Ex-Point72 Proprietary Research Head Kirk McKeown on building edge, alpha decay, & why everything that happened on Wall Street is about to happen on Main Street. Kirk McKeown (8.5 years @ Point72 under Steve Cohen | Built primary research at Glenview under Larry Robbins | Now founder of Carbon Arc @CarbonArcAI) "Alpha rewards those who value assets in a cold way. You want to get it right — not be right." We cover: - How alpha creation differs across multi-manager vs. concentrated shops - The 3 vectors every middle office function must move to justify its existence - Why he worked 6-hour Sundays from 2006-2020 — and the math behind it - The TSMC call that signaled semiconductor cancellations before anyone else knew - What the quant revolution on Wall Street tells us about the AI economy today - His framework: 4 market structures, 9 business models, & why they have rules - The MIT beer game & why every business problem is really an inventory problem - His hot take: a top hedge fund launches an enterprise AI lab in 2026 Highlights: 00:00 Intro 04:47 Tutor vs Glenview vs Point72: how edge differs 12:29 How to build “lift” for PMs: at-bats, hit-rate, sizing 18:44 Building research edge: outwork, read, fieldwork 27:16 Personal moat in 2026: analogs, history, decision trees 40:08 “Main Street becomes Wall Street”: what that actually means 44:30 Carbon Arc thesis: “decimalization” of data market structure 46:43 Why the edge migrates to data plus domain context 51:00 How to win in commoditized research: sample size beats anecdotes 01:03:26 Factorizing everything: themes, market structure, business models 01:08:37 Pruning decision trees: signals, scale points, inventory dynamics 01:14:18 Contrarian 2026 take: hedge funds launching enterprise AI labs 01:23:32 Final question: one habit to build career alpha
