The Hedge Fund That Wasn’t

没有什么比对冲基金的谜团更好，这是全部：快速汽车，着名的学术成就，一个迷人的神秘之乐园，甜蜜的锅，一种沉重的人工智能剂量。

The kernel of this mystery was revealed to me in a July 25, 2019,福布斯文章。It begins with a series of non sequiturs on AI and investing (“Algorithms analyze the history of risk cases and identify early signs of potential future issues”) and then devolves into a mawkish paean to “Dr. Bruce Shi” and Thrones Capital, the “top hedge fund company” he founded — which “combines real-time market data provided by the company with an advanced learning engine to identify patterns in price movements for high-accuracy market predictions.”

谁是Bruce Shi博士，他的宝座资本是什么？快速的网页搜索显示2019年7月28日，关于企业家的文章Fawingly题为“布鲁斯 - 一位年轻企业家的鼓舞人心的旅程那” in which the unidentified author tells us:

Throkes Capital - Bruce Shi - 驾驶兰博基尼的创始人，与帕洛阿尔托网络联合创始人走向他的办公室，生活在硅谷的龙静脉中，所有丰富强大的人。邻居围园阳，甲骨文的创始人，以及许多其他顶级商业Moguls，Bruce Shi是一个神秘的角色，他是30岁以上的人力资金。目前，该公司是世界上最有前途的AI对冲基金之一。

这些物品的起源似乎是一个2019年3月17日，新闻稿题为“Bruce Shi领导的Thrones Capital推出了AI贸易对冲基金。”该释放包含关于SHI和有时名为“AI交易对冲基金”的知识产权（新闻稿后来称之为“人工智能量化贸易基金”）。

For example, Bruce launched the fund in 2017. It has about
管理下的资产2000万美元，并在过去三年中保持了坚实的表现，具有稳定的增长，高回报和充分的风险控制措施。“最有趣的是，错误骑行的新闻稿包括本公司投资过程的摘要：

宝座资本目标资本增长和交易美国股票市场指数。该基金将风险控制作为其顶级优先级，并在可控风险范围内绘制最大效益。该基金结合了短期交易，中期趋势和固定收入策略。它结合了趋势和价值投资，并优化了高回报，低回报，稳定收入和低风险投资产品的组合。Thrones资本战略利用人工智能和大数据分析与监督学习和加强学习算法。人工智能引擎学习历史市场数据和实时市场数据，动态优化交易模式。基金的目标是根据控制风险的前提下获得更高的年度回报。

这项基金是什么notdo? The kicker is the claim that Thrones is using reinforcement learning algorithms. There are only a handful of companies in the world that have created commercially viable reinforcement learning applications — and there are fewer still in the asset management industry.

Which raises the obvious question: Is Shi building the next Two Sigma, or is he a maladroit rogue trying to separate unwitting investors from their hard-earned money by dazzling them with claims of brilliance and AI jargon?

乍一看，证据支持后一种结论。

快速搜索美国稳压器的网站未能出现“shi”或“宝座资本”（或者，我们将在后面看到“Thrones投资LLC”）。思维施/宝石可能会在一个州机构注册，我叫加州的商业监督部门，并与一个发现没有史或施保的纪录的精彩员工。但是我愿意给予疑义的好处：也许他的资产管理或有限的客户豁免他注册。

接下来，我访问了宝座网站并发现该网站无法达成。

这当然只是又又又摇滚了。在我去的兔子洞，追求两条询问。

First, I contacted anyone that might be affiliated with Shi or Thrones.

I started with the obvious and supposedly most helpful source: the media contact listed in the original press release. In fact, I sent her three emails.

