Oscar de la Renta chose not to show at New York Fashion Week and instead streamed on Amazon. Is Amazon a suitable forum for a luxury brand? CEO Alex Bolen said, "I'm not sure. But we have to experiment with new ways to get our story out." https://lnkd.in/g4rZMxyb We launched our funds when Covid started and with the halt in travel and tough fund raising environment for emerging managers, we focused on performance and experimented with new ways to reach out to allocators, namely Linkedin posts and YouTube videos which can now be binge-watched on www.quantflix.com . True, some people say that with the positive fund returns last year for both our long-only equity and multi-strategy funds, and the China fund outperforming its benchmark by its annualized double-digit aim, it was expected that we would pass the $100m mark. But when times are bad, most new investment monies went to well-known funds that are much bigger with a marketing budget that we cannot afford. So every lit...
I realized today, 5 hours ago, that I have face blindness.
I was standing at the traffic light in Joo Chiat when someone waves at me enthusiastically. First, I turned to my sister who was next to me and asked if that was her friend. Next, I checked to see if there's anyone behind me (this is a bit scary because the Ghost 7th month is not over yet). After I deduced she was probably waving at ME, even though my sis was skeptical that I had such a hip and attractive friend (are people in hedge funds not supposed to have good-looking friends?), I took out my glasses to have a better look.
A lot of the time, I would walk past someone I know because I wasn't wearing my glasses. It is true that I'm short-sighted and I only wear my spectacles when I'm working.
But even with perfect eyesight, I actually cannot remember people's faces. Not that I can't recognize my own face, or my family members, or colleagues I see everyday. And the people I don't recognize are not total strangers - we might even have had met a few times.
So you are probably thinking, how have I survived all these years without becoming some social pariah? I compensate by remembering details of conversations (to the extent it becomes a bit creepy when I bring up someone's ex-girlfriend years later), what the person is wearing, the hair, the location, the food, the music, the weather, anything to put this person into context.
This 'superpower' is rather beneficial in my work. I don't need Ctrl-F to remember minor events in 10,000 pages of documents. Kind of similar to the mind maps (I use a mind-palace with many rooms) that contestants use for memory competitions.
Now back to the Joo Chiat street where mysterious attractive person, let's call her Lady M, started crossing the road and fast approaching me. Lady M said hey you're Chauwei right, she laughed that she was afraid she got the wrong person. I searched my mental database - petite, Singaporean, doesn't live in the area, 30's. I drew a blank but I was too embarrassed to admit I didn't recognize her because she seemed like such a nice person. Operation Candy Crush - Failed.
After saying goodbye, I googled 'not being able to recognize people after 40. This was not the first time I could not recognize people, or rather their faces. That was when I found out that 1 in 50 have a mild form of face blindness - Brad Pitt announced he had the condition. I was not just rude or suffering from early onset forgetfulness.
Lady M, if you are my LinkedIn friend, please reach out to me. I probably remember lots of things about you once you tell me where/how I met you. Face blindness is correlated to poor direction skills, so it's really been a double whammy for me.
I have decided to be upfront about my condition to all future Lady M's. I owe Lady M a drink. Informants on her also get a drink.
#faceblindness #joochiat #hedgefund #patternrecognition #mindmap
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