The $10B Hedge Fund CEO Who’s Betting Big on AI | Will England, Walleye Capital
🤖 AI Summary
Overview
Will England, CEO of Walleye Capital, shares how he is transforming his $10B hedge fund into an AI-first organization. From firm-wide adoption of AI tools to leveraging large language models for decision-making and productivity, England provides a detailed playbook for integrating AI into every aspect of business operations. His approach combines technical expertise, historical perspective, and a strong sense of personal responsibility.
Notable Quotes
- Using ChatGPT is not cheating. Not using these tools is like refusing to use the internet in 1995 because it wasn’t perfect.
– Will England, on embracing AI tools.
- If we get disrupted by AI, that’s on me.
– Will England, on the responsibility of leadership during technological change.
- Results are what matter. Either you pick up the weight or you don’t.
– Will England, on efficiency and embracing AI-driven productivity.
🚀 Pivoting a Billion-Dollar Firm to AI
- England announced AI as the new standard at Walleye Capital, making its use mandatory across all departments, from investment teams to compliance.
- He implemented leaderboards to track AI tool usage and incentivized employees to suggest new tools, fostering a culture of innovation.
- The firm’s internal AI product, Current,
is indispensable for stock analysis, especially during earnings periods, enabling real-time processing and insights.
🧠 AI as Operating Leverage
- England views AI as essential operating leverage, akin to email or Excel, emphasizing that ignoring it leads to obsolescence.
- He mandates AI proficiency for all employees, ensuring they are equipped to adapt to the evolving landscape.
- Tools like ChatGPT are used daily by 75% of the firm, with applications ranging from coding to sentiment analysis of unstructured data.
📜 Writing and Decision-Making with AI
- England uses ChatGPT to draft emails and memos, reducing hours-long tasks to 15 minutes. He inputs bullet points and prompts the AI to generate polished prose in his voice.
- He journals daily using AI, capturing thoughts on work, family, and personal health. This practice helps him reflect and track trends over time.
- AI tools allow him to focus on conceptual thinking rather than linguistic details, enhancing his productivity and clarity.
📊 Building The Borg
: A Firmwide Intelligence Layer
- Walleye records every meeting and call, creating a data lake that can be analyzed by AI for insights and predictions.
- England envisions connecting all firm data—emails, Slack messages, market data—into a collective intelligence system.
- The firm’s risk team uses AI to process transcripts of daily calls, improving decision-making and oversight.
📚 Lessons from History and Leadership
- England draws parallels between today’s AI revolution and the Industrial Revolution, emphasizing the rapid transformation of skills and roles.
- He believes human nature is constant and uses historical patterns to inform his approach to change.
- As a leader, he emphasizes personal responsibility, stating that leaders must set the tone and lead from the front to unlock their teams’ potential.
AI-generated content may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon as a sole source of truth.
📋 Episode Description
Will England just pivoted his $10B AUM hedge fund to go all in on AI with a firm-wide email:
“I wrote this email using ChatGPT—you should too. As a hedge fund, we should be ashamed to leave money on the table by ignoring AI.”
It’s working: 75% of his 400-person team are using ChatGPT daily—and Walleye is well on its way to transforming into an AI-first juggernaut. They record every meeting, use LLMs to ingest and analyze earnings reports, and are building “The Borg”—a firmwide intelligence layer.
What’s surprising? Will isn’t some AI hype man: He’s the CEO, CIO, and managing partner of Walleye Capital, a multi-strategy hedge fund competing with firms like Citadel, Millenium, and Point72. He’s Princeton and Oxford educated, but he’s based in Minnesota, doesn’t have an X account, and rarely gives interviews.
In my experience, teams go as their CEO goes—and Will is the best example of a CEO going all in on AI that I’ve seen. "It would be irresponsible not to go after AI with maximum discipline and intensity," Will told me—and in this episode he lays out his exact playbook for doing it.
We get into:
Why AI is essential operating leverage. At Walleye, using AI is treated like using email or Excel. Ignoring it means getting left behind—in an industry where information = money, every edge counts. England makes this not optional for anyone, backed by internal leaderboards and cash incentives.
How Will uses AI for journaling and decision-making. Will journals every day using ChatGPT, which helps him with everything from decision-making at work to reflecting on his family life to tracking his workouts.
How Will pivoted his billion dollar firm. Will’s commitment to AI isn’t theoretical—he announced AI as the new standard for work at Walleye, and made avoiding it unacceptable.
How to lead during times of technological change. Will leads with an ethic of personal responsibility: "If we get disrupted by AI, that's on me.”
Why students of history do better at handling the future. Will sees today like the 1860s–1910s era—when the Industrial Revolution introduced factories and railroads and the skills and roles needed inside of companies transformed quickly.
How Will uses AI to write faster. Will uses ChatGPT to help him draft emails or memos that would have taken hours in 15 minutes. He bullets out of his thoughts and then uses LLMs to turn that into polished prose. Having AI handle the linguistic syntax gives him more time for conceptual thinking.
This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to lead a team through change with clarity and conviction.
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