hey what's up guys so I want to talk
today about how I successfully
negotiated a $100,000 raise with my
manager at the hedge fund I most
recently worked at and how you can do it
too before I get into those details I
thought it was important to lay out the
foundation on the psych colge behind why
some people get large raises and other
people don't so back when we were all in
Academia right if you hung out with like
the smart ambitious kids there was
always at least one person who would
severely downplay how much they studied
for an exam like you'd see them at the
library is studying for 24 hours and if
you ask them how much they studied for
the exam they'd say oh I didn't really
study or like I studed for like 1 hour
it's probably obvious to you why they do
this but the reason they do this is
because they want you to think they're
really smart and you kind of wonder why
wouldn't they want you to think they're
hardworking is isn't being hardworking a
virtue you know isn't that an attribute
that you want other people to admire
about you what these people understand
is that you get way more respect for
being smart than for being hardworking
and this is because hard work only beats
Talent if talent doesn't work hard and
so the person with Talent has way higher
potential than the person who's
hardworking and that's where all the
respect comes from so that's the same
reason why Elite Tech firms give you all
these lead code algorithm type questions
even if you might never try to solve for
a palindrome or whatever in your entire
life those lead code type questions are
actually just IQ tests in Disguise I
hear a lot of people saying why do they
test for this we're we're probably not
even going to use this GitHub co-pilot
and other AI is going to code for for us
so why why is it even important it's
because those questions are actually
just IQ test in Disguise it's very
Politically Incorrect for these big
companies to say it so you'll never hear
their HR department say it but the main
thing they care about is
intelligence all those other values they
talk about like workplace fit culture
that's all mostly nonsense the main
thing that drives a company forward is
intelligence and that's why in books and
TV shows everyone loves the flawed
genius character that's why Sherlock
Holmes is the main character and Watson
is his sidekick if Dr Watson was the
main character and Sherlock was a
sidekick no one would want to read those
books because we don't care about Dr
Watson a guy who's moderately
intelligent we just want him as a
narrator we're intrigued by Sherlock
Holmes because he's a genius right and
we want to know how his mind works and
ultimately we value Sherlock Holmes we
know that all the great leaps forward
in investigating the case are going to
come from His Brilliant mind and that's
what's fascinating to us and everyone
loves these kind of flawed genius
archetypes you know Goodwill Hunting Dr
House they're very interesting firms
want to hire the Sherlock Holmes
character they don't want to hire Dr
Watson and so in the interview screening
process all those leak code type
questions they're trying to get a feel
for whether you're Sherlock Holmes
they're ultimately screening for
geniuses that's what they're looking for
and when they think they found one the
range of compensation they're willing to
pay you the lid comes off of the ceiling
it just it it goes through the roof that
at least in free market free market
capitalism the amount of money they're
willing to pay you the figures are
insane like you wouldn't even expect it
and it makes sense because intelligence
works the same way someone who's three
standard deviations smarter than the
average person is not a little bit
smarter than the average person he's a
lot of a lot smarter than the average
person to the point where they're almost
not the same
species so you wouldn't pay that person
roughly like three times more you'd pay
them like 30 times more and that's
something I think a lot of people don't
understand about capitalism is if
compensation figures are free floating
once you find someone who's
exponentially smarter than other people
you have to pay them exponentially more
to get access to their talent I don't
know why human int is so wide ranging I
honestly think it's it's unfair um I
feel like the world would be a much
simpler place if normal distribution
behind human intelligence was a little
more narrow
because it causes a lot of issues in
society when some people are so much
smarter than other people I won't get
too into that because it's Politically
Incorrect but if you're a person who
studies history you know this is true
and I think you know we saw a lot of it
in in World War II for example so firms
want to hire the Sherlock Holmes
character and so why is that when you're
in Academia and you're doing a case
study or a team project and you're
working on a team with the genius Guy
The Genius guy immediately sees all the
Angles and he finds the most efficient
path forward for how to solve the
problem and ultimately you all just end
up letting him do all the work and you
you just do all the busy work that he
doesn't want to do that's just the
natural order because the second
smartest guy in the group is so much
less smart than the genius guy that it
it simply isn't logical to sort of
distribute the work evenly you just let
the genius guy do his thing and then you
just help do doing the boring things
that he doesn't want to
do and Academia is preparation for the
real world right so this is what happens
in the real world as well in the real
world unlike Academia there isn't a
solution manual at the end of the book
you're usually pushing the boundaries on
Uncharted Territory you're solving
problems that don't have answers yet and
