Once upon a time the annual SALT Conference was the place to go if you wanted the best jobs in finance, but that was before hedge funds lost their cheer and SALT ring master Anthony Scaramucci lost his job with Trump. Now, the big thing is NIPS, and it’s happening now in Barcelona.
Standing for Neuro Information Processing Systems, NIPS is the big annual gathering of the world’s machine learning community. Tickets for the 7,500 places sold out in 12 days as machine learning students and professionals everywhere secured their place at symposiums run by Google, Uber, Microsoft, Nvidia and others.
If you want to jump on plane right away, don’t bother. NIPS goes on to the 9th, but entry without a ticket is strictly prohibited and there are no tickets left. The only good news is that you can still watch a lot of the event on Facebook, where NIPS is said to be live streaming the presentations. You can see the schedule here.
However, watching a stream isn’t going to do much to get you in front of the people who matter when you want to secure a job in machine learning. Li Deng, Citadel’s ex-Microsoft head of artificial intelligence is at NIPS this year. So too, says Bloomberg, are recruiters from J.P. Morgan, AHL (Man Group’s quant fund), Bloomberg itself, and Google, DeepMind, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, and Snap.
“This is the biggest event for AI for the year, so you have to be here,” Chris Rice, the head of global talent acquisition for Intel’s AI product group, told Bloomberg. NIPS is the best place to “reach out” to scarce AI talent he added. Needless to say, such scarce talent is well-rewarded. Bloomberg notes that newly-minted PhDs with a machine learning focus earn $300k+. Established academics earn millions. Next year’s conference will take place in Montreal. Tickets go on sale in September 2018. Bookmark the date.
Separately, banks appear to have added trading jobs this year. Despite the poor prognosis for fourth quarter trading revenues, Quartz notes that there are a thousand more Bloomberg terminals in operation this year than last, an increase of less than 1%, While this is posited as cause for celebration, it seems equally likely to be statistical noise.
Meanwhile:
AI will cut bankers’ pay: “You need to ask the question, what value is the human adding?” (Bloomberg)
Investors still love private equity, but private equity funds don’t love investors: Bridgepoint raised €5.5bn for a new fund and turned down another €5bn. (Financial Times)
Peter Bolland, an ex-prop trader who’d been at Morgan Stanley for years, left. (Financial News)
Former strategist who says he was unfairly sacked by Morgan Stanley is currently earning an hourly wage at a grocery store and says he has suffered from depression, insomnia and a loss of libido and self-worth. (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs wants to know your opinion about Bitcoin. (Business Insider)
Paul Tudor Jones to (post-disgrace) Harvey Weinstein: “I love you.” (NYTimes)
Second careers that paid off. (BBC)
Follow @MadameButcher
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by actual human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)
“”
Related articles:
Morning Coffee: Top dealmaker identifies junior bankers’ worst problem and it’s not the hours. 20-hour-a-day hedge fund manager is backWith an acceptance rate of less than 0.7%, it’s six times harder to get a job as an analyst at this PE giant than getting into Harvard, Yale or Stanford.
Credit Suisse has just poached one of HSBC’s most senior salesman in the U.S.One of the most senior fixed income salesman at HSBC in the U.S. has quit the British bank for Credit Suisse as investment banks battle to bring in top revenue
Â