Icosian Reflections

…a tendency to systematize and a keen sense

that we live in a broken world.

Onward

attention-conservation notice: this is a personal-life-update post, not a deep-philosophical-commentary post.

I've finally left the environs of Cambridge to do...whatever comes next...in New York City. I really enjoyed my time at Harvard and was truly sad to see the community of friends that I'd come to love go their assorted and separate ways, but on a personal level, it was time. So I'm glad to be moving on to the next thing.

One piece of "the next thing" is that I'm beginning work as an trader at Jane Street. It's an amazing company that I'm incredibly excited to be returning to full-time -- one of the most intellectually stimulating environments I've found anywhere, with a double helping of diverse and varied day-to-day projects and a culture of social trust, intellectual humility, and collaborative truth-seeking.

In many (great) ways, I feel like I'm starting college again -- my days are long and full, all of my work is interesting and new, and once again I feel like I'm out of my depth and running flat-out to keep up. Coming from the place of comfort I had reached at the end of college, it's certainly a pleasant change.

Incidentally, we're already hiring summer interns for both trader and dev roles, so if you want to work with some of the most clever, intellectually curious, and deeply thoughtful people I know (plus me), do drop me a line, and I'll be happy to chat, answer questions, or just point you at the application.


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However, my employer is emphatically not the reason that I've been negligent about writing in the last month. The only explanation for that is that I'm working hard during the day, hanging out with friends after work, and coming home too tired to finish off my daily reading, much less begin to write. Then I spend my weekends recovering and catching up on my reading, before launching back into the week.

This does make me sad, and I hope that I'll be able to carve out time to write more, since I've recently been reading backwards through my stuff and realizing how much I miss it. Consider this and Tuesday's posts the beginning of what will hopefully be a new rhythm of posts, though maybe don't be too surprised if it falls through at some point.

More to the point, though, Jane Street has no desire to restrict what I write. (I know; I asked.) What I write -- and what I choose to write about -- is, as always, up to me. This isn't to say that I may not become slightly more reserved in subject matter than when I was a student -- after all, "Wall Street Trader" is an even less socially sympathetic position to speak from than "Harvard Student", but it is to say that that choice is mine, without anyone else looking over my shoulder.

(Obviously, the corollary to this freedom is that the opinions on this blog are mine, and are not endorsed by my employer, even in the read-and-approved sense. My faults, as it says in the title, remain my own.)


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So anyway. I'm learning new things, spending time with friends, and settling into the first place that I expect to call mine for more than nine months at a time. It's incredibly exciting, though I do hope that that excitingness doesn't mean that you won't hear from me on here every once in a while.

Oh, and if you're in New York -- whether permanently or just passing through -- drop me a line; I'd love to hang out and catch up!