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Jenny started her career on the trading floor in Chicago she co-founded Peak 6 in 1997 with one and a half million
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dollars in seed Capital as a proprietary options trading firm now it's a multi-billion
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dollar Financial Services trading and Technology firm really excited to hear from Jenny today please join me in
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welcoming Jenny to the stage [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] drivers [Music]
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stupid women helicopter Pilots it's not Prejudice it's just that men are naturally Superior drivers
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many women are confident drivers women drivers that's the problem when a woman's at the wheel
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polyglass means more than mileage welcome everybody and thank you for having me here today as as they said I'm
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Jenny and I started Peak sex in 1997 as a proprietary Equity options trading firm
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we've evolved over time into a technology firm including in the ensure Tech space
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and the one thing I know about these videos men are bad at math as you can see there's clearly no
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difference between driving abilities and insurance rates now a hundred years ago women were less
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than 10 percent of their drivers esteemed risky and a man's job but 50 years later
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we see that has changed we see these kind of Trends again and again where participation rate
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eventually equals skill or ability we know that women are half of the voters they're more than half of the
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college graduates a really really important place it has not changed is in the financial world
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so P6 also owns as they were saying the Apex fintech Solutions it's a SAS based clearing and custody firm we have 220
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B2B clients 120 billion in assets if tens of millions of end customers the truth is more than half of you are
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likely on our technology today and you didn't know it we are the back end for more than 60 percent of the fintechs out
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there so think we both Sophie Ally stash etoro public you're probably on our technology
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and what we know about that data is it's like driving and voting and education there's no difference between
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investing doing one in between men and women however there is one big difference and that is
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participation rate I wonder why I have offered our lovely sales assistant Danielle Harrison here ten
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thousand dollars to shave a hands [Applause] [Music] so while we have many different
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businesses at Peak six the heart and soul remains our trading firm now when I started Peak sex in 1997 the world was
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very different all the trading happened on The Exchange floors I was in those trading pits
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[Applause] so it's clear to me that things could probably be done a little bit better
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and in 1998 we actually started using technology and we became one of the first off floor Equity options trading
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firms in the world and despite all the booms and boss Cycles the.com the financial crisis
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covid Peak six has never had a losing year now we're not a fund we don't have outside money we had a little bit you
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heard in the beginning those investors were paid back many times over very early on
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you know I could have invested in bonds or stocks or Berkshire Hathaway or Steve
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Jobs and Apple but I invested invested idea I could see I invested in the proposition that a
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female Trader could hang with the guys so so how did that turn out for me uh bonds 100 invested in 1997 now worth
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about three hundred dollars the market about seven hundred dollars Mr Buffett twelve hundred dollars
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Apple a hundred and eighty thousand dollars Peak six well a hell of a lot more so how
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well it starts with understanding options in in the options World there are almost
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six thousand stocks that have listed options and that's all the different times and expirations so call
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it a million and a half ish Securities at any given point in time Peak six will have positions in three to four thousand
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of those stock names with their Associated positions so while it requires a lot of Technology
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obviously to manage this we're not a high frequency firm we actually carry the inventory we have it on our books as
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we speak so I think high frequency it's more like a delivery service they don't really take risk and it's
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just about speed and efficiency a really good way to think about Peak six is like a grocery store
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so we're servicing our customers and we need to manage the inventory well we're much closer to like a Walmart or a
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safe way and like them if we don't manage the inventory well it goes bad we lose
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so in the same way that prices at their store are going to move around based on consumer demand or on outside forces on
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supplied like Logistics or weather option prices are moving around as well remember we're trading in these 6 000
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different names with different time frames all unique characteristics different earnings
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different dividends we're trading hundreds of thousands of options every single day
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so our biggest expense as you might imagine is technology we're receiving billions of messages per
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second so we get the entire Marketplace what do we see what's moving into extremes we
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might be looking at individual names that are doing that Industries or the marketplace as a whole
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so what am I seeing today well most people know that over time stocks outperform bonds
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you take risk you should be rewarded now if we look at how much better off you'd be by buying stocks you can see it
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moves in a relatively stable line upward sloping with some periods where stocks are more
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or less expensive or cheap some of you remember the.com bubble some of you pretty young out there
