Streetwise — Chapter 14: Lloyd of London

1. 1. Jon Corzine persuaded the author to move to London by arguing that globalization required future leaders to work overseas.
2. 2. The author's family moved to London with reluctance, initially agreeing to stay only one year.
3. 3. The London office was still risk-averse after 1994 trading losses, with bankers patronizing traders and avoiding obvious arbitrage opportunities.
4. 4. The rise of quantitative trading in the late 1990s, driven by physicists and mathematicians, shifted fixed-income trading from narrative-based to model-driven strategies.
5. 5. Working abroad revealed that the New York office was provincial compared to the genuinely international London office, which felt like the center of the world.
6. 6. Goldman's New York-centric scheduling created hardships for overseas staff, such as partner meetings at 4:15 p.m. ET, which was 9:15 p.m. in London and 4:00 a.m. in Tokyo.
7. 7. The author's wife Laura sacrificed her legal career to manage the family, especially during the London move, and later expressed she wished they had stayed longer.