I wasn’t at all times a private finance nerd, however I regularly turned one out of survival. That is my story — and my commentary over the previous 27 years — of why being an “American nerd” has grow to be extra necessary than ever if you wish to rise in your profession or obtain monetary freedom sooner.
For context, I not view the phrase nerd pejoratively as I did in highschool, after I was inspired to play sports activities, exercise, discover a girlfriend, and do nicely in class. I preferred relationship an excessive amount of to be solid as a nerd. As a mum or dad now, I’d be thrilled if my youngsters was tremendous nerds. It could be the one manner they’ll thrive and stay unbiased in at present’s ultra-competitive world.
No girlfriend or boyfriend in center or highschool? Superior! Extra time to check and fewer threat of being a teenage mum or dad with a more durable street forward.
Not touring each weekend for membership soccer? Hooray! Extra money saved, fewer accidents, and extra time for studying an instrument, a second language, or the humanities. In any case, solely about 2% of U.S. highschool athletes obtain any type of athletic scholarship to play in school.
Solely have a few mates who’re additionally nerds? Fantastic. Problem one another to continue to learn and rising. With loving mother and father and perhaps a sibling, one good good friend is actually all you want anyway… to have sufficient trainers to beat any legendary raid in Pokémon Go!
Immediately, nerds clearly rule the world. Let’s dig in!
Rising Up Common
Since 1999, I’ve lived in New York Metropolis and San Francisco — two of essentially the most aggressive, brain-powered cities in America. They’re magnets for prime college students from elite universities who come to make their fortunes. The competitors is relentless. In case you can’t sustain intellectually, it’s laborious to remain afloat.
After I was in public highschool in McLean, Virginia, I attempted to do nicely. I’d heard from an older pupil again in Kuala Lumpur throughout center faculty that top faculty grades mattered, so I took that to coronary heart.
However irrespective of how laborious I studied, I couldn’t crack the code. I completed with a 3.65 GPA — a B+/A– common. Spanish verb conjugations tripped me up, superior math appeared pointless, and science lecturers have been brutal graders. After studying some SAT prep books on the library, I could not break a 1,200 on the SAT both. Finally, I gave up attempting to be a nerd and centered on tennis and enjoyable as a substitute.
And boy, did I’ve enjoyable, maybe an excessive amount of of it. I acquired into bother for shoplifting, preventing, and pulling dumb pranks that I actually remorse. I’m sorry and I paid the value. Fortunately, I nonetheless acquired into The School of William & Mary, faculty, however not elite. I knew my household could not comfortably afford sending me to a personal college, so I stayed in state at $2,800 a 12 months in tuition.
With a second probability, I vowed to not mess issues up in school too. Neither do you have to, as prime universities reminiscent of Columbia has roughly 40% of its pupil physique consisting of worldwide college students.
My Fortunate Break
My huge break got here from a mixture of luck, timing, and hustle. One Saturday, I acquired on a 6 a.m. constitution bus for a Wall Avenue recruiting occasion.
None of my classmates confirmed up, so after half-hour of ready, the motive force drove me to a random shed and switched out the bus for a Lincoln Towncar to drive me 2 hours up from Williamsburg to Washington D.C. There I landed interviews with a number of bulge bracket corporations. Thanks largely to a recruiter named Kim Purkiss, who believed in me, I joined Goldman Sachs in 1999.
13 years on Wall Avenue taught me that intelligence is simply desk stakes. Being sensible counts for perhaps 35%. The remainder is figure ethic, teamwork, attraction, and luck. Everybody is sensible – so the actual edge comes from being obsessive about studying and execution.
Enter the Tremendous Nerds
Engaged on Wall Avenue uncovered me to loads of tremendous nerds from prime colleges. However what stunned me was what number of of them have been additionally well-rounded, particularly when it got here to sports activities.
My speedy colleagues at Goldman had each brains and brawn: my boss performed soccer at Dartmouth as a fullback, one other at Penn State as a linebacker. Later, my direct boss at Credit score Suisse had additionally performed soccer at Cal and was president of his fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE). The man oozed charisma. We had an absolute blast entertaining shoppers.
Nonetheless, after I went to Berkeley for my MBA part-time (2003–2006), I used to be immediately surrounded by largely tremendous nerds. Most labored in tech. About 65% have been engineers, and roughly half of these had come from India — most from the Indian Institutes of Expertise (IIT), the place the acceptance fee is round 1%.
