151: Perspective from a trading technologist—attacking unique problems w/ Rick Lane

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Rick Lane is the current CEO of Trading Technologies—a software provider that develop high-performance trading platforms which are used by; proprietary traders, hedge funds, CTAs, brokers and banks etc.

The reason why I asked Rick to appear on this episode is because, as we know, not everyone is cut out to be a trader. And that’s fine! I’d like to highlight, there are many other roles in the world of trading where you can have a great impact by leveraging skills which you may have already attained…

Prior to teaming up with his cousin, a large interest rate trader, who anticipated the inflection point of automated trading, Rick was modelling combat scenarios for the military and he also did a short stint at Google as a product manager.

Topics of discussion:

  • The challenges of trading compliance, how machine learning will inevitably detect bad behavior—with greater accuracy, and upcoming regulation changes.
  • Rick tells why he left modelling combat scenarios to work with a large interest rate trader, who had foresight to automate parts of his floor trading operation.
  • As a software developer, when you make something easy which was once difficult, can this have unintended consequences? Mistakes often cost dearly.
  • The benefits of a technology company having a CEO who comes from a development background, and what interests Rick most about the fintech space.
  • Latency wars—embedding algorithms on network switches, new trends on the horizon, and advice for how to enter the world of trading as a technologist.

Rick Lane: CEO of Trading Technologies, co-founder of TickIt Trading Systems.

Links and resources mentioned:

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