Odds on Open

Quant Trader and Kinetic Founder: Trading the Market is Like Playing Poker

Aug 5, 2025
Grant Stenger, the founder of Kinetic and a former intern at Jane Street, dives into the similarities between trading and poker. With a passion for games and mathematical edge, he shares insights from his experiences at QuantRes and Numerai, emphasizing decision-making under uncertainty. He explains how decentralized exchanges operate and the advantages of trading on Solana over Ethereum. Grant also reflects on the collapse of FTX, discussing the importance of being early in emerging asset classes and the parallels between gambling strategies and market trading.
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ANECDOTE

Early Hedge Fund Internship

  • Grant got a hedge-fund internship in high school after meeting a billionaire manager's son at a traveling school.
  • He learned Python and order books from mentor Thomas Callahan during that summer in the Bahamas.
INSIGHT

Markets As The Ultimate Game

  • Grant views financial markets as the most competitive game with the smartest players and highest stakes.
  • He chose markets because they let him combine mathematics, games, and lifelong competitive drive.
ANECDOTE

Numerai Internship Origin

  • Grant met Numerai's Richard Craib at a poker tournament and later interned there as an ML engineer.
  • He worked with encrypted data and learned Numerai's stake-based prediction reward model.
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