you're the first one to try to discover
the answer so the difference with the
real world is that you don't realize if
there was a more efficient way to solve
the problem and no one's going to waste
their time looking at Old work and
reviewing it to see whether there was a
more efficient way because there's new
problems to solve that haven't been
solved yet so you don't find out whether
you made a poor design decision until
much later or you might just never find
out and so this is why it's so much more
important in the real world to have a
genius type character who can see all
the Angles and find the most efficient
and straight path forward to the
solution that saves you months of time
and saves you a ton of money as well and
the genius archetype guy can see those
angles but everyone else can't and
corporations know this they say it
quietly in private conversations but
they know and understand this and they
don't want hardworking average
intelligence people stumbling through to
try to solve the problem they want
genius is finding the most efficient
path forward to solve the problem
winning firms simply have smarter people
you can feel their intelligence through
the products they release when Facebook
was the hottest place to work for a
while there all of my smartest friends
in hcan all wanted to work there or were
working there and when you compared it
to Myspace you could just feel the
intelligence behind the design when they
first added tagging and just the lay out
how smooth the pages would load you
could just feel the intelligence of the
engineers through the product
and it became abundantly clear that
Facebook was going to be the big winner
in the social media space and Myspace
was going to go the way of the dinosaurs
you loaded Myspace and it took like 5
seconds for someone's page to load and
it was just cluttered and buggy and you
just knew that Myspace wasn't going to
last and that's the difference of
intelligence so intelligence is
ultimately what drives a corporation to
success and outperform its competitors
and upper management knows and
understands this but they don't spell it
out because it's Politically Incorrect
but once you understand this it's key to
how to negotiate a really huge
raise so as Peak pandemic Circa 2021 and
I was living in Bickle Miami working
remotely for this Chicago based hedge
fund so as you probably know Miami is a
major party town and it was the only
town that was open during covid so I was
just partying every day and just like
drinking and doing drugs and going on
dates over lunch on like weekdays and uh
I was actually dating this girl from the
Fresh and fit
podcast which is pretty funny um and
yeah there's one time I I went to a Nas
concert at Club 11 and it was at like
4:00 a.m. on a Monday to give you an
idea of how crazy of a Party Town Miami
is anyways things are going fine all of
a sudden we get this announcement that
the firm is hiring this new director
who's a partner in uh Wall Street
Investment Bank One of those banks with
uh two names back to back and he's going
to shake things up at the hedge fund and
so he comes in and he's this kind of
fast talking guy who's really
crude and uh just bullying people and
like firing people left and right and
just pushing people out of the group and
we're all like oh this guy is this
guy is serious he's making a lot of
enemies pretty quickly but he's been
given a lot of power so he's he's using
his power so immediately I'm like oh I
got to I got to get my act together
first impressions matter right so I
started working really hard and like you
know trying to make a good first
impression I don't I don't know where
things are going to head with this new
guy in charge so I start internally
looking to move to another group cuz
they're doing uh some interesting Quant
work and their desk is doing pretty well
so I'm kind of like networking internal
a to see if you know I could be a Quant
on their desk but uh this director guy
reaches out to me and he he tells me hey
I hear you understand this Tech stack
the best and we have this high
visibility project that we need to get
done for the founder this is around the
time Bitcoin first had its major rally
up so this project was based on setting
up a trading system around Bitcoin and
Bitcoin ETFs and Bitcoin Futures and
building out like a pricing model that
would give you signals on when Arbitrage
opportunities existed between the three
he told me like this is like super high
visibility super high priority we need
it yesterday how quickly can you get
this thing done I'm like uh I think
everyone knows the rules of this you
just like overshoot the number so I'm
like uh maybe like 2 months he's like
okay fine try to get it done in one
month though all right and so that call
ends and I'm like all right this is it
this is pretty much my test he's going
to make a snap judgment about me based
on how I do on this project so for the
next week straight I work every waking
hour I don't know what that would be
like 16 hours a day on building this
thing out it's like written in multiple
languages cuz it needs to talk to all
these different parts of the Tex act so
it's like C Java python I get this whole
thing done in a week like I work all day
Saturday all day Sunday and then I I
don't tell anyone I'm working that hard
on it and then I just I just announce it
to him in a group meeting or something
I'm just like oh hey yeah I got that
thing done by the way want me to show it
to you guys and it works perfectly
he's all concerned that I rushed through
it he's like wait wait did you did you
QA test it are there unit test and I'm
like yeah I built all those here's the
unit test blah blah blah and he's like
super shocked and impressed like wow wow
this is amazing you knock this out of
