"I called this meeting to go over our results last quarter. Look, it is no secret that we took a beating. I know that, you know that, our investors know that, and soon everyone on the street is going to know that. We're supposed to be the masters of the universe but right now we look like a bunch of clowns. Our investments in International Talent? Down 18%. Entrepreneurs? Down 22%. Social media darlings? 31%! People trust us with their money, they give us their hard earned cash to invest for them. Because we are supposed to know better than them. And we blew it. Decades of reputation gone, poof." Mr. Nguyen paused for effect, pointing his fork at everything in the room except his salmon salad.
"We're not leaving this room until we get to the bottom of this. And until we have a game plan to make sure it never happens again."
Dirty looks and eye rolls carved out boundaries across the fifty person, $650,000 rosewood table.
"Quants, what say you? Your bots should've caught something like this coming, no?"
Mrs. Pomel spoke up, with a startle that suggested going first was not ideal, "Our team works hard to make sure we try to account for every possibility. But we've all cut our teeth in more, uh, traditional markets. Stocks don't swing wildly depending on what their shareholders post online that day. Well, not usually." Snickers. "Humans are wildly more unpredictable. And we're making progress in modeling that unpredictability, Joseph pull up the slides."
A Jackson Pollock's worth of lines and colors splashed onto the screen.
"As you can see, based on the second derivative test...," Joseph droned on. The designers cringed.
"That's enough, Joseph. Pomel, dumb it down for us," Nyugen interrupted, poking through his salad, shoveling spinach out of the way.
"Basically, as Joseph was getting at, the crux of the issue is the optionality afforded to humans. Ever read Isaac Asimov? No? Okay. There's a long literature about analyzing the behavior of groups in the financial markets. Big news about a company comes out, we can guess what direction and what volume their stock moves. Not as long a literature around analyzing the behavior of one person. Almost none in fact. In a way everyone here is a bit of a scientist, all trying to further humanity's knowledge on this front. And when you're a researcher sometimes you get things wrong. Or you think you see something when there isn't really anything there. But no result is a result, and it means we'll know not to go down that path in the future."
"Beautiful speech Pomel, but I think I speak for all the executives when I say we do not give a shit about 'furthering humanity's knowledge' if it means going broke. How does that help us now? Are we to limit the ‘optionality’ of our investments? Why should your quants be getting paid so much to tell us 'no result' with a smile." Nguyen crossed his arms.
"Well it would be a lot easier if engineering gave us better tools to work with."
"Oho, now we are pulling at a thread. Engineering, what say you?"
Mr. Mollinger glared at Pomel. "I say Pomel is living in a fantasy world. You should see some of the tickets her team cuts for us. Asking us to pull in data on the macronutrient breakdown of what every single person eats for breakfast every single day into her algos. How the hell do you propose we get that?," he answered gruffly, crossing his arms.
"I don't know, that's an engineering problem. Make an app. I bet people would gladly share that if put enough shiny things and wacky sounds in it."
"Sure, I'll just staff my whole department on that, and half of design too. For one data point. That you probably won't end up using, like all the other shit you ask for."
"Trying new things is part of the scientific method Mr. Mollinger."
"Building and maintaining ridiculous algos is not part of the engineering method, Mrs. Pomel. We don't have the manpower."
"You'll both have even less manpower if you can't work together and get me what I want," Nguyen chimed in.
"Just get me what our bots ask for," Powel smirked.
"Yeah let's get everyone to take an IQ test and send us a DNA sample while they're at it!"
"Now there is an idea!," Nguyen interrupted.
"No there is not. I was joking."
"It seems to me like all your best ideas are jokes. What is with this 'can not do' attitude. That is not the Three Sigma way."
"Forget the moral and ethical ramifications. How do you suggest getting people to take an IQ test and a cheek swab? It'd be easier to get their breakfasts."
"Incentives, Mollinger. We can use the carrot or the stick. Maybe our algorithms 'choose' to invest a little extra into them if they take the test. Or inversely, they 'choose' to reduce their investment, due to higher risks or whatever. We can A/B test to see which one performs better. But I believe we may be on to something."
"We can make them compete against each other," Albert on the Product team suggested.
"Intriguing, what are you thinking?"
All eyes were on Albert now. He steeled himself. This was what all those hours had built up to. His chance to speak directly to the CEO, the board, his boss' boss' boss. To finally be recognized.
"Oh, uh, say we define communities, could be at the, um, city level, or maybe country level, or even neighborhood level for some bigger cities. And then we, er, tell the investments there that we only have room for half as many of them in our portfolio. And that, uh, this test will be used to, ah, decide who stays and who goes. Anyone who doesn't take the test, auto-automatically drops to the bottom of the ranking. Let them sort it out, y'know, among themselves. Make an example of communities who don't buy in. Dr-drop them all." Nailed it.
