The Hedgineer Podcast
The Hedgineer Podcast explores how AI is reshaping the way hedge funds and asset managers research, operate, and invest. Hosted by Michael Watson (CEO) and Jhanvi Virani (COO) of Hedgineer, the show discusses AI-driven changes in fund processes, new AI developments, and features conversations with industry leaders. New episodes are released weekly.
Episodes
Can AI Turn You Into a Creative? S3E16
Michael and Jhanvi have never edited a video before, and this week they built an entire marketing campaign. They walk through the whole pipeline: Claude Code turning a long prompt about the product into a storyboard of 12 to 16 shots, generating a color scheme and reusable SVG characters, routing clip generation through Runway to Veo, Kling and Seedance, then pulling narration and a score timed to
Vibecoding: The Right Way | S3E15
Building application prototypes has never been easier. The ceiling comes after, when someone has to deploy it, host it, and keep it running without much engineering support. This week, Jhanvi and Michael work through what stands between a good prototype and a good application: setting up AI environments that are faster to work in and harder to break, wiring in MCP connectors thoughtfully, and what
How Do You Hedge Against AI? S3E14
AI names were sold off for several days, a heavily levered AI fund wound down its entire equities book, and then one earnings print reversed most of the damage within hours. The same industry supported two opposite readings in the same day, which says more about how funds are measuring their AI exposure than it does about AI.Michael and Jhanvi start with why so few funds formally manage their expo
Crafting an Enterprise AI Policy | S3E13
Almost every fund has a couple of power users spending their weekends in Claude Code, prototyping automations, and proving out how useful AI can be. But then what? How do they hand it to a teammate, and how does a prototype become a production automation that compliance signs off on?Michael and Jhanvi make the case that the gap is a governance problem sitting upstream of every technical one. Every
Kimi K3: End of the Model Moat? S3E12
Kimi K3 shipped this week, topped multiple coding benchmarks against Fable and Soul, and its full open source release is expected before the end of the month. Where does that leave the frontier model providers? Michael and Jhanvi get into why Anthropic and OpenAI have new incentive to lock down session data, conversation history, model reasoning, tool and skill calls, so a competitor can't dis
We Got Rid of Our Forward-Deployed Engineers | S3E11
Hedgineer stopped hiring forward-deployed engineers. Michael and Jhanvi explain why and reflect on when the FDE operating model breaks. Hedge Fund clients showed up assuming a shared context about their business that even the strongest engineers could never have. They also talk through what replaced it: forward-deployed analysts who have worked in similar roles as the teams they're deployed to
What Does It Mean to Own Your Own Context? S3E10
Anthropic has been quietly redacting pieces of what Claude Code and Cowork report back through its telemetry logs. First the model's own reasoning disappeared from the traces. Then, briefly, so did users' prompts. No release notes, no explanation, just a feature flag that got flipped and eventually flipped back. Michael and Jhanvi use the incident to get into a bigger question: what does i
Gone Looping | S3E9
Michael and Jhanvi break down what an agentic loop actually is, how it works under the hood, and what it looks like when investment teams put it to use. From earnings recap to idea generation, the conversation covers how loops shift analysts from reactive prompting to autonomous pipelines that accelerate idea velocity.We also cover what's new in AI: Claude's new Slack tag feature and the v
The Future of Compute Futures | S3E8
OverviewThe standard order book matches trades by price and time priority, one at a time. For a fund executing a basket or a pair trade, that means legging into positions sequentially, facing the exposure problem on every leg. In 2016, Kelly Littlepage began building OneChronos around a different premise: let traders express their full intent, and let a mathematical optimization engine find the be
Broker Research Has an AI Problem | S3E7
Sell-side research is the last data category that still resists clean AI integration. US brokers monetize through trade execution, not data sales, which means feeding analyst reports into an LLM removes the attribution that justifies the entire model. No attribution, no incentive to share. That standoff has left buy-side funds cobbling together workarounds for years.This week brought two competing
Driving Alpha via AI Agents in Fundamental Research | S3E6
The barrier to impressing institutional investors with artificial intelligence is high because portfolio managers and analysts already know their coverage universes deeply. Traditional chatbots that merely summarize 10-Ks or earnings transcripts often act as an enemy to true market comprehension, resulting in weak adoption across fundamental investment teams.In this episode of The Hedgineer Podcas