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most of us will remember the financial crisis you can see that second star obviously covid
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and I clearly no surprise to see these kind of disruptions show up then you can see today
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and you can see today now there are a lot of people who are talking about this and for me I've seen a lot and it's
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really hard to call it top or bottom and we don't pretend to call Tops or bottoms
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frankly but what's unusual this time is that when things get stretched risk or the cost of options tends to be
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expensive today you can see the previous three from the last slide and look at today
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how low volatility is this is why at this point in in the month of August we've owned more options in our
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portfolio than it's probably top five in our history so our key to success is to manage the
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inventory top down and bottoms up all day every day and when the great ideas we got to push all in when they come we
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push all in and as good as this opportunity might seem I'm going to tell you about an
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opportunity that makes that small in comparison there is going to be a market correction
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the correction is that half of the participants are going to identify as female how
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I'll take it [Applause] hopefully it's not a surprise to this room but it's been right underneath our
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nose for a really long time we are going to teach them poker now most of you know
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that poker teaches indispensable life skills certainly our lovely hosts espouse this all the time
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teaches strategy it teaches taking risk it teaches Capital allocation I could go
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on and on but guess what men are getting those lessons lessons and women are not
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of the more than 110 million plus nobody really knows a number poker players in the world
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less than 10 percent are women just like driving a hundred years ago so we started a company it's called
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poker power even though they said power poker I'll take either as long as you're
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saying it it's called poker power we're on a mission to teach a million women this
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game to to date we've taught tens of thousands of individual women interestingly we just hit our 200th mark
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we're teaching companies who recognize how important this skill can be to their employees
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and they are teaching this game alongside of us some of the biggest tech companies in the world the biggest banks
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investment Banks law firms you name it so when I look it out of this crowd frankly it looks fairly similar-ish to
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the trading floor many years ago and in five years it's going to look very different
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that is my prediction hopefully sooner how well it starts by going actually going actually going all in
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we're not all in if 50 of the population trades invests or plays poker podcast is not called men in
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it actually has the word all in its name so we are going to challenge you guys challenge the hosts
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challenge the future the the future listeners of this podcast to see how many girls and I say girls we
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can teach this game as early as seven or eight how many girls and women can you bring to the poker table
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we're going to kick off a competition today over the next month we want to see who can refer the most
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women to the poker Power Play app in my opinion it's brand new first gender neutral
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truly gender neutral poker app on the market super easy love all the cameras I'm seeing to get the QR code
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and to refer the girls and women in your life what's in it for you well I was thinking the hosts could
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decide knowing that maybe it's like a laurel piano something or Montclair um maybe it's a buy-in to the WSOP
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but whatever it is it's my gift to you so not let's not just trade or invest in the market let's make the market
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Let's Go All In thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you all right join us [Applause]
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[Music] amazing as a father of three daughters I very much appreciate you making this
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your passion it's absolutely fantastic we've averaged about 32 33 over the first two conferences about 33 percent
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female but we had to take a lot of steps to to make that happen scholarships and
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just you know Finding women's organizations encourage more people to come um I'm curious just looking at the world
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largely we've seen a massive change um there are more women getting graduate degrees than men today
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earnings positions of power it's really changed a lot why do you think it's a little
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sticky in finance specifically and is there something in what you see it in Venture Capital as well you know we've
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seen many more check writing females not just window dressing like here's the pr
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person we're calling them a partner in the Venture firm and that kind of nonsense but I'm curious why it hasn't
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happened in finance as quickly as and maybe some other Pursuits and then second question
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um when you do get women at the poker table and it does click what do you see change in them in terms of you know how
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they look at the world you can take that in either order yeah I mean it's I I it's fascinating I
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have to say so um why isn't it happen sooner I'll do that one so what I've learned of course being
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um a female and a male dominated world for my whole career I also grew up with four brothers so
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um it's no surprise maybe that I'm there but also like begging to figure out how to solve
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the problem I will tell you it squarely comes down to risk-taking so it's and what we don't realize so if in our
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natural play and hobbies uh typical you know the stereotype how a young girl plays I'm not taking risk
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and one of the things that we have found and what I see actually helps women at the poker table
