Name That Firm!

It's 4:20 p.m. which means it's time for yet another round of "Name That Firm!"

In today's edition we're asking if you can indentify the firm from just the below description of its staff (taken directly from the mystery firm's website):

Our staff includes a number of Rhodes, Fulbright, and Marshall Scholars, Putnam Fellows, and the winners of more than 20 medals in the International Math Olympiad. Current employees include the 2003 U.S. Women's Chess Champion, a Life Master bridge player, and a Jeopardy winner, along with a number of writers, athletes, musicians, and former professors. Over 100 of our employees hold Ph.D.s, almost 40 are entrepreneurs who previously founded their own companies, and approximately 20 percent are published authors whose work ranges from highly technical papers in specialized academic journals to award-winning mystery novels.

Now, Name That [very humble] Firm!

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... times up!

The firm is none other than New York-based hedge fund D.E. Shaw, which today appeared in a Wall Street Journal article entited, "A Peek Behind the Curtain at D.E. Shaw." The Journal, along with mentioning that D.E. Shaw has an "extraordinarily distinguished staff" and that one of its employees, a Princeton grad, calls it a "cool finance house," points out that the firm fell "to 20th place among U.S. hedge funds in terms of assets under management, from fifth last year," losing 40 percent of its hedge funds assets in 2010.

That said, the firm is on a bit of a comeback after its investors made withdrawals by the billions and, as a result, 150 of its employees were sacked last September.

More about D.E. Shaw (including its fiercely competitive hiring process and what it's like to work for the firm if you are a chess champion or Olympian or best-selling author) can be found in its Vault profile.

And, as always, thanks for playing.

(WSJ)

(D.E. Shaw Profile Overview)