back to indexAll-In Summit: Jenny Just on Peak6, the female market correction, poker, and risk
Chapters
0:0 Besties welcome Jenny Just to All-In Summit ‘23!
2:20 APEX Fintech Solutions
4:48 PEAK6 returns and investment philosophy
7:36 Managing risk
9:22 The female market correction and Poker Power
14:22 Repetition of risk
18:15 Gender differences as third rail
20:40 Expected value and probability
24:17 Safe spaces, risk and loss
00:00:00.000 |
Jenny started her career on the trading floor in Chicago. She co-founded Peak Six 00:00:04.520 |
in 1997 with one and a half million dollars in seed capital as a proprietary 00:00:09.400 |
options trading firm. Now it's a multi-billion dollar financial services 00:00:13.800 |
trading and technology firm. Really excited to hear from Jenny today. Please 00:00:46.560 |
It's not prejudice, it's just that men are naturally superior drivers. 00:00:58.560 |
When a woman's at the wheel, polyglass means more than mileage. 00:01:08.560 |
Welcome everybody and thank you for having me here today. As they said, I'm 00:01:15.060 |
Jenny and I started Peak Six in 1997 as a proprietary equity options trading firm. 00:01:21.560 |
We've evolved over time into a technology firm, including in the 00:01:27.060 |
insure tech space. And the one thing I know about these videos, men are bad at math. 00:01:37.560 |
As you can see, there's clearly no difference between driving abilities and 00:01:42.060 |
insurance rates. Now, 100 years ago, women were less than 10% of the drivers. 00:01:49.560 |
It was deemed risky and a man's job. But 50 years later, we see that it's 00:01:56.060 |
changed. We see these kind of trends again and again, where participation rate 00:02:02.060 |
eventually equals skill or ability. We know that women are half of the voters. 00:02:09.060 |
They're more than half of the college graduates. A really, really important 00:02:16.060 |
place it has not changed is in the financial world. So Peak Six also owns, as 00:02:23.060 |
they were saying, the Apex FinTech Solutions. It's a SaaS-based clearing and 00:02:27.060 |
custody firm. We have 220 B2B clients, 120 billion in assets. We have tens of 00:02:35.060 |
millions of end customers. The truth is, more than half of you are likely on our 00:02:41.060 |
technology today and you didn't know it. We are the back end for more than 60% of 00:02:46.060 |
the FinTechs out there. So think Webull, SoFi, Ally, Stash, eToro, Public. You're 00:02:53.060 |
probably on our technology. And what we know about that data is it's like 00:02:59.060 |
driving and voting and education. There's no difference between investing, doing 00:03:05.060 |
it between men and women. However, there is one big difference, and that is 00:03:20.060 |
I've offered our lovely sales assistant, Danielle Harrison, here $10,000 to shave 00:03:40.060 |
So while we have many different businesses at Peak Six, the heart and soul 00:03:45.060 |
remains our trading firm. Now, when I started Peak Six in 1997, the world was 00:03:50.060 |
very different. All the trading happened on the exchange floors. I was in those 00:04:07.060 |
So it's clear to me that things could probably be done a little bit better. And 00:04:12.060 |
in 1998, we actually started using technology and we became one of the first 00:04:17.060 |
off-floor equity options trading firms in the world. And despite all the booms and 00:04:23.060 |
bust cycles, the dot-com, the financial crisis, COVID, Peak Six has never had a 00:04:38.060 |
Now, we're not a fund. We don't have outside money. We had a little bit, you 00:04:42.060 |
heard in the beginning. Those investors were paid back many times over very early 00:04:47.060 |
on. You know, I could have invested in bonds or stocks or Berkshire Hathaway or 00:04:53.060 |
Steve Jobs and Apple, but I invested in the best idea I could see. I invested in 00:05:00.060 |
the proposition that a female trader could hang with the guys. 00:05:11.060 |
So how did that turn out for me? Bonds, $100 invested in 1997, now worth about 00:05:18.060 |
$300. The market, about $700. Mr. Buffett, $1,200. Apple, $180,000. 00:05:40.060 |
Well, a hell of a lot more. So how? Well, it starts with understanding options. 00:05:47.060 |
In the options world, there are almost 6,000 stocks that have listed options, 00:05:53.060 |
and that's all the different times and expirations, so-called a million and a 00:05:57.060 |