"Interesting idea Mr. Alfred. Mr. Lee, lay out the foundation for how such a tier system may look. I am eager to see what you come up with. Feel free to get really crazy with it." Albert saw red.
"IQ tests aren't necessarily the best predictors of financial performance," Pomel injected.
"Then make your own test. K through 12 did the work, we know if the can read and write. Build off that. Figure out whatever genetic markers correspond to Joseph's second derivation or whatever, or whatever questions you need to ask to gauge profitability and put something together. Simpler than your charts this time, Mrs. Pomel. And cost-effective. Look at me doing your job for you."
Nguyen took a bite of salmon and pointed his fork at the table. He chewed slowly, swallowed pointedly, and said "I think we are really on to something here my friends. If we can pull this off we'll have an advantage no other firm has. I'll follow up with PR and Legal to grease the squeakiest wheels. R&D, get to it. How long do you think it will take."
Pomel and Mollinger bounced looks off each other.
"Three months," Mollinger prodded.
"We can do our part in two," Pomel parried.
"Let's do it in one," Nguyen slammed. He threw his plate in the trash and left the room.
Pomel and Mollinger glanced at each other.
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"Sonia, can you come down here? I need you to read something for me." The question flowed up the stairs, hitching itself onto a cool spring breeze, only to crash against the psychedelic-metal blaring in Sonia's headphones. The effect wasn't entirely discordant.
"Come up here instead, I'm doing homework," Sonia replied in Spanish.
"You'd make your own old Mama walk up all those stairs? Shame on you," the yell came from below.
"Shame on you? I could make a song around that," Sonia thought. "Yeah I would, Grandma," Sonia replied, riffing an imaginary guitar.
Laura came up the stairs, groaning exaggeratedly the whole time. She opened Sonia's door and flopped onto her bad, only half exaggeratedly catching her breath.
"You're a rotten girl, you know that?"
"Yup!"
"I should've grounded you more."
"I also put the blame on you."
"Smart mouth. Why don't you use that brain of yours on your tests instead of making fun of your poor Mama."
"I'm not."
"It's that music you listen to. So scary. I don't get how you can even fall asleep here with her looking at you," Mama pointed to a band poster above the bed of a band called "Sleepytime." The main singer wore pajamas and had a headless teddy bear in one hand, its head in the other. And a knife in her mouth.
"Very easily. Sometimes I pretend she's watching over me."
"We had angels do that when I was a girl. Anyway, read this for me. There's too many big words. Since you spend all your time studying they should be easy for you."
"I study music. And you're the one who always says schools the most important thing in the world."
"After your parents. Don't make me show you the scars on my belly."
"Please Mama no!"
"Then read."
She tossed a packet at Sonia. Sonia caught it and stuck her tongue out. She skimmed over the first page and made a face.
"What's that face."
"Quizzical?"
"What does that mean?"
"It's like being confused. It's a word writers like."
"What's so confusing. Read it carefully. It's from those Cap people. It's important. If you read it wrong we might not have the money to send you to college."
"Yeah, yeah, I will. It's saying they want you and Papa to take a test."
"A test. Lord, when will these people stop asking us to do stupid shi- things for them? What kind of test?"
"A 'investment worthiness test'."
"How does that mean?"
"What does that mean, is what you mean. And I'm not sure, let me keep reading. 'This packet contains all the materials required for your investment worthiness test, including one (1) cheek swab, one (1) access code to an online examination portal, and one (1) waiver allowing collection of personal information.' There's something about how to take a cheek swab, something something, blah blah blah, what the hell?"
"Language!"
"Sorry, what the heck?"
"That's better. Now what the hell do they want with my cheek?," Laura stuck her tongue out at Sonia.
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"You're going to heck," Sonia rolled her eyes, "they want a DNA sample. It says they're looking for things in your genes that might mean you're a bad investment or something."
Laura rolled her eyes. "I'll spit on them in person if they want it so bad. Like what?"
"They might like that."
"Sonia!"
"Sorry! It doesn't really specify what they're looking for. It just says 'markers that would suggest investment rebalancing, like impulsive behaviors, inability to pick up new skills, and atypical thought processing.'"
"Go easy on me Sonia."
"I don't even know what that means!"
"What else do they want?"
"There's an actual test too, not just a DNA test. It says the tests for checking things like your problem solving skills-"
"I'll do well on that, all I ever do is solve everyone's problems."
