🤖 AI Summary
Overview
Will England, CEO of Walleye Capital, shares how he has made AI fluency mandatory for his hedge fund's 400 employees, emphasizing the transformative potential of AI in finance and beyond. He discusses the cultural and operational shifts required to integrate AI, the importance of leadership in driving adoption, and the parallels between historical technological revolutions and today's AI advancements.
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 in the workplace.
- If you can run 100 meters in under 10 seconds and you don’t, it’s a travesty because not everyone can do that.
– Will England, on the responsibility of maximizing one’s potential.
- A jet engine won’t fly by itself. You still have to hook it up with a plane.
– Will England, on the necessity of human involvement alongside AI tools.
🚀 Building an AI-First Culture
- Will England has mandated AI fluency across all departments at Walleye Capital, from investment teams to compliance and accounting.
- Employees are encouraged to use tools like ChatGPT daily for tasks such as writing, analysis, and data processing.
- To foster adoption, Walleye implemented initiatives like weekly AI meetups, leaderboards for tool usage, and incentives for suggesting new AI tools.
- England emphasizes the importance of leadership in setting the tone for AI adoption, positioning himself as the chief AI evangelist
of the firm.
🧠 Rethinking Work with AI
- England views AI as a tool to enhance productivity and free up time for higher-level thinking. For example, he uses ChatGPT to draft emails and memos, reducing a 4-5 hour task to 15 minutes.
- He challenges the notion that using AI is cheating,
arguing that it’s akin to hiring someone to handle repetitive tasks so humans can focus on strategic decision-making.
- Walleye’s internal AI tools, like Current,
are used to process unstructured data, such as earnings transcripts, to provide actionable insights for stock analysis.
📜 Lessons from History and the Frontier Spirit
- England draws parallels between the current AI revolution and the rapid technological changes during the period between the Civil War and World War I.
- He likens the tension between adopting AI and resisting change to the historical conflict between frontier individualism and the encroachment of civilization, as seen in the American West.
- He emphasizes the importance of adaptability, noting that firms and individuals who fail to embrace AI risk becoming obsolete, much like cowboys after the advent of barbed wire.
📊 Decision-Making and First Principles
- England highlights the importance of understanding incentives and aligning them to drive behavior, whether in managing a company or making investments.
- He stresses intellectual honesty and the value of measuring and evaluating one’s decisions to improve over time.
- He believes human intuition, especially in low-data scenarios, remains critical and can be enhanced by AI tools that reveal patterns humans might miss.
📓 Journaling and Personal Growth with AI
- England journals daily, focusing on three areas: family, work, and personal health. He uses AI to streamline this process, turning a time-intensive task into a quick, efficient exercise.
- Journaling helps him capture his thoughts and reflect on his decision-making processes, providing a valuable record for personal and professional growth.
- He views AI as a tool to make self-improvement and data tracking more accessible, enabling individuals to better understand and optimize their lives.
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 is the CEO of Walleye Capital, a hedge fund managing nearly $10 billion in assets. An engineer by training with a math background from Oxford, he has spent his career at the intersection of machines and markets—and has made AI fluency mandatory for all 400 employees.
England believes refusing to use AI is like refusing to use the internet in 1995 because it wasn’t perfect. His use of AI is public and effusive, including in a firm-wide email that opened with “I used ChatGPT to write this email. You should be using it, too, and be proud of it.” AI informs how Walleye drafts memos and selects stocks.
On Every’s AI & I, Dan Shipper spoke with England about why he’s betting his entire organization on AI, why “results are what matter” more than blood, sweat, and tears, and what the American frontier can teach us about leading through technological change.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Start
0:51 Introduction
3:25 What pushed Will to go all in on AI
15:15 Inside the ‘AI-first’ memo Will shared at Walleye
17:02 Why you shouldn’t be afraid of using AI for work
31:25 How Will uses LLMs to sharpen his thinking
35:57 Walleye’s approach to using AI to reduce risk
39:35 What history can teach us about leading through change
57:10 Will’s first principles for making better decisions
59:23 Why Will journals every day—and how AI makes it easier
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Will England/Walleye Capital: https://walleyecapital.com/bio/will-england
Every’s AI tools—Monologue, Cora, Spiral, and Sparkle: https://every.to/studio
Every’s AI consulting: https://every.to/consulting