half-ish securities. At any given point in time, Peak Six will have positions in 00:06:03.060 |
3,000 to 4,000 of those stock names with their associated positions. So while it 00:06:09.060 |
requires a lot of technology, obviously, to manage this, we're not a high 00:06:12.060 |
frequency firm. We actually carry the inventory. We have it on our books as we 00:06:18.060 |
speak. So I think high frequency, it's more like a delivery service. They don't 00:06:23.060 |
really take risk, and it's just about speed and efficiency. A really good way to 00:06:29.060 |
think about Peak Six is like a grocery store. So we're servicing our customers, 00:06:35.060 |
and we need to manage the inventory well. We're much closer to like a Walmart or 00:06:41.060 |
a Safeway. And like them, if we don't manage the inventory well, it goes bad. 00:06:47.060 |
We lose. So in the same way that prices at the store are going to move around 00:06:52.060 |
based on consumer demand or on outside forces on supply like logistics or 00:06:57.060 |
weather, option prices are moving around as well. Remember, we're trading in 00:07:02.060 |
these 6,000 different names with different time frames, all unique 00:07:07.060 |
characteristics, different earnings, different dividends. We're trading 00:07:11.060 |
hundreds of thousands of options every single day. So our biggest expense, as you 00:07:16.060 |
might imagine, is technology. We're receiving billions of messages per second. 00:07:23.060 |
So we get the entire marketplace. What do we see? What's moving into extremes? 00:07:28.060 |
We might be looking at individual names that are doing that, industries, or the 00:07:33.060 |
marketplace as a whole. So what am I seeing today? Well, most people know that 00:07:41.060 |
over time, stocks outperform bonds. You take risk. You should be rewarded. Now, 00:07:48.060 |
if we look at how much better off you'd be by buying stocks, you can see it moves 00:07:53.060 |
in a relatively stable line upward sloping with some periods where stocks are 00:07:58.060 |
more or less expensive or cheap. Some of you remember the dot-com bubble. Some of 00:08:04.060 |
you are pretty young out there. Most of us will remember the financial crisis. 00:08:08.060 |
You can see that second star. Obviously COVID. And clearly no surprise to see 00:08:14.060 |
these kind of disruptions show up. Then you can see today. Then you can see 00:08:20.060 |
today. Now, there are a lot of people who are talking about this. And for me, I've 00:08:25.060 |
seen a lot. And it's really hard to call it top or bottom. And we don't pretend to 00:08:30.060 |
call it tops or bottoms, frankly. But what's unusual this time is that when 00:08:37.060 |
things get stretched, risk or the cost of options tends to be expensive. Today, you 00:08:49.060 |
can see the previous three from the last slide. And look at today. How low 00:08:55.060 |
volatility is. This is why at this point, and in the month of August, we've owned 00:09:03.060 |
more options in our portfolio than -- it's probably top five in our history. So, 00:09:11.060 |
our key to success is to manage the inventory top down and bottoms up all day 00:09:15.060 |
every day. And when the great ideas, we've got to push all in. When they come, we 00:09:21.060 |
push all in. And as good as this opportunity might seem, I'm going to tell you 00:09:27.060 |
about an opportunity that makes that small in comparison. There is going to be 00:09:36.060 |
a market correction. The correction is that half of the participants are going to 00:09:46.060 |
identify as female. How? I'll take it. [Applause] 00:10:01.060 |
Hopefully it's not a surprise to this room, but it's been right underneath our 00:10:04.060 |
nose for a really long time. We are going to teach them poker. Now, most of you 00:10:15.060 |
know that poker teaches indispensable life skills. Certainly our lovely host 00:10:21.060 |
espoused this all the time. It teaches strategy. It teaches taking risk. It 00:10:28.060 |
teaches capital allocation. I could go on and on. But guess what? Men are getting 00:10:36.060 |
those lessons, and women are not. Of the more than 110 million plus -- nobody 00:10:45.060 |
really knows the number -- poker players in the world, less than 10% are women. 00:10:51.060 |
Just like driving 100 years ago. So we started a company. It's called Poker 00:10:59.060 |