Dev Days & Lock-In Fears: A Frontier Model Race Check-In | S3E5
Anthropic and Google both had massive dev days recently. And they couldn't be more different. In this episode, Jhanvi and Michael break down what each announcement signals about the frontier model race and where it's headed. Anthropic is doubling down on enterprise agents, memory stores, and "dreaming," while Google is going wide with consumer AI, a multimodal Omni model, and Spa
Beyond the Chatbot: Building Agent-Native Enterprises with Mitchell Troyanovsky | S3E4
The transition from AI as a chatbot to AI as an autonomous agent requires more than just better models; it requires agents capable of regulating their own state and context at scale.In this episode of The Hedgineer Podcast, co-hosts Michael Watson and Jhanvi Virani sit down with Mitch Troyanovsky, co-founder of Basis, an agent platform specifically designed for the accounting industry. The convers
Who Owns the Last Mile? Frontier Labs Enter the Consulting Arena | S3E3
Anthropic just announced an enterprise services venture backed by Goldman, Hellman & Friedman, and Blackstone. OpenAI is raising $4B for something similar. So why are frontier model providers suddenly trying to become consultants?In Season 3 Episode 3 of The Hedgineer Podcast, Michael and Jhanvi break down what's driving the move: why handing a company a Claude license rarely translates in
The Energy Behind the Intelligence with Neel Somani | S3E2
Neel Somani is a quant engineer turned content creator covering power markets, AI infrastructure, and crypto. In this episode of The Hedgineer Podcast, we dig into how the AI boom is reshaping energy markets, how rising compute costs are forcing companies to measure AI ROI, and whether open source models are changing the build vs. buy decision.About the GuestNeel Somani is a technologist and resea
The Art of Building for Agents | S3E1
SaaS companies are pivoting: less investment in the dashboard, more in the API. Salesforce's headless MCP suite, Ramp's CLI, Linear's AI connectors — the pattern is the same. Products are being rebuilt for agents, not humans.In this episode, Jhanvi and Michael dig into what's driving the shift and what it means for funds evaluating their stack. They also get into the architecture q
Season 2 Finale: Open-Sourcing the Investor Library with Daloopa CEO Thomas Li | S2E10
Season 2 Finale: Open-Sourcing the Investor Library with Daloopa CEO Thomas LiThe Season 2 finale of The Hedgineer Podcast features the return of Thomas Li, Co-founder and CEO of Daloopa, for his third appearance on the show. This episode marks a significant milestone as we transition into a new chapter for the podcast.Special Announcement: Season 3 and New FormatBefore diving into the discussion,
AI Orchestration: From Custom Skills to Autonomous Hedge Fund Operations | S2E9
AI Orchestration: From Custom Skills to Autonomous Hedge Fund OperationsMost asset managers treat AI as just a chatbot, failing to bridge the gap between an LLM's general reasoning and the specific, high-stakes workflows of their actual day-to-day.In this episode of The Hedgineer Podcast, Michael Watson sits down with Jhanvi Virani, COO of Hedgineer, to discuss the practical mechanics of deploying
Data Liquidity and the Agentic Marketplace: Moving Beyond Bulk SaaS Contracts with Dan Entrup and Freeman Lewin | S2E8
Data Liquidity and the Agentic Marketplace: Moving Beyond Bulk SaaS ContractsThe traditional model of purchasing financial data is structurally misaligned with the requirements of modern AI development. While hedge funds have historically navigated opaque pricing and rigid, six-figure bulk contracts, the rise of Frontier Labs and agentic workflows demands a shift toward data liquidity and consumpt
AI in Finance: The Data-Centric Strategy with Snowflake's Jonathan Regenstein | S2E7
Welcome back to The Hedgineer Podcast, where host Michael Watson dives into the world of AI, data, and technology within asset management, hedge funds, and financial services. In this episode, Michael sits down with Jonathan Regenstein, who leads AI within Financial Services at Snowflake.This conversation explores the critical role of data and platform strategy in the successful enterprise deploym
Technology, Talent, IP, and AI: Exploring the Foundations of Modern Hedge Fund Architecture w/ Lucas Rooney | S2E6
Welcome back to The Hedgineer Podcast. In this episode, host Michael Watson sits down with crowd-favorite returning guest, Lucas Rooney.Lucas pulls back the curtain on the "0 to 1" journey of building a new fund, from diligencing the initial idea and recruiting top-tier talent to making the critical "build vs. buy" decisions for a foundational technology stack.But how does launching a fund today d
Beyond the AI Hype with Jason Strimpel | S2E5