"Your problem solving skills, your actual, like, employment skills, and like, your general mental state."
Laura sighed. "What was the last thing?"
"A waiver for them to collect more personal info."
"Like what?"
"It doesn't say specifically. There's some legal junk but I'm not a lawyer, at least not yet, so I have no idea what it means. Says something about what you had for breakfast that day."
"Now I have to start eating breakfast too?! They want me to get fat."
"They'd probably lower your Cap if you did too, those jerks."
"Do I have to do it? What if I don't?"
"It says they'll sell their shares in you, which would lower your Cap, and make you a riskier investment. Oh, and there's one more thing. It says that our barrio has been underperforming in their portfolio, and that they're only keeping the top half highest scorers on this test."
"They're loco. How can they do that to us? After we've sent them so much money."
Sonia shrugged apologetically.
"Oh Lord. Poor Carmela. She's not so bright. Don't ever IHO Sonia. It's more headache than it's worth."
"That's like telling me not to grow up."
"Don't do that either. Just stay my little baby girl forever."
"Mom, I'm 14!"
"Yes, and?"
"So are you going to do it?"
"What choice do I have?" Laura shrugged, "I have to do it for you."
"No you don't."
"Yes I do. You'll understand when you have a baby of your own."
"Not happening."
"Yes it will," Laura smiled, and got up. "Give me the things, I should do it now before I change my mind."
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A mess of hands worked urgently in the church basement. They were putting together bundles to donate. Christian rock played in the background, at an aptly subdued volume.
"Did you all get some stupid letter from the money guys?," Laura asked, layering cans of soup at the bottom of a duffel bag.
"Sí, they sent me one too.," Donna said, not looking up from the shirts she was folding.
"Me too," Carmela said, playing with the toys before putting wrapping them.
"What are you going to do?," Laura followed up.
"What can we do? They'll drop us if we don't play along. Oh, look at this shirt, it's disgusting." Donna made a face, tossing the shirt in the trash.
"My daughter loves that band. They're too scary for me."
"When is she going to come back to the church? I haven't seen her beautiful little face in years. She always wanted to play the piano during mass. Now she's old enough, you should tell her she can."
"Oh, I don't know. I ask her to come every week but she doesn't want to anymore."
"My daughter comes every week."
"That's nice. I don't want to force Sonia to come though."
"You're her mama not her friend."
"She'll come when she's ready. Anyway, about the test. Did you see that they're only going to keep the top half of us in their portfolio?"
"Eh?," Carmela looked up, "Where did you hear that?"
"It said in the letter."
"Oh my god. I didn't read that far. Dios mío, what am I gonna do? "
"Did you take it already?"
"Sí, I just wanted to get it over with."
Laura and Donna put their soups and shirts down and gathered around Carmela.
"How was it?," Donna interrogated, "what do they ask about?"
"I don't remember, there were a lot of questions. There were shapes and patterns and puzzles and other mierda."
"Shapes and patterns? Like a math test?," Laura continued.
"No, just asking like what shape comes next in a pattern. I didn't pay too much attention, I didn't think it was important." Carmela was on the verge of tears.
"Honey it'll be ok," Laura consoled.
"Was the test in english, like the letter?" Donna interjected.
"No, you could take it in Spanish, that wasn't an issue."
"Good, what else do you remember?"
"Uh, there were some confusing questions. Stuff like 'spell backwards, forwards.' I was like what do you want? Just write the word 'backwards'? Or forwards, spelled backwards?"
"Ugh."
"Thanks Carmela."
"Hey Laura could you help me in the storeroom for a moment?"
"Oh, sure Donna."
Carmela stayed, putting toys in the bag absentmindedly.
"Sounds like Carmelas not going to make it," Donna said, now out of earshot.
"Probably, poor thing. I don't know what she's going to do with that boy of hers. He's so much trouble already."
"Sí, we'll pray for her. But what are we going to do? Me with my Elizabeth, you for Sonia?"
"What do you mean?"
"Aren't you paying attention? How do we make sure we're in the top half?"
"I don't know, study?"
"Don't talk to me like I'm Sonia. We're adults here, madres, we can't leave it to chance. If there isn't enough room for everyone, we need to make sure the right people stay on. People in our church. We can use the money to help the others. We don't know if they would do the same for us."
"Donna, what are you saying?"
"We can help each other. During the test."
"I don't like that. I'm not a cheater."
"Don't give me that crap. I don't mind lying to those putas and I don't think God does either."
"I don't care about lying to *them*. I care about the rest of the neighborhood. It's not fair to them. Some of them work Sundays, they can't even come to church."