Power, even though they said Power Poker. I'll take either, as long as you're 00:11:03.060 |
saying it. It's called Poker Power. We're on a mission to teach a million women 00:11:29.060 |
We have a team of companies who recognize how important this skill can be to 00:11:33.060 |
their employees, and they are teaching this game alongside of us. Some of the 00:11:39.060 |
biggest tech companies in the world, the biggest banks, investment banks, law 00:11:43.060 |
firms, you name it. So, when I look out at this crowd, frankly, it looks fairly 00:11:53.060 |
similar-ish to the trading floor many years ago. And in five years, it's going 00:12:01.060 |
to look very different. That is my prediction. Hopefully sooner. How? Well, 00:12:09.060 |
it starts by going -- actually going -- actually going all in. We're not all in 00:12:20.060 |
if 50% of the population trades, invests, or plays poker. This podcast is not 00:12:29.060 |
called "Men In." It actually has the word "all" in its name. So, we are going to 00:12:46.060 |
challenge you guys. Challenge the hosts. Challenge the future listeners of this 00:12:55.060 |
podcast. To see how many girls -- and I say girls -- we can teach this game as 00:13:01.060 |
early as seven or eight. How many girls and women can you bring to the poker 00:13:07.060 |
table? We're going to kick off a competition today. Over the next month, we 00:13:16.060 |
want to see who can refer the most women to the Poker Power Play app. In my 00:13:23.060 |
opinion, it's brand-new. First, gender-neutral, truly gender-neutral poker 00:13:30.060 |
app on the market. Super easy. Love all the cameras I'm seeing. To get the QR 00:13:35.060 |
code and to refer the girls and women in your life. What's in it for you? Well, I 00:13:46.060 |
was thinking the hosts could decide. Knowing them, maybe it's like a Laurel 00:13:52.060 |
Piano something or Montclair. Maybe it's a buy-in to the WSOP. But whatever it 00:14:00.060 |
is, it's my gift to you. So, let's not just trade or invest in the market. Let's 00:14:27.060 |
Amazing. As a father of three daughters, I very much appreciate you making this 00:14:35.060 |
your passion. It's absolutely fantastic. We've averaged about 32, 33, over the 00:14:41.060 |
first two conferences, about 33% female. But we had to take a lot of steps to 00:14:47.060 |
make that happen. Scholarships and just, you know, finding women's organizations 00:14:50.060 |
encourage more people to come. I'm curious, just looking at the world largely, 00:14:56.060 |
we've seen a massive change. There are more women getting graduate degrees than 00:15:01.060 |
men today. Earnings, positions of power. It's really changed a lot. Why do you 00:15:08.060 |
think it's a little sticky in finance specifically? And is there something in, 00:15:13.060 |
we see it in venture capital as well. We've seen many more check writing females, 00:15:19.060 |
not just window dressing, like here's the PR person, we're calling them a 00:15:22.060 |
partner in the venture firm, and that kind of nonsense. But I'm curious why it 00:15:26.060 |
hasn't happened in finance as quickly as maybe some other pursuits. And then 00:15:32.060 |
second question, when you do get women at the poker table, and it does click, what 00:15:39.060 |
do you see change in them in terms of, you know, how they look at the world? 00:15:46.060 |
>> Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, I have to say. So why hasn't it happened 00:15:53.060 |
sooner? I'll do that one. So what I've learned, of course, being a female in a 00:15:58.060 |
male dominated world for my whole career, I also grew up with four brothers. So 00:16:03.060 |
it's no surprise maybe that I'm there. But also, like, begging to figure out how 00:16:09.060 |
to solve the problem, I will tell you it squarely comes down to risk taking. So 00:16:15.060 |
it's -- and what we don't realize, so in our natural play and hobbies, typical, 00:16:21.060 |
you know, the stereotype, how a young girl plays, I'm not taking risk. And one 00:16:27.060 |
of the things that we have found, and what I see actually helps women at the 00:16:32.060 |
poker table, it's -- because every hand is a risk of some sort. They don't get 00:16:40.060 |
enough repetition of risk. So we don't talk about taking larger risks. We 00:16:46.060 |
