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If you haven’t heard of Carrie Sun, you probably aren’t paying attention. Like Gary Stevenson, The Sun has also published a book about her activities in the financial industry. Like Stevenson, she suddenly became omnipresent. However, while Mr. Stevenson was a macro trader who made a huge fortune through interest rate trading at Citi, Mr. Sun, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, mostly worked as a personal assistant (PA) to the founder of a “crossover fund” by choice. It was nothing more than Some were hedge funds, some were private equity funds, some were venture capital funds, and they did a little bit of everything. In the process, the founders became very rich. But, as Sun astutely observes, he was also typically strangely unhappy.
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Sun’s book* is also a semi-fictionalized memoir in which events are purported to be true, but both the names of the people and the companies have been changed. But Sun’s history shows some signs of how she based her recollections. The New York Times reports that she worked at Fidelity, Two Sigma, and Tiger Global, where she worked as a PA for founder Chase Coleman. Tiger Global did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
In Sun’s fictional account, the founder she works for is called “Boon.” He has been described as a “billionaire with relatively low self-esteem.” Boone says things like, “What about positive feedback? Because I don’t do that.” He swears that no one left the company of their own volition.
Sun started working as Boone’s PA at the age of 29, after quitting his previous job, breaking up with his fiance, and deciding he wanted to be a social lubricant rather than an investment “wheel” at a fund management company. It is not easy for her to become the founder’s PA. She has multiple interviews and evaluations with a Doctor of Clinical Psychology, who asks her about her dreams and explores her “full commitment.”
Despite this, Sun somehow seems to imagine that becoming a PA will allow her to spend more time doing what she’s really interested in: writing. Instead, Boone’s obedience comes to dominate her life, her bulimia flares up, and her individuality disappears. When she arrives at the office, she finds that all of the women have already undergone “dimensional reduction.” “They all seemed very competitive, very outgoing, fiercely energetic, and kind.” She, too, was told by Boone, “Don’t say anything weird.” .
But Mr. Sun’s most pertinent observation concerns Mr. Boone’s personality and the way he manages the fund. Although the fund generates billions of dollars, Sun said it operates on a “scarcity mindset” and is operating on the margins, with everyone working multiple jobs and becoming overworked. (with the possible exception of women whose only job is to remove “solids” from the toilet). And while Mr. Boone’s ethos is all about “efficiency,” Mr. Sun has found that there is never enough time to relax. “Please come [office] she asked him one Thursday evening, as the rest of the office was relaxing. “He sat there, staring at two black screens and a pile of reading material, and said, ‘I can’t do that.’ “I have a lot of work to do. I don’t have time.”
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