Beyond the AI Hype with Jason StrimpelIn this episode of The Hedgineer Podcast, host Michael Watson sits down with Jason Strimpel, founder of PyQuant News, long-time Pythonista, and AI enthusiast.They dive deep into the practical and philosophical implications of artificial intelligence in both asset management and daily life. They break down how the agentic loop works with the Anthropic Agent SDK
Knowledge Graphs, Kuzu, and Building Smarter Agents | S2E4
Kuzu, Knowledge Graphs, and the AI Revolution with Prashanth RaoIn this episode of the Hedgineer Podcast, host Michael Watson is joined by Prashanth Rao, AI Engineer at Kuzu, for a deep dive into the world of embedded graph databases and their pivotal role in the age of AI. Building on the previous week's discussion of the columnar database DuckDB, this conversation explores Kuzu, a parallel conce
DuckDB, Apache Arrow, & the Future of Data Engineering w/ Rusty Conover | S2E3
In this episode of The Hedgineer Podcast, host Michael Watson is joined by special guest Rusty Conover, the world's most prolific DuckDB extension builder, for a masterclass on building the next generation of real-time, large-scale data systems.Rusty, who has an extensive career in data engineering, including at multi-manager hedge funds, pulls back the curtain on what makes DuckDB so revolutionar
From Viral Reddit Tool to Enterprise AI: The OpenBB Story | S2E2
From Viral Reddit Tool to Enterprise AI: The OpenBB Story | S2E2Welcome back to Season 2 of The Hedgineer Podcast, where host Michael Watson talks data, AI, and technology in the hedge fund and asset management space.In this episode, Michael sits down with Didier Lopes, the founder of OpenBB, for a conversation that started five years ago during the meme stock boom. Michael reached out to Didier i
AI in Finance: Eliminating Hallucination & Scaling Workflows w/ Daloopa CEO Thomas Li | S2E1
Welcome back to the Hedgineer Podcast!We're kicking off Season 2 with one of our favorite guests, Thomas Li, Co-founder and CEO of Daloopa (https://hubs.ly/Q03C7TSR0).In this episode, we delve into the significant advancements Daloopa has made, including its groundbreaking announcement with Anthropic FIS and its integration into OpenAI. Thomas shares how Daloopa's high-quality, error-free financia
The Hedgineer Podcast | Season 2 Announcement
Special Announcement: Kicking Off Season 2!In this season 2 kickoff episode, host Michael Watson welcomes listeners back for the second season of The Hedgineer Podcast, the go-to source for discussions on AI, data, and technology within asset management, hedge fund, and prop trading space.Get ready for an exciting new season featuring a lineup of entrepreneurs and thought leaders. The season kicks
Revolutionizing Market Data with Christina Qi of Databento | Episode 16
Welcome to Episode 16 of The Hedgineer Podcast! In this episode, host Michael Watson dives deep into the world of technology, data, and AI in the asset management, hedge fund, and proprietary trading space. Joining Michael is Christina Qi, the founder of Databento.Michael kicks off the episode by introducing Christina and discussing the disruptive impact of Databento on the real-time market data e
The Future of the Alternative Data Space | Episode 15
Data is maturing at an incredible rate. In turn, the value of data is increasing as new strategies and productization continues to evolve. In episode 15, Eagle Alpha CEO Niall Hurley, discusses the changes and developments in the alternative data space.Niall highlights emergence of corporates, often times b2b SASS companies, realizing new high margin revenue opportunities by monetizing their dat
Ep 14 | Storytelling with Data
At Hedgineer, we believe data has a voice and we are committed to helping you hear what its saying.In this episode, former Goldman Lead Engineer, now Hedgineer Managing Director Jhanvi Virani joins us to discuss how hedge funds can deliver alpha to their investors by leveraging the Hedgineer platform. Gone are the days of siloed data and non existent processes. To thrive as a hedge
Ep. 13 | The Power and Risks of Artificial Intelligence
Just about everything in the world of finance is data. It’s only a matter of time that the early adopters and educated users of AI will outrace their competitors to the top.In Episode 13 of the Hedgineer podcast, host Michael Watson interviews Rob Krzyzanowski, an expert in AI and machine learning with experience at notable firms like Avant, Spring Labs, and Citadel - and also a partner at Hedgine
Ep. 12: Defining The Modern Data-Driven Approach (Playbook) to Investor Relations
The hedge fund industry can learn a lot about monetizing data, especially through the lens of CRM - Customer Relationship Management.In this episode, long-time Salesforce executive Kyle Johnson joins us to discuss how CRM went from a fringe business concept to a core driver of today’s corporate environment. And here’s the key, CRM is really all about data. Names, phone numbers, emails, dates, etc.