actually talk about taking -- not taking more risk, sorry, let me step back, more 00:16:52.060 |
risk. We talk about taking more risks with an S. So we need to get reps in. And 00:17:01.060 |
those reps aren't part of our upbringing. So for someone coming into trading, you 00:17:09.060 |
get a lot of fucking reps, right? At the poker table. That's why if we can get 00:17:14.060 |
these girls playing, I'm telling you, right, the guys are ahead. We know this. 00:17:19.060 |
The study's been done. First rung on the ladder is where the woman falls behind. 00:17:23.060 |
The guy will take the job with 60% confidence, and the next managerial job 00:17:29.060 |
become equal out of school, and she needs 90% confidence. Of course she does. 00:17:36.060 |
She hasn't taken risks. So we have to get those under their belt. Whatever they 00:17:41.060 |
look like. And by the way, they look different for everybody. And watching 00:17:46.060 |
what is a risk for your daughter, in fact, if you guys are up for it, I think 00:17:51.060 |
there's nine daughters here. >> Two, two, three. >> Three. >> Three. Three, six, 00:17:59.060 |
four. Yeah. >> It's like seven and a half. Seven and a half, I think. Just back 00:18:06.060 |
of the envelope math. >> Yes. But -- >> You see how fast I did that? >> You can't 00:18:14.060 |
count in simple numbers, bro. >> But here's the thing. We're having this 00:18:18.060 |
discussion, I think, in 2023 here, just even saying there are gender differences 00:18:24.060 |
in this, and there are different ways in which girls are raised versus boys. It's 00:18:30.060 |
kind of the third rail, but listen, it is what it is. And maybe you can talk -- 00:18:35.060 |
when you give them that push and they get 10 sessions in, 50 sessions in, now 00:18:40.060 |
they play 1,000 hands of cards, 2,000 hands of cards, what do you see happen to 00:18:44.060 |
them when they go out into the world? What changes in them when they learn to 00:18:48.060 |
take risks, when they learn to bluff, when they learn to re-raise, and when they 00:18:52.060 |
learn to fold when they thought they had a really strong hand, but hey, that 00:18:56.060 |
board's textured. >> Yeah. So we have -- we literally get testimonials, and 00:19:01.060 |
there are many senior women who are part in this corporate work we do. The 00:19:05.060 |
senior women are sort of floored and flabbergasted, I can't believe, right? So 00:19:10.060 |
I didn't realize I wasn't playing to win would be a very common thing. I didn't 00:19:15.060 |
realize somebody would actually do that. >> Yeah. >> Right? Like, I didn't 00:19:20.060 |
actually know everything when I went into that meeting. I assumed I did, 00:19:25.060 |
because I'm giving everything that I know. I'm not holding back at all. The 00:19:31.060 |
thought of holding back is not part of the repertoire either. It's the giving 00:19:36.060 |
and giving totally of self. So strategy is -- unless it's actively discussed, 00:19:46.060 |
right, isn't seemingly as natural. Obviously when we have athletes or, you 00:19:52.060 |
know, other types of experiences coming in, that tends to change it. I think -- 00:19:58.060 |
you know, I'll give you a basic question for a young woman who comes in, and she 00:20:03.060 |
goes into a meeting, and she doesn't say anything. It's kind of like you folded 00:20:10.060 |
a hand. Maybe you folded a few hands. We all know we need to fold a lot of 00:20:15.060 |
hands to win. But she keeps folding, she keeps folding. What is she waiting 00:20:21.060 |
for? Because if she keeps folding, we know she's ultimately going to lose. If 00:20:26.060 |
she never speaks up in a meeting based on Toby, we should never have been in the 00:20:30.060 |
goddamn meeting. >> She's going to get blinded out. >> Exactly. She'll be gone. 00:20:34.060 |
So at some point she has to take a risk, even if her cards aren't great in that 00:20:38.060 |
meeting, if she wants to participate. >> How do you define risk? Because for a 00:20:42.060 |
lot of people in a naive context that haven't looked at probability and 00:20:46.060 |
statistics and understood that something is unlikely to happen, but the payoff 00:20:51.060 |
you're getting is worth it to take that. It's a 30% chance of happening. But if 00:20:56.060 |
it happens, you get paid 5 to 1. So that's a good bet to make. And is that the 00:21:02.060 |
