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‘King of the geeks’: how Alex Gerko built a British trading titan XTX市场征服了外汇交易，并使其俄罗斯出生的创始人获得了数十亿英镑的财富。
XTX Markets conquered foreign exchange trading and made its Russian-born founder a multibillion-pound fortune. 6park.com
如果亚历克斯•格尔科(Alex Gerko)坚持他的A计划，他可能会继续做一名俄罗斯学者，而不是成为英国最富有的亿万富翁之一，估计拥有120亿英镑的财富。 6park.com 6park.comAfter gaining a maths PhD in Moscow, however, Gerko concluded he could not be world-class as an intellectual. 6park.com然而，在莫斯科获得数学博士学位后，格尔科认为自己不可能成为世界级的知识分子。 6park.com 6park.comInstead, he moved to London where, with the help of an Icelandic supercomputer and 25,000 AI chips, he built XTX Markets: an algorithmic trading firm and part of a new elite that has rewired financial trading. 6park.com相反，他搬到了伦敦，在冰岛超级计算机和25000个人工智能芯片的帮助下，他建立了XTX市场(XTX Markets)：一家算法交易公司，是重新定义金融交易的新精英之一。 6park.com 6park.comThe unassuming 44-year-old owes his rise to a huge shift in financial markets since the 2008 crisis, which led to proprietary trading moving out of big banks and into secretive, highly profitable companies. 6park.com这位低调的44岁男子的崛起要归功于自2008年危机以来金融市场的巨大变革，这导致了自营交易从大型银行转移到了神秘而高利润的公司。 6park.com 6park.comBut XTX is also one of the few UK companies to have cemented its global pre-eminence in a period that has shaken the British capital’s once unassailable confidence in its status as a global financial hub. 6park.com但XTX也是少数几家在这一时期巩固了其全球领先地位的英国公司之一，这一时期动摇了英国首都对其作为全球金融中心地位一度不可动摇的信心。 6park.com 6park.com“What Alex Gerko has done is next generation, next level,” said Paul Rowady, founder of trading consultancy Alphacution Research Conservatory. 6park.com“亚历克斯•格尔科所做的是下一代、下一个层次的，”交易咨询公司Alphacution Research Conservatory的创始人保罗•罗瓦迪(Paul Rowady)说。 6park.com 6park.com“There’s no other example of a high frequency style trading firm starting the way that they did, in London, in foreign exchange . . . and then growing so quickly.” 6park.com“没有其他高频交易公司能像他们那样在伦敦的外汇市场起步，然后如此迅速地发展壮大。” 6park.comGerko and XTX declined to comment for this article. 6park.com格尔科和XTX拒绝就本文发表评论。 6park.com 6park.comXTX’s exact trading formulas are a closely guarded secret. Broadly, the firm makes money by taking tiny margins on millions of daily trades across currency, debt, equity, commodity and crypto markets. It aims to provide more competitive prices than rivals to investors who are looking to buy or sell assets. It handles $250bn worth of trades every day. 6park.comXTX的确切交易公式是一个严密保守的秘密。广义上，该公司通过在货币、债务、股票、大宗商品和加密货币市场上进行每日数百万次交易，以微小的利润来赚钱。它旨在为寻求购买或出售资产的投资者提供比竞争对手更具竞争力的价格。它每天处理价值2500亿美元的交易。 6park.com 6park.comGerko arrived in London with Deutsche Bank, which he had joined in Russia after finishing his doctorate. From there he moved to GSA Capital, a British quantitative hedge fund carved out of the German lender where he first built out the currency trading desk, followed by other assets. 6park.com格尔科在俄罗斯完成博士学位后加入了德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)，并随该银行来到伦敦。之后，他转到了GSA Capital，这是一家从德意志银行分离出来的英国量化对冲基金，他在那里首先建立了货币交易部门，然后扩展到其他资产。 