"And we'll take care of them. But we need to make sure God's house is in order first."
"God's or ours?"
"Both."
"Ok, forget right or wrong. What if they find out?"
"Then we get dropped, just like we would have been anyway."
"What if none of us take it. They can't drop all of us right?"
"Of course they can! You think they give one shit about us? And do you really trust, I don't know, Raymond Cruz to not just take it behind everyone's back."
"You think he would?"
"Of couuuurse," Donna drew out the statement, twisting it with sarcasm and exasperation. "I don't like putting myself in a situation where I have to trust everyone else to behave. I trust myself, that's it. And maybe you. But not if you keep this up."
"Ok, ok. I'll do it. For Sonia. And the barrio."
"Good, we can text each other answers, make sure we win."
"I don't know if win is the right word."
"Continuamos then. I'll set up the chat."
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Downstairs a fan shook violently, pushing not enough air over Laura. "Can't let them ruin my Cap," she thought, "or I won't be able to repair the A.C. before it starts getting hot in April."
She turned on her computer and logged into the portal. Warm, inviting colors showed her her current Cap, her price history, her investors. It was all so saccharine. A green box, with a weird stretchy blue cartoon character pointing at it to make sure she couldn't miss it, led to the test. She put in her code and her webcam turned on. "This call is being recorded," a robotic voice announced.
"Eh?"
"Hello Miss Sanchez," said the man on her screen.
"Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Mr. Kaur, I'll be proctoring your exam today."
"I didn't know there was going to be someone watching me. I look like shit."
"Do not worry Miss Sanchez, I am only here to make sure you do not cheat, not to judge your appearance."
*Shit.* "Can I go brush my hair or something at least."
"No, we should begin. I, like you, am partially graded based on my efficiency. Got to go fast, you know?"
"Seriously? The test better not grade me on my appearance. Seems like it grades everything else."
"The test does not, at least for the moment. Thank you for your understanding. Have you read over the preparation materials."
"No, because you only sent them in English. My daughter helped me understand them."
"My apologies Miss Sanchez. I've heard this from a number of test takers before you. Rest assured, Three Sigma is aware and will take steps to rectify this. Do not worry, the test itself is in many different languages."
"Great, I'd like to take it in Spanish if possible."
"I can do that. Please take a moment to read the instructions on the screen and feel free to begin."
Laura squinted. Quizzically, maybe?
"Who wrote this?"
"What do you mean Miss Sanchez?"
"These instructions. They don't make any sense. The Spanish is awful."
"How so?"
"The grammar and stuff. Right here it says to put my laptop in the sky." *How did Carmela understand any of this?*
"Are you sure that you are fluent in Spanish Miss Sanchez?"
"Are you joking with me?"
"I don't mean to offend Miss Sanchez but I'm sure the test is translated appropriately."
"What's your native language?"
A pause. "Hindi."
"Did you take their test? In Hindi?"
"I am not at liberty to share that Miss Sanchez."
"Okay, but did you see the test in Hindi, you know, for your work while proctoring or something."
A pause; "Yes Miss Sanchez."
"Was it correct?"
"There were some mistakes here and there but you can guess to the meaning of the questions more often than not."
"And that's okay with you? And the test takers? And the guys who made it? I can get a question wrong because they were too cheap to hire real translators and used some program and I'm the one who gets punished?"
"It is the position of the company that the algorithm used to translate the test has an acceptable accuracy and can not be used to challenge the results of the test. That was in the waiver you signed Miss Sanchez."
"Who reads all that? It was like two hundred pages. In English!"
"I'm sorry for any inconvenience Miss Sanchez, but no one forced you to sign anything."
"You guys did! You threatened me! Saying I'd have less money if I didn't do this bullshit!"
"Please don't get angry at me Miss Sanchez, I have no more control of this than you do, I am simply proctoring your exam. I do not have the power to change any of these processes, and I am merely doing my best, like yourself.
"I can *feel* my blood pressure going up."
"I am sorry to hear that Miss Sanchez - for what it is worth, mine has also been high, in the sky, like your laptop.
"Was that a joke?"
"A poor attempt at one, I apologize."
"No, no, it was funny. Kind of."
"Thanks."
"I'd quit my day job if I were you."
"Oh I could never afford that."
"It's a saying. Like if someone is not funny you say 'don't quit your day job,' because - whatever, jokes aren't funny if you have to explain them. It's a compliment."
"Thank you Miss Sanchez."
Laura flashed a smile. Mr. Kaur's mustache just barely twitched upwards.
