Morning Coffee: Jane Street's big white men with sparse LinkedIn profiles. HSBC's awkward new trading floor

Who runs Jane Street? Could it be Rob Granieri, the hairy 53-year-old billionaire who goes to Burning Man? Could it be Turner Batty, the curiously named man who addressed Jane Street employees when the firm lost $15bn in July? Could it be a group of 26 people, nine of whom are on the management committee and the rest of whom run things like US options or commodities trading?

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Bloomberg thinks Jane Street is run by a group and it has dug up their names. These we have listed in the table below. Achieving the names is a feat, because unlike other organisations, where people with big jobs boast of their corporate adventures on LinkedIn, Jane Street's people are ultra low key.

Most of Jane Street's low key leaders are men. Almost all are white men. One is a woman - Marie Harrison, who is a CFO of subsidiaries. Marie and others among Jane Street's elite have profiles on LinkedIn, but Marie's profile lists no more than her name and employer. Bloomberg notes that this is a Jane Street thing: when you join the firm, you pare everything back and are as cryptic as possible. You will not find Jane Street people declaring themselves "excited" about "surging momentum" or travelling the world to photograph themselves embracing disparate employees. 

A cryptic LinkedIn profile has, in fact, always been the ultimate flex. TGS people don't even say where they work (until they move to Citadel). The world could maybe benefit from more of this. If you want to network with Granieri you probably need to find him at Burning Man.

Separately, HSBC may have dumped most of its M&A and ECM bankers in Europe and the US, but it still likes traders and it even has a new trading floor in its new office at Panorama St. Paul's. 

Unfortunately, though, the new trading floor does not sound very panoramic. Bloomberg says it has unusually low ceilings of just 2.6m versus 3.75m for the trading floor at the old HSBC office in Canary Wharf. Goldman Sachs in London has 3.2m trading floor ceilings. UBS has 3.5m. 

HSBC's traders may therefore feel a bit claustrophic. Not so, says HSBC, which declares: "We are very pleased with our upcoming move to Panorama St Paul’s in early 2027 and our headquarters will offer a newly redesigned, modern workspace including a remodeled, state-of-the-art trading floor right in the heart of the City of London.”

This could probably be added to LinkedIn.

Meanwhile...

Situational Awareness was allegedly asking for 10x leverage and had had been paying banks a larger-than-normal spread to incentivise them to help with this endeavour. (NY Times) 

Oura is delaying its IPO. So are Holtec Nuclear Corp and Bamboo Insurance Services Inc. Everyone is waiting for Anthropic. (Bloomberg) 

Lorna Hajdini renewed her countersuit against Chirayu Rana and says he fabricated his allegations to extract money from her and from JPMorgan. Chirayu Rana's lawyer says he stands by them. (NYPost) 

If you want to work for SpaceX you'll need to be prepared for 60 hour weeks and "be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.” You must also have "kind of raw, innate intelligence,” and be ok with Elon Musk looking at your CV. (Bloomberg) 

It might be a good time to work in infrastructure investment in Europe. The continent needs $800bn of infrastucture investment a year, says KKR. (Bloomberg) 

Barclays hired Tristan Wood, who was BNP Paribas' global head of FX options. (Financial News) 

JPMorgan hired three natural resources bankers: David Casson, Christopher Dahan, Greg Kantrowitz. (Bloomberg) 

Wells Fargo hired David Harkin from JPMorgan to advise on technology deals. (Bloomberg) 

Temasek is opening Middle East offices. (FT) 

Ken Griffin is giving to Carnegie Mellon so that the university can develop a Miami Campus. Half will go to the computing school, which will henceforth be known as the Kenneth C Griffin School of Computer Science. (FT)

Chris Bradley, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. wrote on LinkedIn that the concept of the glass cliff for women is “a very convenient way to always be a victim in the rain.” (Bloomberg) 

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