6park.com 6park.comBut keen to reinvest the trading profits he made in expanding the business rather than share with investors, Gerko began negotiations to spin out. In 2015 he took a small group of traders and some capital from GSA, and set up XTX, named after a mathematical formula used in linear regression. 6park.com但是格尔科更愿意将他在交易中赚取的利润重新投资于扩大业务，而不是与投资者分享，因此他开始了分拆的谈判。2015年，他带领一小群交易员和一些资金从GSA分拆出来，成立了XTX，该名称取自线性回归中使用的数学公式。 6park.com 6park.com“He and his team were getting extremely ambitious . . . and the difficulty is trying to hold a high-frequency trading business inside a client business,” said one person who worked with Gerko. 6park.com“他和他的团队变得非常雄心勃勃……而困难在于试图在客户业务中维持高频交易业务，”一位与格尔科合作过的人说。 6park.com 6park.com“They’re mega geeks. They are the kings of the geek world,” said someone who knows him. 6park.com一位认识他的人说：“他们是超级极客。他们是极客世界的王者。” 6park.comXTX is now one of the most profitable private British companies, and Gerko one of the UK’s richest people, retaining about 75 per cent ownership. 6park.comXTX现在是英国最赚钱的私人公司之一，而格尔科是英国最富有的人之一，保留了大约75%的所有权。 6park.com 6park.comXTX made £1.5bn in profits across its UK and Singapore entities last year, and Gerko and a small group of quants and developers shared a profit pot of £747mn, filings show. 6park.com文件显示，XTX去年在其英国和新加坡实体上获得了15亿英镑的利润，格尔科和一小群量化分析师及开发人员共享了7.47亿英镑的利润。 6park.com 6park.comGerko took £413mn of that; the remaining £334mn was split among 25 other people. In 2022, when the entities reported profits of £1.6bn, Gerko earned £417mn; 24 others shared £350mn. 6park.com格尔科拿走了其中的4.13亿英镑；剩下的3.34亿英镑分给了其他25人。在2022年，当这些实体报告了16亿英镑的利润时，格尔科赚了4.17亿英镑；其他24人分享了3.5亿英镑。 6park.com 6park.comGerko has accumulated some of the customary trappings of wealth. He owns a 150-hectare estate in the Chilterns, which includes an energy efficient, subterranean house complete with a floor that can be lowered to reveal a swimming pool. He built a 3,560 square metre wildlife pond in the grounds that sparked a planning dispute, according to council documents. 6park.com格尔科已经积累了一些富人的惯常标志。他在奇尔特恩斯拥有一个150公顷的庄园，其中包括一个节能的地下房屋，配有一个可以下降的地板，露出一个游泳池。根据议会文件，他在庄园内建了一个3560平方米的野生动物池塘，引发了一场规划争议。 6park.com 6park.comBut the kings of the geek world also have some more esoteric baubles. They quietly populated their King's Cross headquarters with a replica of the Apollo 11 spacecraft’s command module, which sits in the canteen. Models of Battlestar Galactica robots stand tall around the office. 6park.com不过，极客世界的国王们也有一些更深奥的小玩意儿。他们在伦敦的国王十字(King's Cross)总部悄悄摆放了一个阿波罗11号飞船指挥舱的复制品，就放在食堂里。太空堡垒卡拉狄加机器人的模型高高地矗立在办公室周围。 6park.com 6park.comThe family office Gerko recently set up to manage his wealth is named Cromulon Capital after a species of human head-shaped planets from the sci-fi show Rick and Morty. 6park.com格尔科最近为管理自己的财富而成立的家族办公室被命名为Cromulon Capital，取自科幻剧《瑞克和莫蒂》中一个人头形状的星球物种。
If Alex Gerko had stuck with his plan A, he might have stayed a Russian academic rather than becoming one of Britain’s wealthiest billionaires with an estimated £12bn fortune. 6park.com
