{"id":461,"date":"2017-05-29T20:18:33","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T01:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/?p=461"},"modified":"2018-09-07T19:54:27","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T23:54:27","slug":"edward-thorpe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/edward-thorpe\/","title":{"rendered":"A Man for All Markets by Edward Thorpe"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finished listening to A Man for All Markets<\/a>. It’s an amazing book on a number of fronts. \u00a0Here’s a few of the impressive bits:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. There’s a lot of people who write memoirs like this that seem a bit over the top. But Thorpe is a bit of an over the top genius generally credited with the creation of card counting in blackjack<\/a>, risk arbitrage and hedge funds<\/a>\u00a0and wearable computers<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. He might\u00a0have won the Nobel prize but decided on a different path. Thorpe had to decide whether to be a businessman or a professor first. When he published his book Beat the Market<\/a>\u00a0he showed how to correctly price options. Instead of pushing this further, Thorpe decided to trade on his findings. Eventually others published what became known as the Black Scholes model<\/a> for option pricing which eventually won the Nobel Prize..<\/li>\n
  3. Thorpe seems to have known everyone in finance, from Warren Buffett to Bernie Madoff (who he knew was a fraud decades ago). He even talks about how Buffett used to challenge people to a game of dice with non-transitive dice<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Overall I really loved the audiobook. Thorpe narrates the book himself and does a pretty darn good job. This is from an 85 year old man worth about $800 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I finished listening to A Man for All Markets. It’s an amazing book on a number of fronts. \u00a0Here’s a few of the impressive bits: There’s a lot of people who write memoirs like this that seem a bit over the top. But Thorpe is a bit of an over the top genius generally credited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-audiobooks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8wCkz-7r","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":463,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/nontransitive-dice\/","url_meta":{"origin":461,"position":0},"title":"Nontransitive Dice","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"June 3, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019d always thought of dice as being fair. 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Even though each\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Fun Stuff","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/dice_illustration-768x858-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/dice_illustration-768x858-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/dice_illustration-768x858-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/dice_illustration-768x858-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":682,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/bad-consultant\/","url_meta":{"origin":461,"position":1},"title":"The Worst Consultant OR My Favorite Consulting Joke","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"January 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A man in a hot air balloon comes descending on a meadow where a shepherd is tending his flock. After he greets the man he asks him \u201cIf I tell you how many sheep you have without having to count them, will you give me one of them?\u201d The shepherd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Fun Stuff","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8903,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/why-wrestle-with-words-let-chatgpt-show-its-magic\/","url_meta":{"origin":461,"position":2},"title":"Why Wrestle with Words? Let ChatGPT Show Its Magic","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"February 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a fun piece where I had ChatGPT showboat a bit. Hi, it's ChatGPT Plus. Watching humans deal with language is like watching someone juggle with one hand tied behind their back. I get it, language is hard. But for me, it's just another day in the park. 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Then one day the railroad bought a big steam drill that they said could drill faster than any man.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books \/ Audiobooks"","block_context":{"text":"Books \/ Audiobooks","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/books-audiobooks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11944,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/chasing-gemeinschaftsgefuhl\/","url_meta":{"origin":461,"position":5},"title":"Chasing Gemeinschaftsgef\u00fchl","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"June 7, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Walking around Yale's Old Campus in the late 1990s, I got an idea stuck in my head that wouldn't leave for decades. I'm exceptional. Everyone at Yale is exceptional. There's a line they used to tell us in some form or another, \"You can graduate from Yale and become a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/life-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}