Robots Are Coming for the Multimillion-Dollar Bonuses of the 1%

Wall Street, prepare for a rude awakening

June 20, 2017 9:00 am EDT

Thanks to inventions like 400-per-hour burger flippers and Roomba-inspired gardening devices, we’ve known for a while that minimum wage jobs are being threatened by automation, hard.

As it turns out, according to Bloomberg, maximum wage workers also have reason for concern.

Money managers who pick investments for clients and hedge funds for a living are at risk of having their jobs eliminated by algorithms that work faster and more accurately than they can and, more importantly, don’t command multimillion-­dollar bonuses, Bloomberg reports. 

“Algorithms are coming for your job — they only ask for electricity,” Orthogon Partners founding partner Rishi Ganti told Bloomberg. “Algorithms are already reading, processing, and trading the news even before the photons have hit your retina.”

Take his opinion for what it’s worth — we’re just the messenger here — but what Ganti suggests managers do to remedy the situation is focus on areas where algorithms fear, or can’t tread, such as an esoteric asset (buying nonperforming loans at a discount, purchasing music royalties, etc.) that requires “high human capital” to manage.

Or start practicing that ol’ burger flip, while there’s still time. 

Meet your guide

Evan Bleier

Evan Bleier

Evan is a senior editor with InsideHook who earned a master’s degree in journalism from NYU and has called Brooklyn home since 2006. A fan of Boston sports, Nashville hot chicken and Kentucky bourbon, Evan has had his work published in publications including “Maxim,” Bleacher Report and “The Daily Mail.”
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