I wasn’t all the time a private finance nerd, however I steadily grew to become one out of survival. That is my story — and my statement over the previous 27 years — of why being an “American nerd” has grow to be extra essential 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, once I was inspired to play sports activities, exercise, discover a girlfriend, and do nicely in class. I appreciated courting an excessive amount of to be solid as a nerd. As a mother or father now, I’d be thrilled if my youngsters become tremendous nerds. It is likely to be the one means they will thrive and stay impartial in right now’s ultra-competitive world.
No girlfriend or boyfriend in center or highschool? Superior! Extra time to check and fewer threat of being a teenage mother or father with a more durable highway forward.
Not touring each weekend for membership soccer? Hooray! More cash 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 form of athletic scholarship to play in school.
Solely have a few mates who’re additionally nerds? Great. Problem one another to continue to learn and rising. With loving mother and father and perhaps a sibling, one good buddy is de facto all you want anyway… to have sufficient trainers to beat any legendary raid in Pokémon Go!
Right this moment, 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. Should you can’t sustain intellectually, it’s arduous 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 college that prime college grades mattered, so I took that to coronary heart.
However irrespective of how arduous 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 academics had been brutal graders. After studying some SAT prep books on the library, I could not break a 1,200 on the SAT both. Ultimately, I gave up making an attempt to be a nerd and centered on tennis and enjoyable as an alternative.
And boy, did I’ve enjoyable, maybe an excessive amount of of it. I bought into bother for shoplifting, combating, and pulling dumb pranks that I actually remorse. I’m sorry and I paid the worth. Fortunately, I nonetheless bought into The Faculty of William & Mary, a superb college, however not elite. I knew my household could not comfortably afford sending me to a non-public college, so I stayed in state at $2,800 a yr in tuition.
With a second likelihood, I vowed to not mess issues up in school too. Neither must you, as prime universities corresponding to Columbia has roughly 40% of its pupil physique consisting of worldwide college students.
My Fortunate Break
My massive break got here from a mixture of luck, timing, and hustle. One Saturday, I bought 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 companies. 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 good counts for perhaps 35%. The remainder is figure ethic, teamwork, attraction, and luck. Everybody is wise – 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 had been additionally well-rounded, particularly when it got here to sports activities.
My instant 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, once I went to Berkeley for my MBA part-time (2003–2006), I used to be all of a sudden surrounded by largely tremendous nerds. Most labored in tech. About 65% had been engineers, and roughly half of these had come from India — most from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), the place the acceptance charge is round 1%.
Consider IIT as MIT or Caltech on steroids. Graduating from there requires each excessive intelligence and starvation. They had been scary good. These qualities now gas lots of the leaders working America’s greatest tech companies:
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” all over the place. At my youngsters’ colleges, most mother and father are engineers, executives, knowledge 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 potential 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 workers. Rating poorly on Harvard’s subjective persona check to disclaim you admissions, regardless of stellar teachers? You are employed!
An American firm solely hiring a bunch of various Individuals is sweet in concept. However relating to constructing and investing in nice companies, potential all the time trumps nationality or identification. And the truth is, America doesn’t have a monopoly on expertise or potential.
High U.S. Corporations Hiring Workers On H-1B Visas
As capitalists, if CEOs can rent the neatest individuals from all over the world for a fraction of what they’d pay an American, they may. For many leaders, income come earlier than patriotism. It’s enterprise first, all the time.
Under are among the prime U.S. employers for H-1B visas. LCA stands for Labor Situation Software, the shape corporations should file with the U.S. Division of Labor (DOL) earlier than hiring or sponsoring an H-1B employee. These employers provide among 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 at the least 14,000 largely American workers in 2025, it concurrently elevated its variety of H-1B hires from the yr earlier than. Should you’re the CEO and will pay an excellent H-1B worker a median of $149,000 as an alternative 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 income? In fact not. The overwhelming majority of shareholders will all the time help profit-maximizing strikes in hopes of boosting their returns. Therefore, even for those who’re an American nerd absolutely 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 bought three choices: spend money on the very corporations that reject you, already be rich sufficient that rejection solely bruises your ego, or be so well-liked and related that somebody in energy decides to offer you a shot.
Again in 2012, I made a decision to spend money on 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 tougher, you stunning geniuses!
The Poker Desk Epiphany
That fact hit me once more at a tech poker night time final weekend. Nothing has modified since I went to enterprise college 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 number of drinks and laughs. As a substitute, I walked into what felt like a graduate seminar on statistics and aggression at IIT. Roughly 70% had been international professionals working within the U.S. in excessive paying roles on momentary visas.
To my left sat Akshay, a software program engineer who spent almost thirty minutes making an attempt to order espresso on an app regardless that the room was stocked with Crimson Bull and snacks. Each couple of minutes, Arvind — the participant on my proper — would remind him, “Akshay, it’s on you.”
Twelve occasions. Possibly extra.
Akshay would nod, look at his playing cards, after which drift again to his cellphone — 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 totally 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 hundreds. A room filled with analytical, aggressive minds — engineers who guess possibilities like they had been working machine-learning simulations.
I spotted I used to be on the unsuitable 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 pondering of calling it an evening. Then got here the hand.
I appeared down at Ace-Queen of diamonds. After a number of limpers, I raised to $8. Three gamers known 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 publish flop. I easy known as. One other participant known as behind and one other folded.
The flip got here the 7 of hearts. Sondar checked. I made a price guess of $25 to see the place my opponents had been at. The third participant folded. Then Sondar check-raised to $75 complete.
That transfer bought 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 known 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 aim: 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 combat once more.
“Ugh, I hate that river,” he stated, exhibiting 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, together with his arms raised up and palms behind his head. I didn’t transfer. However I beloved 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 Could Be Even Extra Highly effective Than Smarts
A few palms 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 house, I couldn’t cease pondering: this desk was America in microcosm. A bunch of good, aggressive, math-driven individuals — all chasing an edge, with a touch of obsession. In the meantime, right here I used to be, making an attempt to battle whereas by no means taking calculus.
I’ll come throughout as laid-back with Hawaiian vibes, however I’m obsessed too. I’ve logged hundreds of poker hours and watch poker movies for enjoyable each day. Additional, I usually guess 30X – 300X greater within the inventory market than my buy-in, so it is arduous to push me round at a $1/$1 or perhaps a $5/$10 desk. That night time, luck, blended with a hidden obsession of poker was my security internet.
Should 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 at the least you have a combating likelihood to win.
Turning into an American Nerd
To succeed right now, it’s not sufficient to be charming, athletic, and even naturally good. It is advisable out-learn, out-analyze, and out-focus others.
In an interconnected world, you’re competing with sensible, hungry individuals all over the 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, proficient 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 warfare with China), these of us already right here can’t afford to coast. Nations with decrease per-capita incomes, like India and China, naturally produce people who find themselves pushed to grab each alternative they will discover. Once you’ve seen how arduous life could be elsewhere, it’s simpler to understand — and maximize — what’s obtainable right here.
Over time, privileged Individuals threat taking prosperity without any consideration. We get snug. However the remainder of the world is learning, grinding tougher, and catching up quick. The one actual technique 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 kids 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 seen sure professions or industries the place the “nerds” are clearly successful? And for those who’re a mother or father, are you encouraging your youngsters to embrace their inside nerd, or hoping they discover stability someplace in between?
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