This quote (sometimes attributed to Mark Twain) is one of my favorites to keep in mind when you start using statistics in algorithmic / high frequency trading. It’s one of the most common traps quantitative traders fall into.
Here I just want to make a few comments about nice looking resumes that bolster weak people, inspired by the George Santos episode (this is not political of course, but the resume lying is a pet peeve of mine). This type of thing seems more pervasive than I imagined and is likely only the tip of the iceberg. It’s unlikely we’ve caught everyone doing this.
I still can’t wrap my head around this stuff. What is the psychology that permits someone to shamelessly state (on paper, even) that they:
- Got a 3.89 GPA at Baruch College
- Was a star on Baruch’s volleyball team
- Got an MBA at New York University Stern School of Business
- Worked at Goldman Sachs, where he doubled revenue to $600M
And it turns out every single one of these things isn’t true? Like not even close? And that they were willing to infuse so much detail into each of these fabrications? The last lie about working at Goldman Sachs made me laugh and reminded me of a story from years ago.
Meeting a few friends in San Francisco at a nightclub, a girl in our group was approached by a budding pickup artist. Almost from the start of the conversation, he bragged about being a trader at Goldman Sachs where he made big bucks.
This piqued my interest because at the time I was a trader at GS. I was curious what division he worked in, what office, etc., so I asked him. All of the answers were obviously fabricated, and he got visibly flustered (doesn’t help that he’s starting to lose traction with my friend). He demanded I see my corporate ID, which I had with me. He obviously didn’t have one and when the girl rolled her eyes and walked away, it seemed like 50/50 he was going to punch me.
I still can’t wrap my head around how many people do this kind of thing. And I suppose we’re so trusting and often naive that we don’t bother checking. We need to check more.
When I was mentioned in a NY Times article a few years ago, they dutifully called Goldman Sachs to fact check that I indeed worked there. And that was just for a handful of sentences in an article. Is it too much to require even a cursory fact check for a member of the United States Congress?
From club environments, to college admissions scandals, and now the United States Congress, lying about your credentials seems to be as pervasive as it is pathetic.
A resume is not (and should not be) all that matters. There is a ton of exceptional talent not associated with organizations perceived to be prestigious. Ironically, everyone except the fraudulent folks knows that it’s the work you do after that really matters in the long term.
I’m looking forward to a future when they release GPT-10 and we can have at least one representative be an AI. At least we won’t have to worry about a neural net pretending to have gone to Harvard…