Consider IIT as MIT or Caltech on steroids. Graduating from there requires each excessive intelligence and starvation. They have been scary sensible. These qualities now gas lots of the leaders working America’s greatest tech corporations:
Satya Nadella – CEO of Microsoft.
Sundar Pichai – CEO of Alphabet Inc. (and of Google).
Arvind Krishna – CEO (and Chairman) of IBM.
Jayshree Ullal – CEO of Arista Networks.
Aravind Srinivas – CEO of Perplexity, and Cal alum (Go Bears!)
The Nerds Have Taken Over
Now that I’m a father, I see the “revenge of the nerds” in every single place. At my youngsters’ colleges, most mother and father are engineers, executives, information scientists, docs, cash managers, or entrepreneurs — alumni of IIT, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Duke, and the Ivies.
You don’t see lots of the “cool youngsters” from highschool right here within the San Francisco Bay Space tech scene who performed varsity sports activities and dated round. Those that coasted on attraction or athletic skill had their run. It’s the disciplined drawback solvers who constructed the programs the remainder of us rely on. They’re the captains now.
As an investor, I additionally wish to put as a lot cash as potential into corporations run by tremendous nerds and full of the neatest staff. Rating poorly on Harvard’s subjective character check to disclaim you admissions, regardless of stellar teachers? You are employed!
An American firm solely hiring a bunch of numerous Individuals is good in concept. However with regards to constructing and investing in nice companies, skill at all times trumps nationality or id. And the truth is, America doesn’t have a monopoly on expertise or skill.
High U.S. Corporations Hiring Workers On H-1B Visas
As capitalists, if CEOs can rent the neatest individuals from around the globe for a fraction of what they’d pay an American, they may. For many leaders, earnings come earlier than patriotism. It’s enterprise first, at all times.
Under are a number of the prime U.S. employers for H-1B visas. LCA stands for Labor Situation Utility, the shape corporations should file with the U.S. Division of Labor (DOL) earlier than hiring or sponsoring an H-1B employee. These employers supply a number of the highest common salaries within the nation — and, not surprisingly, are among the many hardest locations to land a job.
And right here’s the factor: whereas Amazon laid off not less than 14,000 largely American staff in 2025, it concurrently elevated its variety of H-1B hires from the 12 months earlier than. In case you’re the CEO and pays an excellent H-1B worker a mean of $149,000 as a substitute of $350,000 for an equally succesful American employee, you’re going to make that commerce each time till the federal government tries to cease you.
Now, as a rational investor, are you actually going to vote in opposition to decreasing prices and maximizing earnings? After all not. The overwhelming majority of shareholders will at all times help profit-maximizing strikes in hopes of boosting their returns. Therefore, even in case you’re an American nerd totally able to competing with a talented international employee, you continue to may not get the job — or that promotion — merely since you price an excessive amount of.
You’ve acquired three choices: put money into the very corporations that reject you, already be rich sufficient that rejection solely bruises your ego, or be so well-liked and linked that somebody in energy decides to present you a shot.
Again in 2012, I made a decision to put money into all of the tech corporations that had rejected me after I left finance. 13 years later, all of the nerds have been working for me ever since. Work more durable, you stunning geniuses!
The Poker Desk Epiphany
That fact hit me once more at a tech poker evening final weekend. Nothing has modified since I went to enterprise faculty from 2003-2006. And I do not suppose something will ever change given we’re capitalists.
After placing my youngsters to mattress with my spouse, I confirmed up round 9 p.m. anticipating a relaxed recreation – perhaps a couple of drinks and laughs. As a substitute, I walked into what felt like a graduate seminar on statistics and aggression at IIT. Roughly 70% have been international professionals working within the U.S. in excessive paying roles on short-term visas.
To my left sat Akshay, a software program engineer who spent almost thirty minutes attempting to order espresso on an app despite the fact that the room was stocked with Pink Bull and snacks. Each couple of minutes, Arvind — the participant on my proper — would remind him, “Akshay, it’s on you.”
Twelve instances. Perhaps extra.
Akshay would nod, look at his playing cards, after which drift again to his telephone — evaluating costs, perhaps debugging code, or perhaps simply deep in thought. The entire thing was absurdly humorous and deeply symbolic. Complete focus, however in 5 completely different instructions, and utterly socially unaware of his poor poker etiquette.
In the meantime, the sport itself was intense. Solely $1/$1 blinds, however pots swelling into the 1000’s. A room stuffed with analytical, aggressive minds — engineers who wager possibilities like they have been working machine-learning simulations.
