Morning Coffee: The most hardcore man in financial services defines four tiers of people. London bankers on £200k+ have new apprehension

There are some intense people in financial services. Take Peter de Putron who runs electronic trading firm G-Research and whom the Financial Times says goes about in a hat and sunglasses indoors, gives no one his mobile number and can be "intense, direct and at times awkward" according to those who have met him.

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De Putron lives in Jersey and no one even seems to know what he looks like beyond that he is tall and blonde. Nik Storonsky at Revolut is also tall and blonde and is more familiar. But in his way, Storonsky is equally inscrutable. 

In a new long interview with the Founders podcast, Storonsky revealed that he doesn't smile much, laughs less and looks quite tired. This might be because, by his own admission, he works 99.5% of the time and a typical week involves something like working from 9am to 9pm, seven days a week.

This leaves little time for kitesurfing or sailing around in yachts, but Storonsky doesn't seem to mind because he is a hypercompetitive person who is coming for Jamie Dimon's "dinner." This means retail banking, but also maybe investment banking too. Investment banking is "still very manual, still very expensive. I mean it’s all possible to make it all much cheaper as well. Why not?," Storonsky says.

It's not easy to work for Storonsky at Revolut. Millions applied last year and 0.15% got hired. Storonsky can afford to be choosy. He says he ideally likes to hire people aged 25-30 who are in the top 1% of their peer group and that there is a "prime age," beyond which people probably become "less good."

The culture at Revolut is famously aggressive and Storonsky seems cool with this as he pursues Dimon's dinner. He tells the Founders podcast there are four tiers of people: 

"Self-guided people are like self-guided missiles... you don't even need to tell them what the goal is, they self-identify the goal and then they self-reach it." "

"People who are good but not excellent, you need to tell them the goal and then without any kind of iteration they will reach the goal."

 "Average people, you tell them the goal and then you need to spend weekly iterations with them to direct them, to tell them what to do, and then they will reach the goal. So you spend management time. That's what I don't want." 

"Below average people, you gave them the goal, you spend time with them and then most likely they will not hit the goal." 

The trick is to hire people in the first tier.  Then you can have lots of direct reports. "You just need to minimise management time spent on each of them," Storonsky explains. 

If you self-define as a hardcore self-guided missile and like working 9-9-7, Storonsky will both hire you and stick up for you. He told the podcast that a VC investor wanted him to fire his best employee for being "too hardcore." - "I said no. That’s it,” Storonsky said. The VC then "stepped back."

Separately, if you are billionaire in the UK you have received a letter from the government and if you earn over £200k in the UK you should be apprehensive that you will receive one next. 

The Sunday Times reported that UK billionaires received a mysterious letter from Her Majesties Revenue and Customs (HMRC) calling them "customers" and asking them to reveal detailed information about their affairs, including the sources of their wealth and their future intentions. The letter can be seen in full here.    

HMRC's interest may not stop with billionaires. The Sunday Times says it's considering sending similar letters to people earning £200k who have £2m of assets. 

“Who do these people think they are, the Stasi? This will only encourage more people to leave,” said one billionaire in receipt of the letter.

Meanwhile...

Ex-UK Goldman Sachs chief and Revolut board member Mike Sherwood is going to Jersey. (Sky) 

Barclays likes its equities traders now. It is "rebalancing" towards them and it's diverted capital away from macro towards prime. (Bloomberg)

Chris Wheeler and Daniel Dangoor, each of whom ran their own macro investing team at ExodusPoint, have left. Dangoor only joined from Goldman Sach in June. (Business Insider)  

Goldman Sachs says hedge funds had a terrible time Thursday, with their broadest losses since 2020. “For the first time since Covid, all three broad equity strategies fell more than 1% on the same day.” (Bloomberg)  

It's a fine time to be a metals trader and Vitol is hiring more of them. (Bloomberg) 

Deloitte is hiring 100 dealmakers in the north. (CityAM)

Alvarez & Marsal is on a hiring spree and wants to recruit 20 “AI managing directors” and establish an “AI laboratory” in Spain. It already employs 1,700 people in the UK. (Times) 

Citi now has a license to set up its own Chinese securities unit and wants to be big in China. (Reuters) 

A self-employed man repayed £40k of his student loan in the UK and it wasn't reflected in his balance. He contacted the student loans company and they told him could either repay what the system said he owed and wait for a refund or delay settlement until April, when it would have processed self-assessment payment data from HM Revenue & Customs. Then he started receiving huge bills for interest payments. (FT)

If you have man boobs you can get breast reduction surgery. (AirMail) 

400 people applied for a job as a barista. (BBC)

Gen Z want to work in cubicles. "I can’t really focus on my work, and I can’t get any privacy. I know people from my parents’ generation rave about having open, bright and airy spaces compared to cubicles, but it’s really a nightmare for me." (Metro) 

A recruiter who once had 11 staff now runs her company with AI agents. One spots new business from filings and announcements, one produces market intelligence on scarce skills, one nurtures candidates before roles open, and one runs executive searches. She just steps in at set checkpoints. (Bloomberg) 

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