How a Group of Computer Geeks and English Majors Transformed Wall Street

In celebration of New York Magazine's 50th anniversary, this series, which will continue through October 2018, tells the stories behind key moments that shaped the city's culture. In the summer of 1988, the hedge-fund manager Donald Sussman took a call from a former Columbia University computer-science professor wanting advice on his new Wall Street career. "I'd like to come see you," David Shaw, then 37 years old, told Sussman. Shaw had grown up in California, receiving a Ph.D. at Stanford University, then moved to New York to teach at Columbia before joining investment bank Morgan Stanley, which had a new secretive trading group that was using computer modeling. A neophyte in the ways of Wall Street, Shaw wanted Sussman, who founded the investment firm Paloma Partners, to look at an offer he had received from Morgan Stanley's rival, Goldman Sachs.