Cliff Asness: Run Your Process Like A Vulcan

In a recent interview with Front Row, Cliff Asness discussed the difficulty of sticking with your process, keeping staff and clients, and controlling your emotions, when your strategy is underperforming. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Asness: I am very proud of the fact that as much as I can hate losing people money to the point that in my distant past I would harm electronics, I don’t think anyone at AQR will tell you he came in one day and made a change because he was angry or in a bad mood.

If anything quant doesn’t mean you’re a vulcan. Quant does mean you run the process like you’re a vulcan and that creates some internal tension if you are subject to emotion. You got to fight that, but I haven’t done much very well in the last few years, but I’ve done that very well I think.

You can watch the entire interview here:

Cliff Asness Interview: Bloomberg – Cliff Asness Predicts Comeback for Quant Algorithms