6park.com格尔科的家族办公室以《瑞克和莫蒂》中人头形状的行星命名为Cromulon Capital。 6park.comCore to XTX’s early growth was cracking currencies — a so-called over the counter market that was dominated by investment bank trading desks in the City of London where knowing who to call is key. Crucial to that was Zar Amrolia, the former global head of FX at Deutsche Bank who would become XTX’s co-chief executive at its founding. 6park.comXTX早期增长的核心是破解货币交易——这是一个所谓的场外市场，由伦敦金融城的投资银行交易部门主导，知道该联系谁是关键。对此至关重要的是扎尔•阿姆罗里亚(Zar Amrolia)，前德意志银行全球外汇负责人，他将在XTX成立时成为公司的联合首席执行官。 6park.com 6park.comHe “had the Rolodex, he could call and say, ‘give us a try, send us some of your orders and see if we don’t perform as good or better as what you’ve been getting from the so-called old boy network’,” said Rowady. 6park.com罗瓦迪说：“他有一本罗洛德克斯(Rolodex)名片盒，可以打电话说，‘给我们一个机会，给我们一些订单，看看我们的表现是否和你从所谓的老男孩网络那里得到的一样好，甚至更好’。” 6park.comForeign exchange provided the best market for XTX to start off in “because it had yet to be pervaded by the high-frequency trading firms, because they don’t typically have the Rolodex to be able to penetrate that market”, Rowady added — and it was centred on London. 6park.com罗瓦迪补充说，外汇市场为XTX提供了最佳的起步市场，“因为它尚未被高频交易公司所渗透，这些公司通常没有足够的人脉来进入该市场”——而且这个市场以伦敦为中心。 6park.com 6park.comIn an era when the likes of Virtu Financial have built businesses shaving microseconds off the speed it takes to execute trades, XTX has instead prioritised using reams of market data and artificial intelligence to build its trading models, and advocated against what it calls a “destructive speed race”. 6park.com在一个沃途金融(Virtu Financial)等公司通过将交易执行速度缩短到微秒级来建立业务的时代，XTX则优先使用大量市场数据和人工智能来构建其交易模型，并反对其所称的“破坏性的速度竞赛”。 6park.com 6park.comGerko believes “the best way for the market to be brutally efficient is for whoever is smartest to be given a fair crack,” said a person who worked at GSA and XTX. “But if the market is structured in such a way that only the fastest will win, then the market’s monopolised.” 6park.com一位曾在GSA和XTX工作的人士表示，格尔科认为“让市场变得极其高效的最佳方式是让最聪明的人得到公平的机会。但如果市场的结构是只有最快的人才能获胜，那么市场就被垄断了。” 6park.comRivals argue this is because XTX entered the speed game too late. “They try to preach as [if] they’re on some moral pedestal . . . That’s only because they weren’t good at high-frequency trading,” said a competitor. 6park.com竞争对手认为这是因为XTX进入速度竞赛太晚了。一位竞争对手表示：“他们试图宣扬自己站在某种道德高地……那只是因为他们在高频交易方面不擅长。” 6park.comXTX’s quant researchers use machine learning to scan trillions of market data points, price points, and other factors, in order to build statistical models that learn when and how to price different assets for investors. 6park.comXTX的量化研究人员使用机器学习扫描数万亿个市场数据点、价格点和其他因素，以建立统计模型，学习何时以及如何为投资者定价不同的资产。 6park.com 6park.comThat requires vast amounts of computing power. Gerko and XTX’s interest in artificial intelligence is profound, extending to early stage investments in AI start-up Anthropic, processing company Groq and British autonomous vehicle company Wayve, among others. 6park.com这需要大量的计算能力。格尔科和XTX对人工智能有着深厚的兴趣，早期投资了人工智能初创公司Anthropic、处理公司Groq和英国自动驾驶汽车公司Wayve等。 6park.com 6park.com“We were in the same building as Deepmind. During fire drills I almost thought HR would try to poach them,” quipped a former employee. 6park.com一名前员工打趣道：“我们和Deepmind在同一栋楼里。在消防演习时，我几乎以为人力资源部会试图挖走他们。” 6park.com扎尔•阿姆罗里亚(Zar Amrolia)，XTX市场主席 6park.comBut it is the firm’s consumption of Nvidia’s AI chips that underlines the centrality of the technology to its trading strategies. 