sort of kind of rubric that, you know, folks start to kind of go through to 00:21:06.060 |
understand what it means to take risk, that it's not just about doing something 00:21:10.060 |
scary or something unlikely, jump into anything scary or anything unlikely, 00:21:14.060 |
because sometimes that risk isn't worth the payoff and sometimes it is. >> It is. 00:21:18.060 |
It is both of those things, actually. So when I talk about teaching poker and the 00:21:22.060 |
first thing a man will do is say, well, if you're not playing for real money, 00:21:25.060 |
you're not really playing, which is not a true statement. Play with your kids for, 00:21:30.060 |
you know, pretzels and M&Ms or marshmallows and see what happens. You're 00:21:33.060 |
playing a real game and you're causing the brain to think differently. But we, 00:21:38.060 |
so we start way down on the curve for our women, because the whole goal is to 00:21:43.060 |
create safety and security and learning this game that is male dominated, where 00:21:48.060 |
they feel like they're going to be judged. And so probably it's around lesson 00:21:53.060 |
four, so we have a curriculum that they're starting to learn the numbers as 00:21:57.060 |
well. And how do I do it in, you know, a basic way, a quick, easy way, and then 00:22:02.060 |
how do I get better and better as I go up the curve? >> There's a great book 00:22:07.060 |
written by Annie Duke called Thinking in Bets. >> Yeah, great book. >> And I 00:22:12.060 |
would encourage all of you to read it, because I think, Friedberg, what you're 00:22:16.060 |
stating is actually something that a lot of people have, which is a little bit of 00:22:20.060 |
mathematical illiteracy around probability and probabilistic thinking. And it is a 00:22:27.060 |
very different mindset to think about expected value. Why do you make a certain 00:22:32.060 |
bet some number of times? Why losing 15 times in a row literally can be okay, 00:22:37.060 |
because over a distribution of 100 times, you may actually come out ahead. It's a 00:22:43.060 |
very difficult way to train your mind. >> By the way, I think it's really 00:22:48.060 |
important in a broader social context, so that not everything is right or wrong. 00:22:54.060 |
Not everything is I will win this bet or I will lose this bet. It requires a 00:23:00.060 |
second dimension attached to every decision, which is the probability, which 00:23:05.060 |
most people don't do, and it's what also makes conversations around things like 00:23:09.060 |
social policy and politics difficult, because people say this is one way or the 00:23:13.060 |
other, but it's like, hey, if we do this this way, there's a 30% chance it might 00:23:17.060 |
work. There's a 70% chance it might not. But if it does work, it's ten times the 00:23:21.060 |
return. That's worth us doing. So we should expect failure. But if we succeed, 00:23:27.060 |
it's going to be in an outsized way. If we get to make enough of those sorts of 00:23:31.060 |
decisions, things can move. We get caught up in a lot of our decision making, you 00:23:35.060 |
know, and social policy as well. >> David's a huge feminist thinker, and I'm 00:23:40.060 |
curious, David, you're taking all this in right now, and I can see the wheels 00:23:45.060 |
turning. Your thoughts on, you know, in the postmodern feminist world, how do you 00:23:54.060 |
think poker plays into -- >> The lunch break is not going to be fun. 00:23:58.060 |
>> I recognize that face. I see that. >> You see the compassion and the EQ. 00:24:04.060 |
>> I haven't learned how to virtue signal quite as well as you do, Jack Alpert. 00:24:09.060 |
>> Just try genuflecting one time. Give us one genuflect. 00:24:14.060 |
>> I do have an observation, actually, on this, which is I think the point you 00:24:20.060 |
made, actually, that safety is the opposite of risk is a really interesting 00:24:25.060 |
point, because the thing that you hear over and over again, for example, in 00:24:29.060 |
these debates we have over free speech, is safetyism. We have to make the 00:24:34.060 |
environment safe for people. We don't want them to hear arguments they don't 00:24:37.060 |
like. They need the safe space. I've never bought that as an argument for 00:24:42.060 |
censorship, for example, but you're making, I think, a different argument, 00:24:45.060 |
which I hadn't really appreciated before, which is if we don't make people 00:24:50.060 |