*I can use this.* "Before we start, I just want to say I'm sorry. For snapping at you. It's just, I have a daughter, it's just the two of us, and this test has been so stressful. I can't get dropped. For her. And now with the translation so bad, I might get dropped and it wouldn't even be my fault." Laura started tearing up.
"Please don't cry Miss Sanchez. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's just, could I maybe use a translating app on my phone or something? I won't cheat, I promise."
"Miss Sanchez, I don't want to be a hardass. I'm paid to be. And I apologize on behalf of Three Sigma about the translation quality. While I wish I could let you use a translating app, that is strictly forbidden. It's my job to watch you and make sure you can't cheat. And I have to do so, to the best of my ability. It is unfortunate that I cannot see everywhere in your room, such as under you desk, but as long as you do not use a phone where I can see it then I am satisfied."
"Oh. Well, you're just doing your job I guess." She winked. His eye barely twitched closed.
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"Mama I'm home," Sonia yelled through the door. The sound thrashed its way through the house, in a matter entirely discordant.
"Great, can you come here Sonia?"
"Sure, what's up."
"I got a letter from the Cap people. I need you to read it."
"Oh god, not again."
"It's a lot less this time."
"That could either be really good or really bad."
Sonia clambered up the stairs.
"Why are you in my room?"
"I was waiting for you. I'm too nervous to open it."
"You couldn't wait downstairs?"
"Do you pay rent? No? Then it's my house and I can wait wherever I want. Why, are you hiding something?"
"Ok let's read that letter!"
Laura frowned.
Sonia's eyes darted across the page.
"Blah blah blah."
"Dont 'blah blah blah' me, tell me what it says."
"Just a bunch of garbage about how the results of the tests, and 'any actions taken thereafter' are legal. Covering their as-butts."
"How'd I do?"
"Pretty well! They'll keep you on as an investment!"
"Oh thank God!"
"How much do I get? Without me passing you answers you would have failed!"
"You get a room and free food. That was for your own good, not for me. Anyway I wouldn't have needed to involve you if Donna had answered. I guess she couldn't sweet talk her proctor like I could. Poor woman, I hope she's ok. And Mr. Kaur too."
"Yeah I heard a lot of people got dropped."
"We'll pray for them."
"How will that help?"
"Sonia!"
"Sorry, sorry."
"You're a good girl, but you're too bold. Now take this poster down. I'm going to bring you a little nativity scene to look at instead."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Nguyen chewed unhurredly. Furtive glances bounced across the room. He'd really need to teach these people the value of a well-placed silence.
"So, Joseph, how are we doing?," he said after washing his bison down with wine.
"Uh, doing well Sir. All our metrics and KPIs have decidedly recovered since last quarter. I've prepared some materials," he said while sharing his screen.
"An executive summary huh? Very nice! Looks like the metric of 'odds Joseph is still working here' just went up."
Joseph blustered out a smile.
"Yes, very nice, very nice. Investments up across the board. Looks like we are doing quite better than the competition. All it took was the balls to make it happen. Pomel, Mollinger, what say you?"
"After you," Mollinger offered.
"No, please go ahead," Pomel responded.
"Thanks. I gotta say, the team really outdid themselves here. The test is cheap, it's scalable, and it's hard to replicate. We did some cryptographic magic that works well with the rest of our processes, but would take other firms a while to catch up to. And quant really stepped up, absolute pleasure to work with."
"Fantastic. Let's compound this advantage until no one can stand up to us! Pomel?"
"The tests have increased our predictive powers by a considerable amount, as Joseph's slides show."
"Yes, we can all read."
"What isn't on the slides is the competitive angle someone mentioned in the last meeting. Was it Lee?" Lee nodded. Alfred seethed. Or was it Albert?
"People are prepping for this test now. Some enterprising folks have started a whole test-prep industry around this."
"As long as it doesn't take away from their income we can use this to our advantage. Maybe another revenue stream. Sell test-prep materials, license out the test?" Nguyen pondered.
"And credit where credit is due, the media people seeded the competitive element incredibly well. People are breaking down our door to give us their information! E2E is up 300% in the last month alone!"
Nguyen clapped, "That's the moneyshot! There's something I can take away back to our investors! You all deserve a round of applause!"
One well-timed round later, Nguyen continued "Now, I've heard some chatter about non-english versions of the test being poorly translated."
"Yes, by design," Pomel responded. "And a great bit of engineering on Mollinger's part. The test algorithmically adjusts itself, translating itself better or worse depending on whether or not we want to drop that investment. It's so subtle that by the time anyone catches on we'll have made so much money we can pay off any fine. And keeps us in the clear of whats left of the anti-prejudice laws."
"You two are brilliant."