Why would a Putnam winner with a $30 MM apartment and trophy wife and kids want to tangle with a Miami slacker? Why don't you challenge A-Rod to "home run derby"?

Oh dear. Somebody doesn't have a clue. Try googling the math olympiad and the NYC real estate sales. Those guys living in $20 million apartments are probably making a bit more than Farmer Brown here.

<t>Finance. I did not mean to suggest that the genius employees are the only ones who have made huge fortunes at Shaw, only that each year's crop of the most select -- such as Putnam and Olympiad prodigies -- can see a path to vast wealth signing on there straight out of college. Their prospects for...

At Shaw, there are many Putnam and Math Olympiad vets and other precocious individuals who have accumulated personal wealth in the tens and hundreds of $$millions. No doubt that gets the attention of other such naturally gifted individuals when it comes time to consider career plans.

<r>I am surprised that many still do not know of the very significant level of attention and resources that the global academic and scientific community is now devoting to Bioinformatics. For those who are late getting up to speed, start here and then browse the websites of the American Ivy League U...

<t>The SAT test is useful because it allows recruiters to sort millions of candidates and select the small fraction who merit further evaluation. Most likely Shaw hires less than 10% of those applicants who have perfect scores, and no doubt their other proprietary sorting and evaluation methods get ...

<t>I think it is widely known that Shaw pays entry level well above market and what is less widely reported is that there are numerous Shaw executives who earn more than the current CEOs of 20th Century investment banks.For some people, this is hard to take, and envy may distort their perceptions. I...

<t>I think most folks do not understand how difficult it is to hire large numbers of staff at the Shaw level. Naturally they must screen tens of thousands to find the next 100 hires. That necessitates brute force techniques such as SAT sorts and GPA cutoffs. That's just how they have to engineer the...

I doubt that I would enjoy working at Shaw. Too intense and demanding, anyway I do not have perfect Board scores to get in.

Here's another independent take on the attractions of a career at Shaw...

<t>Correct Alekk. And Obama? Is the US Senate Obama's web start-up? Did he follow the footsteps of former D E Shaw employees who started their own companies? I guess those non-competes couldn't have been too onerous, LOL. Scholes, of course, is a crook but he was recruited to Salomon Bros. long befo...

Yes, money, but also the vision to apply it to fundamental scientific research without concern for near-term commercial payback.Not to mention that there is the opportunity for much greater personal income and professional freedom at the Shaw group companies.

<r>Here's a nice tribute to the Anton project -- from today's Wall Street Journal.<URL url="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704682604575368383568123848.html"><LINK_TEXT text="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 23848.html">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704682604...

My last response to you, Farmer: David funds DES Research out of his own pocket. Don't make accusations of misconduct.

You're mistaken, and there's nothing in the boilerplate you quote to support your view.