the park buddy and then so after that
after that group standup he's like hey
let's talk one-on-one and then he's like
dude you are a rockstar where have you
been I had no idea you were this
talented man I was thinking about
pushing you out of the group but now I
got different plans buddy I'm like okay
thanks for your honesty then he's like
he's like yeah here's what we're going
to do let me know if you're up for this
we're going to push your boss out of the
team we're going to give you his spot
and you're going to report directly to
me all right you're a rock star and I
need to be working directly with you
we're going to make things happen all
right and I'm like okay uh can I think
about it and and and he's like yeah but
don't think too long you know just one
or two days all right and get back to me
about it all right so I'm like Okay cool
so this is this is how this is a
situation you want to get yourself in
when you're working at a corporation and
this is how you play something like this
I was already working on trying to join
another trade desk um I already knew the
guys over there I've done work with them
before they they like and respect me so
I'm like all right I kind of have that
half in my pocket so I can kind of lean
on that so I have two options and
basically I need to lean them against
each other that's the idea so I got the
guys in the other group and I got them
to agree that they could give me an
offer in the other group if I wanted it
and then now I could lean on that to
negotiate negotiate better with this uh
like jerk Tech director guy what I ended
up doing is I wrote him an email and I I
went with an email because it gives you
the chance to gather your thoughts most
clearly and and state your case most
strongly and as efficient and eloquent
of a way possible so just to paraphrase
the email like let's say this director's
name is John it went something like hi
John it's been exciting
working with you and getting to know you
I understand your your vision for the
hedge fund and how you want to grow it
and in what direction you want to move
things and I think that you're going to
need a lot of people behind you to help
you achieve your vision for the hedge
fund to succeed we need to get help from
a lot of adjacent departments and we
need people on our side so we can reach
our goals I've been at the firm for
about 5 years and I have a deep network
of colleagues and relationships with
people in other departments that I can
call on when I need their help and if
I'm being honest with you I think we
both know that you've made a lot of
enemies at the firm and you you need
someone who has a good reputation is
well-liked and can get other teams to
work with us so we can achieve our
mutual goals unfortunately I'm leaning
towards joining another desk because I
know the people on that team and this
transition has been in the works for a
little while now but I also like the
idea of working with you here's what I
propose I can work with you to get you
where you want to be I know you want to
be at the ca level CTO CFO whatever I
can get you there if we work together
but I want you to pull me up with you so
here's what I propose if you can get me
a $100,000 raise then you can call on me
whenever you want to you can call me at
10: p.m. on Saturday night here's my
personal phone number and we'll work 100
hours a week together and knock it out
the park and you'll you'll get to the
sea level you can pull me up with you so
that's what I propose and if you don't
think that this relationship is working
then you can just push me out of the
group at any time so let me know if this
is something that works for you thank
you you see he thinks I got that project
done that quickly because I'm some kind
of Genius 10x engineer but I didn't tell
him that I was working 15 hours a day he
thinks I just pumped out all that code
like in record speed because I'm just
some kind of genius and so he thinks
that by being able to call on me at any
time and working 100 hours a week with
him he'll get three or four times more
productivity out of me and he can ride
me to the top that's what he's thinking
and so he's willing to give me that
raise cuz it simply makes sense for him
big leaps in progress by departments are
usually off the backs of one or two
Geniuses and this is something managers
will never tell you the output by
individuals is not even close to being
evenly distributed it's almost always
off the backs of one or two brilliant
people I'm laying out the groundwork for
him to think that I'm going to be that
guy for him in order to secure my
$100,000 raise now you're probably
thinking well what if you can't uphold
those standards you're sort of setting
yourself up to fail no not really
because I knew this guy wasn't going to
last he was making a lot of enemies at
the firm and I knew I just had to work
hard enough and hang around long enough
until he got laid off and then I could
keep my my new title and my new salary
so he gets my email and a day or two
passes and then he goes hey let's let's
hop on a zoom call I'm like okay it's
like Friday at like 5:00 p.m. like most
people are pretty much heading out for
the week he goes hey man so strong email
you know you you stated your case uh I
respect your your your negotiation offer
and he's like so you're good with me
calling you at any time and I'm like
yeah let's do it and he's like all right
all right we're going to do this and
he's like he's like you this is this is
this is kind of like homeo but goes you
and me baby we're going to do this we're
going to go straight to the top all
right I'll get you your raise we're
going to work our asses off until we
make it to the top all right and I'm
like you got it deal and he's like deal
all right have a good weekend rest up