Ep. 11: Navigating UI and UX in Hedge Funds: Insights from Brian Lee
Welcome back to the Hedgineer Podcast, where we delve into the fascinating world of AI, data, and technology for hedge funds, asset managers, and prop trading. In this episode, we’re thrilled to have Brian Lee as our guest. Brian, a former colleague, is a true thought leader when it comes to user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) in the hedge fund space.Brian’s journey has been nothing short
Ep 10: The Intersection of AI, Entrepreneurship and the Enterprise Evolution
In episode 10 of the Hedgineer Podcast, our founder Michael Watson discusses the importance of intellectual property (IP) ownership and how AI can empower domain experts to create scalable businesses and drive innovation. Watch this rare episode to hear more about the impact of AI on service-based entrepreneurship, including his own journey, and the revolution of enterprise operations beyond chat
Ep 9: The Evolution and Future of Data-Driven Intelligence with Kirk McKeown
How are the industry’s leading investment firms successfully integrating AI to augment data analysis and fundamental research? We had the opportunity to have Kirk McKeown, founder of Carbon Arc, share how he is using AI to enhance the data collection process and how research teams can leverage intelligence to make better data-driven decisions.Listen to the full episode to learn more.________
Ep 8: Building the Hedge Fund of the Future: Technology, Data, and AI
Join us for an in-depth roundtable discussion with the brains behind Hedgineer. Discover how AI and machine learning are revolutionizing risk management in hedge funds. Michael Watson, Brian Mahlstedt, and Gerard Miller explore cutting-edge techniques to identify hidden risks, optimize portfolio construction, and make smarter investment decisions.Listen to the full episode to learn more. ________
Ep 7: AI, Innovation, and Insights with Carson Boneck
Join Michael Watson, founder of Hedgineer, as he chats with Carson Boneck, the Chief Data Officer of Balyasny Asset Management. They dive into how data, AI and software is being developed and deployed at hedge funds and asset managers. Michael, who used to Equities Technology and Data Engineering at Citadel, and Carson discuss early successful use cases of AI within asset managers and ideate on w
Ep. 6: Using AI to Build One of the Best Datasets for Investing
In the 6th episode of the Hedgineer podcast, Thomas Li, co-founder of Daloopa, delves into the crucial role of precise historical financial data in fundamental investing. The discussion highlights a significant problem faced by financial analysts: the painstaking, time-consuming task of data extraction and management of financial models in Excel. As Michael and Thomas have both experienced first h
Ep 5: How To Profitably Spend $100M on Data for Trading
When it comes to using technology to be at the cutting edge, the quality of the data you are using is the name of the game. In trading that some times means spending tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars for data that gives you insight into the world that very few have. In this episode we bring on Rich Brown who has lead data and sourcing teams at some of the most successful and well hedge
EP. 4: Alternative Data and AI
In episode 4, Michael invites Sachin Kullkarni on to discuss alterative data and AI. Sachin is currently head of data science at a multi billion dollar credit hedge fund, and previously was at Point72 as a Sector Data Analyst (SDA) in health care. They discuss how alternative data is used in large hedge funds and how they see the space evolving with Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).
Ep. 3: Software & AI in Hedge Fund Investing
In the third episode of The Hedgineer Podcast, Michael invites equities quant researcher and commodities analyst Lucas (Hog) Rooney to talk about how AI and software engineering can be leveraged for hedge fund investors. In the same way that Python has been a force multiplying tool for Lucas as an investor, LLMs like LLaMa and GPT could be even more impactful for an investor's ability to synthesiz
Ep. 2 Commodities Quant to Crypto CEO
In this episode of the Hedgineer Podcast, Neel Somani, joins us to discuss his journey from being a software engineer and quantitative researcher for Citadel Commodities to a CEO and founder of Eclipse. We talk about how he was able to pivot after the collapse of Terra Luna and raise $15,000,000 to build out a blockchain as a service protocol that leverages the power of ZK rollups.Careers:Neel tal
Ep. 1: Aerospace to Hedge Funds
In this episode former SpaceX and Citadel software engineer joins us to discuss his experience joining SpaceX out of college to help on the mission of sending mankind to Mars. After writing software for multiple launches, he made a big career decisions to move from LA to New York and work for Citadel, a major hedge fund. There aren't many people who can compare these two incredible organizations,
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