My Story
I went from being a wartime refugee as a child, to a student leader in university, to a portfolio manager at a large hedge fund, to co-founder of a successful tech startup. This is my story.
Childhood.
I was born in a small town in south India. The formative experience of my childhood was this: at the age of 13, I spent 3 days in the hold of a cargo ship, escaping a war zone with nothing more than what I could carry in a backpack. This gave me (what I think is) unusual levels of optimism, detachment, perspective, and risk tolerance.
School.
I graduated from high school as valedictorian and head boy. I was on my school’s debate, quiz, math, soccer, track and basketball teams (captaining the first four), and won intramural and interscholastic (state, regional) competitions with all of them; I also edited the school magazine. I did these for fun: extracurriculars don’t count towards college admissions in India.
I was accepted, via competitive exam, into India’s top medical school AIIMS, as well as India’s top engineering school IIT Bombay (<0.2% admit rates at each; non-overlapping exams!). I chose to join the latter.
IIT.
I graduated from IIT Bombay with a B.Tech. in Engineering Physics. While at IIT-B, I was elected Institute General Secretary (GSHA – the highest post in student government) with a record number of votes, and served as sole student rep on IIT-B’s Senate. I captained IIT-B’s quiz, debate and literary teams, and won many intercollegiate and national competitions. I was also very active in competitive intramurals, and won a bunch of awards including the institute’s “Roll of Honour”.
But I realized that a career in physics was not for me. I was accepted into India’s top business school IIM-A (I believe I ranked #1 nationally in the entrance exam; <0.2% acceptance rate again); I decided not to go. Instead, I joined a Japanese hedge fund, Simplex.
Simplex.
Simplex Asset Management, headquartered in Tokyo, is one of Asia’s oldest and largest quant hedge funds, with several billion dollars under management. I joined them as employee #7, and built many of their core trading systems. I started as a programmer and quant analyst, then became a junior trader, and eventually, senior portfolio manager and head of all non-Japan investments. While at Simplex, I built one of the earliest high-frequency-trading (HFT) systems in the industry, for automated quant trading of the US Treasury market.
I was an excellent trader: contrarian, aggressive, thoughtful, informed. My best trade at Simplex was my last one: bored of the industry, I exited all my positions at the high-water mark in 2007, just before the global financial crisis of 2008. I then quit my hedge fund job and moved to Toronto, looking for new challenges.
Quandl.
A few years later, I started Quandl with my friend and co-founder Tammer Kamel. We set out to solve a well-known problem: there’s an enormous amount of valuable data in the world, but it’s fragmented and intractable: hard to find and hard to use. We built technology to aggregate and harmonize millions of datasets from thousands of sources, all in a single data marketplace with a uniform, powerful API.
Quandl pioneered the category of “alternative data for finance” – datasets of great value to professional investors, but previously unused (and often unknown). Our alt data was used by a majority of the world’s top hedge funds, asset managers, fintechs, and investment banks, serving millions of downloads and powering billions in investment decisions.
I wore many hats at Quandl: heading all things data; raising $20M in venture capital from blue-chip Silicon Valley investors; managing (at various times) finance, marketing, sales and ops; recruiting and team-building; and perhaps most importantly, setting culture and vision.
Quandl was acquired by Nasdaq in 2018, in a substantial and successful exit. Tammer and I stayed on to run the business for a while longer, before moving on to fresh pastures.
Free Agent.
I’ve been a free agent for the last few years. I’m an active and successful angel investor in early-stage tech startups (40+ portfolio companies, 25% blended IRR, meaningful DPI). I also write Pivotal, a highly-regarded newsletter on data, investing and startups, with over 5000 subscribers. I advise a small and select group of firms (both tech startups and investment managers), and I serve on private-company boards.
I’m always open to new opportunities.
And More.
I’m insatiably curious, and a lifelong learner-doer. In parallel with my professional accomplishments, I keep busy with lots of hobbies, pursuits, side-projects and weekend adventures. I used to run a poem-a-day mail server in the late 90s with over 5000 subscribers. I played tournament Scrabble and reached expert level (1600). I used to hike and bike, but do less of that now. I’m a solid tennis player (4.0), and getting into distance swimming and weight-training (kettlebells). I volunteer.
I’m a very good amateur photographer. I have a large collection of tabletop (Euro-strategy) board games. I listen to a vast range of music (but not the popular stuff I’m afraid). I’m an excellent cook. I read non-stop, on everything under the sun. I’ve travelled a bit. I think I’m unusually well-informed on a very wide range of topics: history, science, art, language, music, literature, you name it. I’m interested in everything.
I currently live in Toronto with my family, 7000 books, and 3 pianos. Also, I know how to use an Oxford comma.
This is the memoir version of my bio.
You can also read the professional version or the 4chan version.