I spotted I used to be on the flawed desk. I’d come to unwind; they’d come to optimize and take my cash with a vengeance.
The Hand That Saved Me
After two and a half hours, I used to be barely breaking even and considering of calling it an evening. Then got here the hand.
I seemed down at Ace-Queen of diamonds. After a couple of limpers, I raised to $8. Three gamers referred to as. The flop: Ace of golf equipment, 3 of diamonds, 5 of diamonds. Candy! High pair, prime kicker, and the nut-flush draw. What a dream.
The small blind — Sondar, one other engineer — led out for $25 put up flop. I easy referred to as. One other participant referred to as behind and one other folded.
The flip got here the 7 of hearts. Sondar checked. I made a worth wager of $25 to see the place my opponents have been at. The third participant folded. Then Sondar check-raised to $75 complete.
That transfer acquired my consideration. It smelled like two pair, perhaps a straight. I believed for 25 seconds, stared at him like a samurai for 5. He stared again calmly. I referred to as.
The river: 7 of diamonds. Bingo. Nut flush.
Sondar checked once more. I paused, requested him how a lot he had left behind, and he reply with $130. I slid out $115, leaving him a small cushion. My objective: make it too tempting to not name as a result of even when he misplaced, he’d nonetheless have three $5 chips and a chair to battle once more.
“Ugh, I hate that river,” he mentioned, displaying the desk 4-6 of golf equipment for a straight.
He stared on the board, then at me. Two full minutes of wiggling in his seat, generally, along with his arms raised up and fingers behind his head. I didn’t transfer. However I liked each second of it as my very own coronary heart began beating faster.
Lastly, he pushed in his chips. Name.
I flipped over the flush. He groaned, nodded, and patted the felt — the common poker expression for “nicely performed, you fortunate bastard.”
Obsession Might Be Even Extra Highly effective Than Smarts
A few fingers later, I cashed out for $680 after shopping for in for $350 and tossing $35 to the host for meals and drinks. I had survived the nerd gauntlet. Now it was time to squeeze in 5 hours of sleep earlier than pickleball at 7 a.m., with frankly, extra nerds!
On the drive dwelling, I couldn’t cease considering: this desk was America in microcosm. A bunch of sensible, aggressive, math-driven individuals — all chasing an edge, with a touch of obsession. In the meantime, right here I used to be, attempting to battle whereas by no means taking calculus.
I could come throughout as laid-back with Hawaiian vibes, however I’m obsessed too. I’ve logged 1000’s of poker hours and watch poker movies for enjoyable every day. Additional, I recurrently wager 30X – 300X larger within the inventory market than my buy-in, so it is laborious to push me round at a $1/$1 or perhaps a $5/$10 desk. That evening, luck, blended with a hidden obsession of poker was my security web.
In case you get obsessive about one thing, you will finally get smarted sufficient to successfully compete in opposition to your opponents. Typically you win, generally you lose. That is life. However not less than you have a preventing probability to win.
Turning into an American Nerd
To succeed at present, it’s not sufficient to be charming, athletic, and even naturally sensible. You should out-learn, out-analyze, and out-focus others.
In an interconnected world, you’re competing with good, hungry individuals in every single place — lots of whom deal with mastery the best way Akshay handled that espresso order: with complete dedication, even when it’s inconvenient.
For many years, America has thrived by welcoming formidable, gifted immigrants from everywhere in the world. That openness is a part of what makes this nation so dynamic.
However as international competitors intensifies (see the AI race conflict with China), these of us already right here can’t afford to coast. International locations with decrease per-capita incomes, like India and China, naturally produce people who find themselves pushed to grab each alternative they’ll discover. Once you’ve seen how laborious life may be elsewhere, it’s simpler to understand — and maximize — what’s accessible right here.
Over time, privileged Individuals threat taking prosperity with no consideration. We get comfy. However the remainder of the world is learning, grinding more durable, and catching up quick. The one actual solution to keep forward is to continue to learn, adapting, and obsessing over enchancment.
So if you wish to thrive in trendy America, you or your youngsters must grow to be an American nerd — curious, relentless, and deeply invested in your craft. As a result of whether or not it’s on the poker desk, within the workplace, or in life, the neatest and most disciplined gamers normally take the pot.
What do you suppose — is America shedding its mental edge? What are you a nerd in? Have you ever observed sure professions or industries the place the “nerds” are clearly profitable? And in case you’re a mum or dad, are you encouraging your youngsters to embrace their interior nerd, or hoping they discover steadiness someplace in between?
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