comfortable with risk, then they're not going to be successful in these areas. 00:24:54.060 |
That's another downside of this aggrandizement of safety. 00:24:58.060 |
>> Psychological safety when you come to work is a fallacy. Right? I mean, 00:25:03.060 |
this is the worst thing you could do to somebody is to make them 00:25:06.060 |
psychologically safe. The world is not safe. >> Right. 00:25:09.060 |
>> I have a market question. I apologize for my jumping. 00:25:12.060 |
>> Can I just say one thing on that? So I literally was at a dinner last 00:25:16.060 |
week, and there was a man from a very old, successful firm, and he said, 00:25:26.060 |
after too many drinks, all the women who come and ask to be partners at our 00:25:31.060 |
firm, they always come with a perfect track record. They never have lost 00:25:37.060 |
money. And I was like, and you're surprised? >> Right. 00:25:43.060 |
>> Right? I mean, it's so backwards that these extraordinarily successful 00:25:47.060 |
women feel like that is the journey that has to be had. In fact, it's the 00:25:52.060 |
opposite of the journey. What we all want them to see is how they have 00:25:56.060 |
failed, how often they failed, how they kept the failure to a minimum. 00:26:01.060 |
>> So in some ways, these are like the highest performers. >> Exactly. 00:26:04.060 |
>> Perhaps if they were men in this country. >> No, it's not even just men. 00:26:07.060 |
>> They would take more risk. >> As an immigrant, my first job was on a 00:26:10.060 |
trading floor, and I had an incredible boss who took me aside and taught me 00:26:14.060 |
the difference between batting average and slugging percentage. And that's 00:26:17.060 |
another concept that's poorly understood, because when you're at the bottom 00:26:22.060 |
looking up, you think you have to be perfect. That's batting average. But 00:26:26.060 |
when you realize that in baseball, the best batter in the history of 00:26:29.060 |
baseball, you know, is basically a 400-hitter, but that was like once, and 00:26:33.060 |
that's an aberration in the '50s or '60s, that'll never happen again. You 00:26:37.060 |
realize, okay, we're hitting for slugging percentage. And that means 00:26:41.060 |
implicitly huge error rates. >> Yes. >> Tons of losses. And unless you 00:26:45.060 |
internalize it and figure out how to manage it, you can't make a ton of 00:26:48.060 |
money. I just want to shift the conversation. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:26:51.060 |
>> You're an incredible business person. You have a vantage point that I 00:26:54.060 |
find really fascinating, and you put on a chart up there where -- about 00:26:58.060 |
inventory of options now, you're sort of at this really interesting moment. 00:27:01.060 |
Financial vol is kind of like been decimated. What does that mean as you 00:27:07.060 |
look forward based on your pattern recognition of the past? Where are we 00:27:11.060 |
headed into? And knowing where your firm is positioned in all of that. 00:27:15.060 |
>> Yeah. So we're in an odd place right now, I think, right? It has a 00:27:21.060 |
.com-esque because of AI feel to it, but we have the Fed maybe is going to 00:27:27.060 |
raise a little bit more, but not. Inflation may be slowing, but it may not. 00:27:33.060 |
We have sector rotation. We have a lot of push and pull. You're right in the 00:27:38.060 |
middle. And so what is going to snap that one way or another? Definitely 00:27:46.060 |
not something our firm tries to make the call on, but we're saying it's 00:27:52.060 |
ready. It's ready and it can if a handful of things happen, whatever 00:27:58.060 |
they may be, exogenous events, whatever it might be. And we want to be 00:28:02.060 |
ready. And by the way, we might be wrong. We'll just waste a bunch of 00:28:06.060 |
money holding the inventory that's going to rot. But -- 00:28:09.060 |
>> But basically you're long vol, is what you're saying. Massively long 00:28:12.060 |
vol and you're waiting for something in one direction or the other to 00:28:17.060 |
>> It's a good time of the year, right? We're going to go into next 00:28:22.060 |
>> We have to wrap. I really appreciate you coming out, sharing your 00:28:26.060 |
story. I encourage everyone, the QR code, we'll share that and everyone 00:28:38.060 |
>> Thank you for doing this. I appreciate that.