6park.com但正是该公司对英伟达(Nvidia)人工智能芯片的使用，突显了该技术在其交易策略中的核心地位。 6park.com 6park.comXTX’s research is handled through a supercomputer in Iceland, where cold weather keeps cooling costs down and geothermal energy is cheap. It can hold 400 petabytes of data, equivalent to about 80tn digital photos. 6park.comXTX的研究是通过位于冰岛的超级计算机进行处理的，那里的寒冷天气降低了冷却成本，地热能源也很廉价。它可以容纳400拍字节(petabytes)的数据，相当于约80万亿张数字照片。(译者注：一个拍字节等于一千万亿字节。) 6park.comTo achieve that, XTX has spent more than £150mn on its 25,000 AI chips, according to people familiar with the matter. 6park.com据知情人士透露，为了实现这一目标，XTX在其25,000个人工智能芯片上花费了超过1.5亿英镑。 6park.com 6park.comMost are the last three generations of Nvidia hardware, making the low-profile trading firm one of the chipmaker’s biggest corporate customers behind governments, state-backed defence contractors and Tesla, according to a report from Air Street Capital. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment. 6park.com根据Air Street Capital的一份报告，大多数是英伟达最近三代的硬件，这使得这家低调的交易公司成为该芯片制造商在政府、国家支持的国防承包商和特斯拉(Tesla)之后的最大企业客户之一。英伟达没有回应置评请求。 6park.com 6park.comOn top of that, XTX is also building its own vast data centre in Finland. 6park.com除此之外，XTX还在芬兰建设自己的大型数据中心。 6park.com 6park.com“XTX is unique,” said Alvaro Cartea, director of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance. “Their edge is machine learning and neural networks, which combined with their compute power, can outpower pretty much all other firms.” 6park.com“XTX是独一无二的，”OMI量化金融研究院的主任阿尔瓦罗•卡尔泰亚说。“他们的优势在于机器学习和神经网络，再加上他们的计算能力，几乎可以超越所有其他公司。” 6park.com“The fact they have 25,000 GPUs and very few people is an indication that that’s where they think the value is,” Cartea added. 6park.com卡尔泰亚补充道：“他们拥有25000个GPU，但人手却很少，这表明他们认为这才是价值所在。” 6park.comEven if it is not an old-style high-speed trading firm, speed remains important to XTX. 6park.com即使它不是一家传统的高速交易公司，速度对XTX来说仍然很重要。 6park.com 6park.comWhen European stock exchange group Euronext moved its data centre from Basildon to Bergamo in 2022 — with physical proximity to data centres a key factor in how quickly firms can trade — “Gerko went nuts”, according to an industry executive. 6park.com根据一位行业高管的说法，当欧洲证券交易所集团泛欧交易所(Euronext)于2022年将其数据中心从巴西尔登镇迁至贝加莫时，格尔科大发雷霆，因为物理接近数据中心对于企业能够快速交易至关重要。 6park.com 6park.com“The legacy Chicago crew are still about who’s got the best set of wires,” said the person who knows Gerko, adding that by contrast, XTX’s views on speed are “pretty anti-establishment . . . it’s a combination of that, and it’s not in their natural skillset.” 6park.com了解格尔科的人说：“芝加哥的老一代人仍然在争论谁有最好的电线组合。”他补充道，相比之下，XTX对速度的看法“相当反传统……这是一种结合，而且这也不是他们的天赋技能。” 6park.comUnlike firms such as Jane Street, known for a more decentralised approach to management, XTX is made in Gerko’s mould. 6park.com与简街(Jane Street)等以更加分散化的管理方式闻名的公司不同，XTX是按照格尔科的模式打造的。 6park.com 6park.comIt has about 250 employees globally, far fewer than at rivals. In almost a decade at XTX, there have been few women in senior positions. 6park.com它在全球约有250名员工，远少于竞争对手。在XTX的近十年中，担任高级职位的女性寥寥无几。 