Scoreboard

July 17, 2026

For thirteen years I've lived in a foxhole and measured my worth by what I kill.

From open to close, my days are filled with the sound of gun shots. The hum of scattered fire was omnipresent - like a swarm of cicadas on a scorching Texas evening. The only interruption comes from the blare of a siren. When it goes off, the murmur around me snaps to a halt and I can feel adrenaline surge to every extremity. I clench my teeth and hold my breath.

The last time I heard it was no different. Like any combat veteran, my hands and eyes move long before my brain registers a thought. I have done this ten thousand times and though my heart is racing, my hands are steady.

I scan the field. No tanks, no drones, no men in camo. Instead: a half billion dollar block request of an emerging market etf flashes live on my fourth monitor - my industry’s equivalent of an atom bomb. Fortunately this isn’t real war because my friends say I run like a baby giraffe and my sleep score plummets without my temperature-controlled mattress. As a soldier, I would embarrass my great country. But as a market maker, I am pretty good. No kevlar or sniper rifle. Just a hoodie, keyboard, and shitload of screens.

The sounds are real, though. My siren screams when a block is big enough, and the gun shots are tied to more common equity trades. An expansive configuration of jingles is ubiquitous in the industry and to walk the rows of a market making firm is to enter a labyrinth echoing fireballs, coins, laser beams and sometimes bombs.

It's like watching a final four game while playing craps at a casino in 1944 Dresden.

But I need to respond to the RFQ. Most quotes are automated, but not this Leviathan. I estimate 8 or 9 seconds to show a price before it trades. My eyes dart across the screen verifying the edge, the counterparty, the size, the fair value, fx moves, and basket health metrics. I shave a half second by not checking stock borrow - this ticker is pretty liquid and I think it’s a seller. 4 seconds left. I steal a glance at Micron, SanDisk and our fair values in Korea since we'd be taking down 50m Samsung and SK Hynix - vol has been stratospheric with grandmas liquidating their savings to chase the meteoric memory rally. 2 seconds left. I glance at firm capital availability to make sure we have capacity, knowing time is almost out. other essential context is jammed in my brain before the market open, like the upcoming extended Taiwan market closure, Alibaba earnings, and China PMI. Trump also has a press conference in an hour, hopefully he doesn't drop a surprise semiconductor tariff or call Macron a pansy. Given 10 more seconds, there are 20 other things i would check.

But, fuck it, time is up and I race to submit my quote: less than 10c wide on half a billion - customer service at its absolute finest.

My edge is dwarfed by an almost inevitable seven figure swing. The outcome of this trade depends on dozens of things within my control and a thousand things beyond it. I bite down even harder on the collar of my shirt, further eroding my withered lower gum line while awaiting the customer response. Just another Tuesday in the office as my stomach growls with hunger; I glance at the clock: 12:30. Forgot to order lunch. Again.

A market making firm is a truly exhilarating place to "work".

Really, it has never felt like work. To lead an emerging market trading operation is to be a first responder (in liquidity) to every global event and crisis; spend long enough in the game and you'll discover that typhoons, elections and banking meltdowns become ordinary. It's the pierced borders, whether by Russian tanks or lab-leaked viruses, that get the juices flowing. If you think betting Super Bowl parlays is exciting, try trading Alibaba after Jack Ma disappears.

The ways in which this game can hook you are infinite. Some people just want to live in an ocean of numbers governed by code. Others are news junkies.

Me? I love the chaos.

Calm waters can morph into a vortex at the speed of a tweet. My job was to race in the wake, straddling the precipice while scrapping for edge until the storm ends. Sometimes, my boat and crew were swallowed. But more often we weren't. That uncertainty crushes most people but keeps the best traders coming back for decades. All my adult life I've been chasing those storms.

But now, after all this time, I just left the industry forever.

The environment and brutality come at a cost many high performers are familiar with: eye bags, herniated discs, missed child-dropoffs, ruined family vacations. It took me a while to realize, however, that those aren't the main reasons I left.

After thirteen straight years managing billions of dollars in emerging market equities through an unending and unpredictable onslaught of crises, I realized something ironic: I need more variance. I've become too familiar with the torrential waters of trading. Too comfortable steering the boat and managing the crew. Too obsessed with filling up the treasure chest.

I look up now and find myself on my terrace overlooking Lake Michigan dreaming about what's next. Except, I hear another bomb go off. This one is much more devastating: my three-month old daughter. She exploded, and I am covered in shit. Staring down at her, I know only two things: One, I must shower! Two, I no longer want to measure myself by what I kill, but instead, what I birth: My kids and my marriage. My writing. A healthier spine and my grilling game. My new projects.

I don't know if the combat withdrawal symptoms will slowly suffocate me. I don't know where I'll be living or what I'll be spending my days doing when my kid enters first grade, and for the first time in years I am without a row of ivy league grads that I can command to figure it all out. This is the most uncertainty I've ever faced.

I'm fucking pumped.

Trading has given me everything, and I have given trading everything. But now it's time to tear down the old scoreboard and build a new one.