109. Sheelah Kolhatkar (Writer, Former Hedge Fund Analyst) – The Most Dangerous Game

Think Again - a Big Think Podcast

Big Think / Panoply

Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2017

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since 2008, Big Think has been sharing big ideas from creative and curious minds. Since 2015, the Think Again podcast has been taking us out of our comfort zone, surprising our guests and Jason Gots, your host, with unexpected conversation starters from Big Think’s interview archives. Sheelah Kolhatkar is a staff writer at the New Yorker and a former “risk arbitrage analyst” for two hedge funds in New York City. For the New Yorker, Sheelah writes about Wall Street, Silicon Valley, economics and national politics, among other things. Her latest book is the New York Times bestseller Black Edge, about the largest insider trading investigation in history and the transformation of Wall Street and the U.S. economy. This week’s episode is a departure for us – a deep dive into the personalities, culture, and ideas driving the big banks and the hedge funds of Wall Street. Jason and Sheelah talk about what it was like for her as a woman in that male-dominated industry, how hedge funds have reshaped the whole Wall Street landscape and with it, the global economy, and why billionaire investors are almost required to collect Picassos. Surprise conversation starter interview clips in this episode: Neuroscientist Tristan Harris on how companies exploit our brains’ vulnerabilities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, I'm Jason Gots and you're listening to Think Again a Big Think podcast.
0:09.0	Started in 2008, Big Think is a kind of online think tank of big ideas from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet.
0:17.0	On the Think Again podcast, we revisit these ideas in new and unpredictable ways.
0:21.6	Our producers surprised me and my guests with short interview clips from Big Things Archives,
0:26.6	ideas that we didn't come here expecting to discuss.
0:29.6	I'm very, very happy to be here today with Sheila Kolhatkar.
0:33.6	She's a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former risk arbitrage analyst, and I'm going
0:39.0	to ask her what the heck that means in a moment for two hedge funds in New York City.
0:43.9	For The New Yorker, Sheila writes about Wall Street, Silicon Valley, economics, and national
0:48.7	politics, among other things.
0:50.9	And her latest book is The New York Times bestseller Black Edge about the largest insider
0:55.5	trading investigation in history and the transformation of Wall Street and the US economy.
1:01.0	Welcome to think again, Shield.
1:02.5	Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks so much for coming.
1:05.0	So there are many ways to begin an interview, but I want to try something today, which is a website called Random
1:12.4	Word Generator. It's going to, it doesn't generate words because obviously all the words
1:17.3	already exist, but I guess it's picking a word out of the English language. And basically,
1:22.3	the rules of this will be, we'll generate a word, and if it seems like something that gets us into your
1:29.4	book, then we'll start there, but we get one chance to pass if it's no good at all.
1:33.5	All right?
1:34.5	All right.
1:35.5	I'm up for it.
	...

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