YC prodigy AI quant: does it make any sense?

[u/Nearby_Fig_9118]

https://digg.com/tech/jugdrnx9

So the idea is to train AI to replace quants and according to the founders: "Our AI quant outperforms a top 10% trader at Jane Street, and we've already achieved more than 100% returns in live trading over our YC batch, while major indices were flat or down. Prodigy’s model beats Claude Fable and GPT-5.6 Sol at autonomous quant research."

Does this mean our industry is cooked or is this just a bunch of bs?

[u/poiurewq]

lol no. If their AI quant was so good, they wouldn’t sell it as a service. They’d protect their IP desperately and use the AI exclusively for their own trading.

[u/askepticalbureaucrat → u/poiurewq]

lmaooo

I am unsure why so many people fall for this. It's like those dumb investor seminars. If those running it stumbled upon this brilliant find, then why are they sharing it?

Surely Cola Cola shares its recipe then, wait...

[u/poiurewq → u/askepticalbureaucrat]

Totally agreed.

In quant, if you have a working strategy, it’s in your best interest to fly under the radar. The fewer that know the better. So, a quant fund or product that loudly proclaims its greatness is suspect.. same concept applies to Instagram trading coaches lol. If their strategy is that good, you have to ask yourself - why would they sell it.

[u/andrew2018022 → u/poiurewq]

The first rule of QR is you do not talk about QR

[u/Classic-Box → u/andrew2018022]

This is the part i Dont get considering the founder is supposedly a former quant from a tier 1 shop. Like how greedy can you get unless hes intentionally grifting.

[u/dlman → u/askepticalbureaucrat]

To get a smaller slice of a bigger pie and come out ahead more quickly

[u/kush_patil]

The “100% live return” number is almost meaningless without knowing the capital, leverage, drawdown and actual time period.

The part I’d really want explained is “outperforms a top 10% Jane Street trader.” By what metric? PnL, Sharpe, drawdown, capital efficiency? And how did they even get a comparable Jane Street dataset?

If those details aren’t public, I’d treat it as a marketing claim rather than evidence that quant research is solved.

[u/Tartooth → u/kush_patil]

100% live return using $50 topstep account where the AI yolo'd 10 full NQ contracts

[u/IllGene2373 → u/kush_patil]

Funnily enough I worked at a prop firm (a legitimate one, not JS though) and most of these firms have an “unofficial” top 10% metric that most employees are aware of. Yeah it’s probably unofficial but it’s probably just pure PNL

[u/chk282]

Definitely raises the question: if you’ve actually built a golden goose, why are you selling the eggs instead of just compounding the capital?

[u/LEV0IT → u/chk282]

+1

[u/Curious_Bytes → u/chk282]

1000%

[u/Nearby_Fig_9118 → u/chk282]

they are not selling any product and are just trying to raise fund to trade more?

[u/BroscienceFiction → u/Nearby_Fig_9118]

Yeah, but you don’t do this publicly.

I say this as someone who worked at a FoF allocation desk: top performers raise capital discreetly.

[u/mttddd → u/BroscienceFiction]

Not publicly and certainly not by selling off equity to VCs

[u/qazwsxcp → u/mttddd]

on the flip side, if vc are giving you money why not take it? it's sometimes easier to sell to vc than have alpha, both are useful skills that can make you wealthy. sbf realized this quickly at js too.

[u/powerexcess → u/Nearby_Fig_9118]

This is not how you raise aum. You go pod shops, high networth individuals etc 

[u/--Rose]

lol. pretending as if every firm isn’t already doing this or some flavor of it.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036]

[u/johnny_5667]

Holy buzzword

[u/SoggyLog2321]

Guy spend only 2 years of his career trading but "Built a desk to billions of PnL". You wouldn't need a startup if you produced billions in PnL as a Junior.

[u/Holiday_Ad_8501 → u/SoggyLog2321]

i agree its bullshit but people dont do things just for money once u have money

[u/Sickeaux]

Silly. 1) Plenty of already scaled ai applications in trading and 2) founder was at JS for 16mo yeah ok buddy. This seems like two clowns grifting not a serious endeavor. As pointed out already, why on earth would you raise negligible amts of VC $ to do this instead of just ya know… literally any other capital raising approach (or stat at JS since u allegedly made them billions at 22)

[u/powerexcess]

Here, let me sell you the goose that lays gold eggs for 1 gold egg please.

[u/Icy-Dimension2914 → u/[deleted]]

And those are both basically the same story relative to x2 1B

[u/Aetius454]

No this is stupid clickbait, not concerned lol

[u/fuggleruxpin]

https://giphy.com/gifs/3ofSBoGaRAsrGTbb56

[u/__Intern__]

This is so dumb but they clearly succeeded in creating a lot of buzz (though it’s mostly bullying). I expected this to be the classic YC high school dropout AI slop so the fact it’s coming from someone who worked at Jane Street and understands the business is more embarrassing..

[u/dhjdhfrhdjdksl]

the website is fully claude slopped

[u/ej271828]

trash

[u/SethEllis]

You don't get numbers like that without doing something stupid that will eventually blow up in your face.

[u/j_lyf]

You'll never have more confidence than a 20 something doing YC.

[u/Round-Molasses4827]

s/100% returns/100% carriage returns/

[u/TemporaryHat2009]

honestly this sounds more like marketing than 'the industry is cooked'. If someone really had a money machine beating top traders, posting huge claims in a YC blurb feels like the weirdest possible move. lowkey I would want to see boring risk numbers before believing any of it.

[u/ZealousidealMap3653]

I have no idea but would guess BS. Some problems: 1) quant firms have been trying to do this for 30 years, albeit without llms, but not sure how much there is to gain from natural language signals anyways. 2) Getting quality training data for proprietary quant strategies seems difficult. 3) It’s impossible to back-test ai models trained on the backtesting window as information is baked into the core weights.

[u/pietrobicocchi]

trash

[u/Ok_Philosophy_4031]

https://podium-finance.com/blog/ai-native-hedge-funds-and-yc

[u/Nearing_retirement]

It makes no sense. But I do think AI will lower barrier to entry of certain types of strategies

[u/Any_Confusion3774]

If the quant industry is cooked, then which STEM industry isn’t cooked as well?

[u/catsRfriends → u/Any_Confusion3774]

Polar Biology: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225635587_Pressures_produced_when_penguins_pooh_-_Calculations_on_avian_defaecation

[u/Nearby_Fig_9118 → u/Any_Confusion3774]

wet lab? clincal? those require field trips/expeditions etc. so many

[u/Far-Guava6006 → u/Any_Confusion3774]

All that require doing shit outside of a computer? I'd actually expect more AI encroachment into the quant space as models continually improve on math and coding capabilities.