Jaynit

No one made more money in trading than Jim Simons. Not Buffett. Not Soros. Not Dalio. His hedge fund was so powerful, he shut it down to outsiders. $100 in 1988 grew to $400M in 30 years. Here’s how a mathematician became the world’s greatest trader:

>be Alexandr Wang >born 1997 in Los Alamos, New Mexico >yes, that Los Alamos >where they built the bomb >both parents are physicists >immigrated from China >meet at a national lab childhood: >coding by age 10 >not games, real projects >science competitions, math olympiads >the trajectory is obvious early >MIT is the only question 2015: >go to MIT >study computer science >but school is too slow >already working at Quora on the side >meet Lucy Guo there >both see the same thing >AI needs data >lots of data 2016: >drop out of MIT after one year >you're 19 >co-found Scale AI with Lucy Guo through Y Combinator >the pitch: AI models need labeled data >images, text, video, all need human annotation >someone has to do this at scale >you will the insight: >everyone's building AI models >nobody's building the data infrastructure >Tesla needs labeled driving footage >OpenAI needs human feedback >self-driving cars need millions of annotated images >you'll be the picks and shovels 2017-2019: >grind quietly >build the labeling platform >hire contractors worldwide >make it fast, make it accurate >Peter Thiel's Founders Fund invests >$100 million >unicorn status at 22 2020: >COVID hits >roommates with Sam Altman during lockdown >two AI guys in quarantine >probably planning the future over breakfast 2021: >Scale AI valued at $7.3 billion >you own 15% >youngest self-made billionaire >age 24 >not a crypto bro >not inherited >built the infrastructure layer the Pentagon: >land defense contracts >U.S. military needs AI >you provide the data pipeline >test and evaluate models for military planning >everyone talks about AI safety >you're actually doing it >for the people with nukes 2023: >testify before Congress >explain AI to politicians >join Expedia board >you're 26 on corporate boards 2024: >launch SEAL: Safety, Evaluation, and Alignment Lab >benchmarks, red-teaming, model testing >if AI is going to be dangerous >you want to be the one testing it January 2025: >Trump's second inauguration >you're in the crowd >write an open letter: "America must win the AI war" >Davos, world leaders, prime ministers >you're 27 meeting heads of state >talking about China, DeepSeek, compute June 2025: >Meta comes calling >$14.8 billion for 49% of Scale AI >you join Meta as Chief AI Officer >step down as Scale CEO >new mission: build superintelligence >with Nat Friedman >both declined OpenAI interim CEO during Altman's ouster >now building the future at Meta the team: >raid OpenAI, DeepMind, everywhere >$100 million signing bonuses flying >Meta Superintelligence Labs >you run it >Zuckerberg gave you the keys the critics: >Yann LeCun calls you "young" and "inexperienced" >one of the godfathers of AI >you're running his old shop >he quit >you stayed from Los Alamos to Meta AI >from data labeling to superintelligence >from MIT dropout to youngest self-made billionaire >from startup founder to Chief AI Officer of a $1.5 trillion company Alexandr Wang. 28 years old. already testified before Congress. already met world leaders. already sold half his company for $14.8 billion. already building superintelligence. the kid from the town where they built the bomb now building the next one. "America must win the AI war." he's making sure it does.

Steve Jobs gave a 15-minute speech at Stanford in 2005 that still changes lives today: "Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories." Story 1: Connecting the dots "I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months. I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made." Steve shares what happened next: "Because I had dropped out, I decided to take a calligraphy class. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the space between letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh, it all came back to me. It was the first computer with beautiful typography." He reflects: "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path." Story 2: Love and loss "At 30, I got fired from Apple, the company I started. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone. It was devastating. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley." Steve explains what saved him: "But something slowly began to dawn on me, I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over." He shares what came next: "Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. During the next five years, I started NeXT, started Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple." His advice: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." Story 3: Death "When I was 17, I read a quote: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.' Since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." Steve shares why death is such a powerful tool: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." He concludes: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." His final words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

Want to think like the top 1%? I study the world’s sharpest minds so you don’t have to. Peak Thinkers breaks down mental models & systems from elite founders, strategists, and creators every week. Subscribe here (for FREE) → peakthinkers.substack.com

Want to think like the top 1%? I study the world’s sharpest minds so you don’t have to. Peak Thinkers breaks down mental models & systems from elite founders, strategists, and creators every week. Subscribe here (for FREE) → peakthinkers.substack.com

Steve Jobs literally gave a 10-minute masterclass on building a company (better than $100K MBA):

Want to think like the top 1%? I study the world’s sharpest minds so you don’t have to. Peak Thinkers breaks down mental models & systems from elite founders, strategists, and creators every week. Subscribe here (for FREE) → peakthinkers.substack.com

@FoundersPodcast Want to think like the top 1%? I study the world’s sharpest minds so you don’t have to. Peak Thinkers breaks down mental models & systems from elite founders, strategists, and creators every week. Subscribe here (for FREE) → peakthinkers.substack.com

Jensen Huang explained why his willingness to "suffer" is his greatest competitive advantage:

Charlie Munger literally compressed 74 years of wisdom into a 37-minute masterclass revealing the 15 exact mental models that made him a billionaire:

Want to think like the top 1%? I study the world’s sharpest minds so you don’t have to. Peak Thinkers breaks down mental models & systems from elite founders, strategists, and creators every week. Subscribe here (for FREE) → peakthinkers.substack.com

@patrickc Want to think like the top 1%? I study the world’s sharpest minds so you don’t have to. Peak Thinkers breaks down mental models & systems from elite founders, strategists, and creators every week. Subscribe here (for FREE) → peakthinkers.substack.com

Patrick Collison literally revealed why moving fast is the ultimate competitive advantage:

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Want to think like the top 1%? I study the world’s sharpest minds so you don’t have to. Peak Thinkers breaks down mental models & systems from elite founders, strategists, and creators every week. Subscribe here (for FREE) → peakthinkers.substack.com

In 2012, Brian Tracy literally gave a 1-hour sales masterclass worth more than an MBA. His frameworks: • The 90-minute truth • Double face time = double income • Collect NOs • Be a doctor of selling 12 lessons better than a 4-year degree: