Alexei

“In his searches, Schwall noticed something else, though at first he didn’t know what to make of it: A surprisingly large number of the people pulled in by the big Wall Street banks to build the technology for high-frequency trading were Russians. “If you went to LinkedIn and looked at one of these Russian guys, you would see he was linked to all the other Russians,” said Schwall. “I’d go to find Dmitri and I’d also find Misha and Vladimir and Tolstoy or whatever.” The Russians came not from finance but from telecom, physics, medical research, university math departments, and a lot of other useful fields. The big Wall Street firms had become machines for turning analytically minded Russians into high-frequency traders.”
― Michael Lewis, Flash Boys

“Worried that it needed to do more to promote diversity, RBC invited Brad along with a bunch of other nonwhite people to a meeting to discuss the issue. Going around the table, people took turns responding to a request to “talk about your experience of being a minority at RBC.” When Brad’s turn came he said, “To be honest, the only time I’ve ever felt like a minority is this exact moment. If you really want to encourage diversity you shouldn’t make people feel like a minority.” Then he left. The group continued to meet without him.”
― Michael Lewis, Flash Boys

“The old Soviet culture also left its former citizens oddly prepared for Wall Street in the early twenty-first century. The Soviet-controlled economy was horrible and complicated but riddled with loopholes. Everything was scarce; everything was also gettable, if you knew how to get it. “We had this system for seventy years,” said Constantine. “People learn to work around the system. The more you cultivate a class of people who know how to work around the system, the more people you will have who know how to do it well. All of the Soviet Union for seventy years were people who are skilled at working around the system.”
― Michael Lewis, Flash Boys

“It took many months in court, but the tabloid eventually published a total retraction and paid substantial damages in an out-of-court settlement. The money went to the Special Olympics in Great Britain.”
― Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story