6park.com 6park.comAlthough he has long led the firm alongside a co-chief executive responsible for day-to-day management — first Amrolia and then, since last year, the ex-JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank trader Hans Buehler — one consequence of his outsized stake is its one-dimensional culture, according to people close to XTX. 6park.com尽管他长期以来一直与一位负责日常管理的联席首席执行官（先是扎尔•阿姆罗里亚，然后是自去年以来的前摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)和德意志银行交易员汉斯•布勒(Hans Buehler)）共同领导该公司，但据知情人士透露，他的超额持股带来的一个后果是公司文化的单一性。 6park.com 6park.com“It’s hard to influence change when you have a majority shareholder,” said one. “It’s the same type of people,” said a former employee. 6park.com“当你有一个大股东时，很难影响变革，”一位人士说。“大家都是同一类人，”一位前员工说。 6park.com 6park.comThat majority shareholder shows no sign of selling. GSA sold its stake back to XTX in 2017, according to people familiar with the matter. XTX has not taken outside investment since. GSA declined to comment. 6park.com据知情人士透露，这位大股东没有出售的迹象。GSA于2017年将其股份卖回给了XTX。自那以后，XTX没有接受过外部投资。GSA拒绝置评。 6park.com 6park.comIn contrast, Citadel Securities sold a 5 per cent stake to venture capitalists Sequoia and Paradigm at a $22bn valuation in 2022. 6park.com相比之下，城堡投资(Citadel)证券在2022年以220亿美元的估值向风险投资公司红衫资本和Paradigm出售了5%的股份。 6park.com 6park.comAlthough a public listing or stake sale could help crystallise his fortune, Gerko has no plans to do so. He also paid £1.2bn to British tax authorities in the past two years, according to Sunday Times estimates, in stark contrast to the tightly-structured affairs of other billionaires based in the country. 6park.com尽管公开上市或出售股份可能有助于实现他的财富，但格尔科没有这样的计划。根据《星期日泰晤士报》(Sunday Times)的估计，他在过去两年中向英国税务机构支付了12亿英镑，与该国其他亿万富翁的严密结构的事务形成鲜明对比。 6park.com 6park.com“Alex wants to keep control, it’s his baby. Why would he give up [the] business to then comply with all the obligations of an IPO? There’s no upside for him,” said someone who worked with him. 6park.com“亚历克斯想要保持控制权，这是他的宝贝。他为什么要放弃业务，然后遵守IPO的所有义务呢？对他来说没有任何好处，”一位曾与他合作的人说道。 6park.com 6park.comMeanwhile, Gerko has backed initiatives supporting maths education. He founded Axiom Maths, a UK charity that runs ‘maths circles’ for secondary school children, an “approach originated in the former Soviet Union” — a nod to the billionaire’s origins. 6park.com与此同时，格尔科支持支持数学教育的倡议。他创立了Axiom Maths，这是一家英国慈善机构，为中学生经营“数学圈”，这种“方法起源于前苏联”，是对这位亿万富翁出身的认可。 6park.com 6park.comYet Gerko is no longer Russian. In December 2022, months after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Jewish emigrant renounced his citizenship. 6park.com然而，格尔科已不再是俄罗斯人。2022年12月，在弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)入侵乌克兰数月后，这位犹太移民放弃了他的公民身份。 6park.com 6park.com“Rejoice Russian twitter, the “Ukrainian Nazi Jew Gerko” is no longer your compatriot: started in 2020, about $10k of fees to Russian lawyers, 5 months of collecting docs, 5 embassy visits staring at Putin’s portrait, 4 months of wait and voila, I am officially a non-Russian,” he wrote on Twitter at the time. 6park.com他当时在Twitter上写道：“欢呼吧，俄罗斯Twitter，‘乌克兰纳粹犹太人格尔科’不再是你们的同胞了：从2020年开始，大约1万美元的俄罗斯律师费，5个月的文件收集，5次大使馆访问，盯着普京的肖像，4个月的等待，瞧，我正式成为一个非俄罗斯人了。” 