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it's because every hand is a risk of some sort they don't get enough repetition of risk
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so we don't talk about taking larger risks we actually talked about taking not taking more risk sorry let me step
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back more risk we talk about taking more risks with an S yeah so we need to get reps in and those reps aren't part of
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our upbringing so for someone coming into trading you get a lot of reps right at the at
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the poker table that's why if we can get these girls playing I'm I'm telling you
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right the guys are ahead we know this the study's been done first rung on the ladder is where the woman falls behind
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the guy will take the job with 60 confidence and the next you know the managerial job will come equal out of
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school and she needs 90 confidence of course she does she hasn't taken risks yeah
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so we have to get those under there about whatever they look like and by the way they look different for everybody
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um and watching what is a risk for your daughter in fact if you guys are up for it for your I think there's nine
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daughters here two two three three three six four yeah it's like seven yeah and a
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half seven and a half I think just back in the envelope math yes but but you see how fast I did that
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for dyslexia that's unbelievable you can't count in simple numbers bro but uh here's the
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thing yeah we're we're having this discussion I think in 2023 here just even saying there are gender differences
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innate and then there are um different ways in which girls are raised versus boys it's kind of the
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third row but listen it is what it is and um maybe you can talk when you give them
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that push and they get 10 sessions in 50 sessions in now they played a thousand hands of cards they play two thousand
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hands of cards what do you see happen to them when they go out into the world what changes in them when they learn to
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take risks when they learn to Bluff when they learn to re-raise and when they learn to fold when they thought they had
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a really strong hand but hey that board's textured yep so uh we have we literally get testimonials and there are
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many senior women who are part in this corporate work we do the senior women are sort of floored and flabbergasted I
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can't believe right so I didn't realize I wasn't playing to win would be a very common thing
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I didn't realize somebody would actually do that yeah right like I didn't actually know everything when I went
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into that meeting I assumed I did because I'm giving everything of that I know I'm not holding back at all
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the thought of holding back is not part of the repertoire either it's the giving
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and giving totally of self so strategy is um unless it's actively discussed right
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isn't isn't seemingly As Natural um obviously when we have athletes or you know other types of experiences
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coming in that tends to change it I think I'll you know I'll give you basic question for a young woman who comes in
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and she goes into a meeting and she doesn't say anything it's kind of like you folded a hand
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maybe you folded a few hands we all know we need to fold a lot of hands to win but she doesn't she keeps falling and
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she keeps folding what is she waiting for because she if she keeps folding we know
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she's ultimately going to lose if she never speaks up on in a meeting based on Toby we should never have been in the
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goddamn meeting yeah she's kind of blinded out exactly she'll be gone yeah so at some point she has to take a risk
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even if her cards aren't great in that meeting if she wants to anticipate Define risk because for a lot of people
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in a naive context that haven't looked at probability and statistics and understood that something is unlikely to
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happen but the payoff you're getting is worth it to take that it's a 30 chance of happening but if it happens you get
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paid five to one yep so that's a good bet to make yeah and is that the sort of um kind of rubric that that you know
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folks start to kind of go through to understand what it means to take risk that it's not just about doing something
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scary or something unlikely jump into anything scary or anything like that because sometimes that risk isn't worth
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the payoff and sometimes it is it is both of those things actually so when I talk about teaching poker and the first
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thing a man will do is say well if you're not playing for real money you're not really playing which is not a true
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statement um play with your kids for you know pretzels and M M's or marshmallows and
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see what happens you're playing a real game and you're causing the brain to think differently
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but we so we start way down on the curve for our women because the whole goal is
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to create safety and security and learning this game that is male dominated where they feel like
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they're going to be judged and so probably it's around Lesson Four so we have a curriculum that they're starting
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to learn the numbers as well and how do I do it in you know a basic way a quick easy way and then how do I get better
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and better as I go up the Curve there's a there's a great book written by Annie Duke called thinking in bets yeah
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um and uh I would encourage all of you to read it because I think Friedberg what you're saying is actually something
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that a lot of people have which is a little bit of mathematical mathematical illiteracy around
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probability and probabilistic thinking and it is a very different mindset mindset to think about expected value
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why do you make a certain bet some number of times why losing 15 times in a row literally can be okay because over a
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distribution of 100 times you may actually come out ahead it's a very difficult way to Train Your Mind by the
