The Weirdest Shit Out of Silicon Valley
“The Weirdest Shit Out of Silicon Valley” is a series from The Bold Italic documenting the bizarre news, gadgets, and developments in the tech world.
The Reddit-GameStop saga was one of the storybooks — or, rather, the big screen. Thanks to members of r/WallStreetBets, anyone lucky enough to own (or quickly purchase) GameStop stock this past January scored big, with a massive leap in funds — up 1,700% at one point. In Texas, 10-year old Jaydyn Carr purchased shares for $60, which skyrocketed to $3,200.
The subreddit Wall Street Bets caused that inflation — they gamed the system and won. (Basically, users discovered that GameStop’s shares were being shorted (legally) by big-name traders, and they decided it was time the little guy benefited from that. They convinced other Redditors to buy a bunch of stock, which triggered a market shake-up and profits for the subreddit investors).
Anyway, in a surprisingly 21st-century turn of events, New York City hedge fund Cindicator Capital has decided to embrace the growth of social media trading, reports CNET. On LinkedIn, the firm is advertising for a “Sentiment Trader,” with a starting salary of $200,000 plus bonus.
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“You’ll be the voice of the millions of traders. With a combination of our qualitative approach to measuring market moods and your ‘street-smarts,’ you’ll actively manage our internal multi-million corporate treasury. Then you’ll turn the resulting insights into new features, products, and trading strategies for clients,” they write.
Other requirements include A LACK of higher education in economics or finance, AND Reddit karma of 1,000+. You must also be an active member of r/wallstreetbets. They also say — and you can’t make this shit up — that they’re looking for a hire with a “refined taste for memes and a sense of humor” and a grasp of probability. “Be good at poker,” they write.
Yes, I get they’re trying to be tongue-in-cheek and all cool and Gen-Z ish (sorry, folks, millennials aren’t cool anymore), but their cracks about how a hire must “prevent our risk management from having a heart attack,” and their list of work benefits, which include a “50% subsidy for psychotherapy and related medications” and a post-pandemic “place at a Burning Man camp,” is horribly tasteless.
Not because Burning Man or psychotherapy is a bad thing, but because the language and hyper-masculine tone of this suggests a bro culture where cash is king, and what better than using your social media skillz to make the fat cats fatter? And haha, you’ll need psychotherapy to work here. Getting American Psycho vibes yet?
On the other hand, an industry that’s predominantly white and wealthy with gatekeepers is now more accessible to the every person, which is a positive.
If you can’t beat ’em, join them, I guess?
