Quantopian business model & governance?

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Hello Fawce and all,

Thought I'd give you the opportunity to elaborate on how you envision Quantopian as a business. Your Quantopian Manifesto has a "power to the people" feel to it. If I scan through the list of groups that have used the raised fist symbol on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_fist), you've (perhaps intentionally) aligned yourselves with groups that are not exactly capitalist pig enterprises, including the recent Occupy Wall Street/99% movement. How does the Quantopian business model and governance match the interests of users?

5 responses

Dan Dunn

Hi Grant,

I think the most important question there is the last one, which is about how Quantopian's interests matches the interest of our members. We're going to provide services that are valuable enough that our members will be willing to pay us for them. Those services will probably be the ability to trade stocks using algorithms and access to additional data sources (more than is currently available to free). In the long run, that provider/customer relationship only works if our members are satisfied with the services we deliver. That is what aligns the interests of Quantopian with our members. Is that the question you were asking?

As for our governance, it's pretty vanilla. Quantopian is a business like most other startups out there - there are a handful of shareholders who elect board members, and the board members hire the CEO, and the CEO runs everything else. No deep mysteries there.

As for the fist, it's chunk of nuance. It's poking, part serious, part fun, at the Wall Street establishment. We're trying to dramatically change the way a lot of firms do business. On the other hand, I think it pretty quickly becomes obvious when you learn about us that we're not the IWW nor Occupy Wall Street. So why co-opt such a powerful symbol for a blog post by a fin-tech startup? I threw it in there for all the usual marketing reasons: it catches the eye, and it prompts a question that makes one want to read the blog to find the answer.

Dan

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Grant Kiehne

Thanks Dan,

That's kinda what I figured, but for whatever reason, the raised fist symbol stuck in my mind (it had the intended effect, I suppose). You need to be cautious not to become part of the same "Wall Street establishment" that you are working to turn on its head. I don't have the experience to know whether what you are offering and talking about offering are anything unique (perhaps others can comment). At this point, I also don't have enough experience to justify paying for anything (sorry). Getting data into the hands of lots of people with the right tools should result in change (and some profits for you). Wishing you continued success!

Grant

Benjamin Jung

Thanks Dan,

It's good idea. A lot of people like me pay for good services. It is serious job to take another step to trade real stock.
Python is powerful scientific tool. If we can use machine learning algorithm such as SVM and HMM.
I really hope to do it sooner.

Benjamin

Benjamin Jung

I don't know how to modify my previous writing (sorry my mis-typed sentenses).

Anyway, I'm usally doing day trading using minutes or seconds data.
It is helpful to use ta-lib for technical analysis also scikit-learn for machine learning.

Benjamin

Benjamin Jung

Oh, It is already possible to use scikit-learn. Thanks.

Benjamin