on these giant boards that some group members write equations on their office windows.
Even Griffin, who can write computer code and pricing models for convertible bonds and mortgage-backed securities, has one of those boards in his office—and it’s often filled with lines of complex formulas. “In many ways, we are a tech firm first and foremost that happens to trade,” says Thomas Miglis, 50, who had top information technology jobs at Bankers Trust New York Corp. and Salomon Brothers Inc. before joining Citadel as chief information officer in 2001. “Technology isn’t thought of as a cost center.”

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