Not Using AI Is Refusing the Internet in 1995: A Hedge Fund Makes Training Mandatory
Walleye's CEO made AI use mandatory for every employee, saying refusing AI is like refusing the internet in 1995. AI is leverage, not cheating, and most employees at future companies will be AI bots.
The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
If AI disrupts you, the failure is yours, not the technology's
Will says he is an engineer with a PhD in mathematics and has used statistics and AI for a long time. In recent years the tools have gotten stronger and far friendlier to non-technical people. Curiosity led him to notice the efficiency gains, and with that came a sense of responsibility: if AI disrupts him, the fault is his. He started an internal AI project two years ago. This is not a story about the future.
— WillThe internal AI product started with an analyst trying to replace himself
In March 2023, a TMT analyst built a tool on GPT-3 to make himself more efficient, essentially trying to automate his own analyst job. Will was skeptical at first, but the demo convinced him the direction was right. That project became Current, the firm's internal AI product for fundamental investment analysis. Every team uses it, and usage spikes during earnings season.
— WillAI training cannot be voluntary; it has to be mandatory for everyone
After listening to a podcast with Chris Saka, Will decided AI training would be mandatory for every employee, regardless of department or technical background. He emailed the whole firm under the subject line ‘AI at Walleye: A Challenge to All of Us’, saying that not using AI is like refusing the internet in 1995, and that for a hedge fund, ignoring the tool is shameful.
— WillCalling it cheating to write an email with AI is an academic's idea
Will insists that using AI to write an email is not cheating; that framing comes from academia. In business, AI makes you more efficient, the same way hiring an assistant does. He encourages employees to manage AI the way they would manage an employee, because everyone will be managing AI bots before long. He rejects dismissing a tool because it is imperfect: embrace it and iterate.
— WillQuants have used AI for years; what's new is reading unstructured data
Will notes that quantitative trading has used AI for years. What LLMs added recently is the ability to handle unstructured data, which the firm uses for sentiment analysis. 75% of employees use ChatGPT weekly, and a third use AI coding tools such as Windsurf. The internal product Current has become indispensable to fundamental investing.
— WillEvery company should get used to having its meetings recorded end to end
Will says the firm records nearly every meeting and call, pipes it into a data lake, and processes it with LLMs to generate insights and predictions. He calls it ‘Borg’, after Star Trek: the goal is to consolidate information across the whole firm into a collective intelligence. He believes every company should get comfortable with having its data recorded.
— WillWhat AI removes is not the thinking, it's the wording
Responding to Dan's worry about AI-assisted writing, Will argues the tool does not eliminate the need to think; it frees up time for thinking. He separates the concept from the language and syntax: AI handles the latter, humans focus on the former. He does warn against outsourcing your brain entirely, and says you have to find the optimal point of human-machine collaboration.
— WillAt tomorrow's world-class companies, most employees will be machines
Will points to the technological upheaval between the Civil War and World War I and argues the AI shift will move faster. He predicts a world-class company will still need thousands of employees, but most of them will be machines. He considers himself an optimist, while insisting you have to adapt or be left behind.
— WillIn their own words · checked verbatim
Using chat GBT is not cheating. That's a non-applicable idea from academia, where using AI to do homework or take tests is actually cheating. In the real world, using AI is like taking a magical elixir that makes you 20% smarter instantly or a lot more.
Will14:10
Not using these tools is like refusing to use the internet in 1995 because it wasn't perfect. That's just dumb and something I can't understand.
Will14:10
You're still going to be managing employees. A lot of those employees are just going to be AI robots. And that's a skill in of in and of itself.
Will18:13
Figures
| Walleye assets under management | close to $10 billion | 0:03 |
| Employees at the firm | about 400 | 2:05 |
| Share of employees using ChatGPT weekly | 75% | 23:16 |
| Share of employees using AI coding tools | about one third | 23:16 |
| Outside companies asking to try Current | more than 50 | 36:37 |
Glossary
- Borg
- The collective-consciousness species from Star Trek; here, the name for the vision of consolidating all of the firm's data.
- pass-through structure
- A fund structure in which investors bear the gains and losses directly, giving the fund flexibility in what it spends on.
How to listen
For executives, founders and investors, especially anyone currently pushing an AI transformation or thinking through what AI does to an organization.
The AI podcast ad at the end can be skipped.