we're going to be working our asses off
from here and I'm like you got it for
sure let's do it so in summary right
they say EQ matters more than IQ in
terms of how far you get in your career
and how much money you make and things
like that and I firmly believe that this
is true I have an older brother who's
actually way more book smart than me we
went to pretty Elite high school and he
he was the top math student in the high
school he was pretty competitive at like
the national level and those math
olympiads and things like that and uh he
was definitely more books smart than me
though you know I wasn't always trying
to be fair I was I was kind of a party
kid in high school he's like senior
principal something engineer at uh
miscellaneous Tech firm and you know he
has this like lofty title but at my Peak
at the hedge fund I was making multiples
of his total comp and it's because
I understand how to finesse people like
I understand how people think and how to
play the game basically cuz my my EQ is
higher than his he's just like your
typical kind of quiet autistic nerdy
Asian guy who you know can solve like
crazy complicated math problems but
doesn't understand how people think and
what people want so there there's a
hidden lesson there understanding how
people think and what people want that's
that's how you get the most money out of
situ situations and so how did things
play out reporting directly to the
director well things were fine because
even though I told him I would work my
ass off he was one level abstracted away
from the math and the code so because I
was in a position where no one with my
level of technical competence was really
reviewing my work and it was just him
above me because he he trusted that I
was doing high quality work and being
hyper productive he couldn't really
gauge whether my pace of productivity
was good or bad but I would basically
employ a strategy that I call bursty
working which is working in bursts so
that someone like him who's trying to
estimate my productivity is only able to
see my high water marks and then is
making estimations about my productivity
off those high water marks so for
example most people in a corporate
setting they they're always in one gear
they're either working their ass off in
fifth gear or they're just a normal
performer in third gear or they're a
lazy slacker in first gear and most
people don't shift gears very often and
so managers sort of make these lazy
assumptions that you're you know this
guy's a fifth gear worker this guy's a
third gear worker so what you want to do
when you deploy this bursty working
strategy is in burst you want to be
working in fifth gear sixth gear if
that's such a thing just like that first
project I worked on for him the high
visibility project for the founder where
I got that crypto that I stood up that
whole crypto Tech stack for him in one
week about once a month I would work my
ass off on a project and and get it done
really quickly and then the rest of the
month I would just hang out and and do
very little work and because of the pace
of productivity and the output of that
one project a month he would just assume
that I'm working my ass off on other
things cuz I was always juggling
multiple things at the same time so he
he would just assume I'm bogged down on
other projects or like helping other
teams set things up to help help our
team out and so I was able to just
basically hang out the rest of the month
and yeah this bursty bursty working
strategy it works really well managers
who don't have the technical expertise
to measure what you're working on you
can kind of exploit that Gap in their
knowledge there through this bursty
working
strategy and to use more technical
jargon basically they're downsampling
your
work and and and filtering only on high
waterm marks to measure your pace of
productivity so in understanding how
much they know and how much they don't
know you can control The Narrative of
how productive you're being at the job
so in this particular case right this
director was not super technical he was
kind of technical but not really that
Technical and so you can just kind of
explain things to him and make them
sound like they would take way longer or
way more complicated and then and then
get it done in a fraction of the time
and have him think that you're some kind
of Genius so yeah I continue to deploy
this bursty working strategy and you
know about about 6 months passes and
everyone kind of goes through me to talk
to the the director because they like me
and they trust me and so I have eyes and
ears across the firm and I know that
this Tech director is going to get
pushed out soon so I'm not going to have
to work these ridiculous like 50 to 100
hour work weeks anymore for him and then
uh this 360 review happens where people
review him from other departments and
yeah he gets pushed out like he gets
fired like immediately like a week after
that which pretty much I expected and
then basically uh I get promoted into
like another role that's not his role
but is like sort of filling in the Gap a
little bit for some of the stuff he did
and uh
I get another $100,000 raise at that
point and then I get to keep my kind of
lofty position as as the head of that
hedge fund division where I have trading
Quant Tech and operations all reporting
to me and weekly standup meetings so
yeah that was that was like a perfectly
executed way to kind of finesse my way
into a higher title and into a way
higher comp that's generally how I did
it so I hope you learned something about
how to navigate the world of corporate
politics and uh kind of the psychology
behind how people judge you at work and
what they're thinking when they're
deciding whether to give you a raise or
or to demote you or whatever all right
take care