6park.comSome firms refused to work with XTX allegedly because of Gerko’s Russian heritage: XTX sued them for racial discrimination. 6park.com据称，一些公司拒绝与XTX合作，原因是格尔科具有俄罗斯血统：XTX以种族歧视为由对他们提起了诉讼。 6park.com 6park.comGerko continued to be outspoken on social media when the Israel-Hamas conflict began last year, denouncing institutions seen to be sympathising with Hamas while donating to charities and hospitals. 6park.com去年以色列-哈马斯(Hamas)冲突爆发后，格尔科继续在社交媒体上直言不讳，谴责那些被视为同情哈马斯的机构，同时向慈善机构和医院捐款。 6park.com 6park.com“Fuck Harvard,” he wrote on October 8 last year, saying he would “never” hire anybody from the university at the centre of a backlash over its stance on student protests. 6park.com去年10月8日，他写道：“去他妈的哈佛(Harvard)”，表示他将“永远不会”雇佣来自这所大学的任何人，因为这所大学对学生抗议活动的立场引发了强烈反对。 6park.com 6park.comHis Twitter account has since vanished, though he remains active on LinkedIn, where criticising politicians and rivals continues. “Extremely shortsighted decision,” he wrote, when the UK government did not fund a new national maths academy. 6park.com他的Twitter账号已经消失，但他仍然在领英(LinkedIn)上活跃，继续批评政治家和竞争对手。当英国政府没有为新的国家数学学院提供资金时，他写道：“这是一个极其短视的决定。” 6park.comPrevious targets for his taunts include rivals Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial. “New head of compliance? Or straight to the board?” he wrote when Doug Cifu, chief executive of Virtu, tweeted about buying a new corgi dog. 6park.com此前，他曾将矛头指向竞争对手城堡投资证券和沃途金融。当沃途金融首席执行官道格•奇夫(Doug Cifu)在推特上发文提到购买一只新柯基犬时，他写道：“新的合规主管？还是直接上董事会？” 6park.com“They all hate each other. XTX and Citadel, there’s no love lost between the two heads of them,” said the head of a European stock exchange. 6park.com“他们彼此都不喜欢。XTX和城堡投资，这两家公司的负责人之间没有什么好感，”一家欧洲证券交易所的负责人说道。
6park.com阿波罗11号飞船指令舱的复制品 6park.com“Competition makes markets better and the meteoric rise of XTX as a leading trading firm has been impressive to watch and made us a better firm in order to compete with their excellence,” said Cifu. 6park.com“竞争使市场变得更好，XTX作为一家领先的交易公司的迅猛崛起令人印象深刻，这促使我们成为一家更好的公司，以便与他们的卓越竞争，”奇夫说。 6park.com 6park.comCitadel Securities, referring to previous posts about them, said: “The FT has a duty to shine a light on his appalling social media posts.” 6park.com城堡投资证券在提到之前关于他们的帖子时表示：“英国《金融时报》有责任揭露他骇人听闻的社交媒体帖子。” 6park.comNow, Gerko’s focus appears to be on mathematics, outcompeting rivals and taking market share. 6park.com现在，格尔科的重点似乎放在了数学上，超越竞争对手并抢占市场份额。 6park.com 6park.com“They make money hand over fist,” said Jesse Forster, head of equity market structure at Coalition Greenwich. 6park.com格林威治联盟(Coalition Greenwich)的股票市场结构负责人杰西•福斯特(Jesse Forster)表示：“他们赚得盆满钵满。” 6park.com“XTX remind me a bit of Renaissance Technologies,” he added, referring to the hedge fund whose billionaire founder Jim Simons was known for his love of code-breaking and mathematics rather than money. 6park.com“XTX让我有点想起文艺复兴科技公司(Renaissance Technologies)，”他补充道，指的是这家对冲基金的亿万富翁创始人吉姆•西蒙斯(Jim Simons)，他以热爱破解密码和数学而闻名，而不是追求金钱。 6park.com 6park.comBut a person who knows Gerko disagreed: “He wants to take on all of them, he wants to be better than Renaissance, better than Citadel.” 6park.com但是一个了解格尔科的人持不同意见：“他想挑战他们所有人，他想比文艺复兴更出色，比城堡投资更出色。”
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