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way I think it it's really important in a broader social context so that not everything is right or wrong
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not everything is I will win this bet or I will lose this bet um it requires a second dimension
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attached to every decision which is the probability which most people don't do and it's what also makes conversations
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around things like social policy and politics difficult because people say this is one way or the other but it's
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like hey if we do this this way there's a 30 chance it might work if it's a 70 chance it might not but if it does work
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it's 10 times the return that's worth us doing so we should expect failure but if
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we succeed it's going to be in an outsized way and if we get to make enough of those sorts of decisions
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things can move and we get caught up in a lot of our decision making you know um
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in social policy as well David's a huge feminist uh thinker and I'm curious David you're
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you're taking all this in right now and I can see the wheels churning your thoughts on
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you know in the post-modern feminist world how do you think poker plays into the lunch break
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by the way I recognize that face I see that yeah compassion in the EQ yeah I haven't
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learned how to Virtue signal quite as well as YouTube well just try try again [Applause]
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I think the point you made actually that safety is the opposite of risk is a really interesting point because the the
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thing that you hear over and over again for example in these debates we have over free speech is uh safetyism we have
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to make the environment safe space we don't want them to hear arguments they don't like they need the safe space yeah
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well you're saying you know I've never bought that as an argument for censorship for example but you're making
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I think a different argument which I hadn't really appreciated before which is if we don't make people comfortable
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with risk then they're not going to be successful in these areas and that's another downside of this the grand
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Eisman of psychological safety yeah when you come to work is a fallacy right I mean this is the worst thing you could
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do to somebody is to make them psychologically safe the world is not safe right I have a market question I apologize can
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I just say one thing on that so I literally was at a dinner last week um and there was a man from a very very old
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successful firm and he said after too many drinks all the women who come and ask to be partners at our firm
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they always come with a perfect track record they never have lost money and I was like
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and you're surprised right right I mean it's it's so backwards that they these extraordinarily successful women feel
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like that is the journey that has to be had in fact it's the opposite of the journey what we all want them to see is
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how they have failed how often they failed how how they kept the failure to a minimum so in some ways these are like
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the highest performers exactly perhaps if they were men I can't no it's not even just it doesn't take more risk no
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as an immigrant my first job was on a trading floor and I had an incredible boss who took me aside and taught me the
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difference between batting average and slugging percentage and that's another concept that's poorly understood because
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when you're at the bottom looking up you think you have to be perfect that's batting average
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but when you realize that in baseball the best batter in the history of baseball you know is basically a 400
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hitter but that was like once and that's an aberration in the 50s or 60s that'll
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never happen again you realize okay we're hitting for slugging percentage and that means
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implicitly huge error rates yes tons of losses and unless you internalize it and
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figure out how to manage it you can't make a ton of money I just want to shift the conversation yeah
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you're an incredible business person you have a vantage point that I find really
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fascinating and you put on a chart up there where about inventory of options now you're sort of at this really
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interesting moment Financial vault is kind of like been decimated what does that mean as you look forward
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based on your pattern recognition of the past where where are we headed into and
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knowing where your firm is positioned in all of that yeah so I we're in a an odd
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place right now I think right it has a.com ask because the AI feel to it but we have the fed maybe is going to raise
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a little bit more but not inflation may be slowing but it may not we have sector
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rotation we have a lot of push and pull you're right in the middle and so what is going to snap that one way or
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another definitely not something our firm tries to make the call on but we're saying
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it's ready it's ready and it can if a handful of things happen whatever the exogenous events whatever it might be
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and we want to be ready and be by the way we might be wrong we'll just waste a bunch of money
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holding the inventory that's going to rot but um but basically you've done that before basically yeah it's what
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you're saying massively long ball and you're waiting for something in One Direction or the other yeah it's a good
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time of the year right we're going to go into the next earning cycle and um um we have to wrap I really appreciate
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you coming out sharing your story I encourage everyone um uh the the QR code we'll share that
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and everyone can hopefully download the app and um as girl dads thank you yeah and thank you so much thank you for
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doing this I appreciate that I'm gonna let your winner slide Rain Man [Music] [Applause]
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ice cream [Music]