无回复。

然后我问“同事”Ilker Koksal，作者福布斯文章，任何他所拥有的信息。Koksal先生从未回复过我的LinkedIn消息或我发送给他的私营公司的电子邮件。

我的沉默不感到惊讶。他的文章的糖分，他的研究的浅作品，以及Koksal先生不是福布斯人员记者，而是一个“贡献者”让我得出结论àlajeffrey爱泼斯坦，他可能是由施或代理人支付的，以写下这个故事，或者只是支付在他的束缚下发布故事。这是一个真正的可能性，因为one critic has written“只是任何人都可以成为福布斯贡献者[SIC]。福布斯从未编辑这些贡献者职位。“（全面披露：虽然我是一个独立的专栏作家亚博赞助欧冠，不是员工记者，我写的每一列都被审查，编辑和批准II出版前的员工。）

我向主编的企业家致函了一个注释，要求“布鲁斯”文章的未认出的作者的联系信息。无回复。我猜这件作品是另一个播放媒体的一个例子，它可能是由同一个人编写的，他们写过3月的新闻稿。

我联系了几个人在他们的LinkedIn个人资料中，似乎是当前或以前的宝座资本实习生或员工。无回复。

And, of course, I tried to find Shi.

First stop: LinkedIn, where there was a profile for “Bruce S,” who self-identifies as “the founder of Thrones Capital.” Bingo. The profile indicates that Shi attended Carnegie Mellon University from 2013 until 2017 and earned a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering. Seeking verification, I wrote to CMU and was told via email, “We can confirm that a student with that name attended CMU from the summer of 2015 through the spring of 2017” and that “Carnegie Mellon University has not awarded Mr. Shi a degree.” (The profile also says that Shi earned a masters in science from the University of Michigan, which Michigan did confirm.)

It was clear that Shi was falsely claiming to have a Ph.D. Were his claims of scholastic brilliance also false? For example, the Entrepreneur article says that “from emerging as the winner in the Hua Luo Geng mathematics’ competition [sic] to laying his hands on the first prize at the mathematics and information technology Olympiad, Bruce added many feathers to his hat.”

Though the华罗庚国际金杯数学竞争is considered one of the toughest math contests in mainland China, I could not verify Shi’s victory. But does it even matter? After all, this is a competition for primary school and junior high school students; claiming victory would be like Izzy Englander putting his PSAT score in his CV.

I did find the International Olympiad in Informatics and the International Mathematical Olympiad — neither of which lists Shi as a winner — but no mathematics and information technology Olympiad.

The press release also states that Shi won “the Best Paper Award at IEEE for one of his papers published in 2016 during his Ph.D. program.” The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is indeed a prestigious organization in the AI world, and though I found它网站上的三篇论文listing Bruce as a co-author (along with six or more other co-authors), I uncovered no evidence that his 2016 paper had won an award. In fact, there were two papers with 2016 publication dates; one was cited just once, the other five times. Logic would suggest that the winner of “the Best Paper Award at IEEE” would certainly have been cited more frequently.

Yet the IEEE discovery revealed a helpful clue as to who, exactly, Bruce Shi is. The published papers show Shi’s given name to be Runyu, which allowed me to confirm the legal existence of Thrones Investment.

In July 2017, Runyu Shi submitted Thrones Investment’s original组织章程加州的国务卿。史是listed as the LLC’s “one manager” and is the signatory; Thrones Investment’s business address is 2543 Borax Drive, Santa Clara, California.

让我暂停澄清某些东西：Thrones投资LLC是Shi的法律公司实体;它确实存在，并且仍然在加利福尼亚州注册（尽管似乎有一些与最近的文件相关的恐惧）。根据这些文件，其“业务类型”是“投资和IT服务”。宝座资本声称是一个“AI Quantitative Hedge Fund那” although I could find no independent documents or evidence of this entity’s business or regulatory registration or commercial activities.

相反，对Thrones投资LLC的网络搜索导致Apple App Store和免费的“Bahappyhour.“应用程序，其中允许旧金山湾区用户在附近找到餐厅，并获得欢乐时光的信息。”宝石投资被列为卖方和版权所有者。

截至2019年8月4日，该应用程序恰好是五星级评论。

Thrones Investment was also identified as the developer of another free app, “Throds Capital AI对冲基金“有了这种笨拙的描述：”基金基于自动交易系统，并在经验丰富的交易员下监督。汽车交易系统利用市场历史数据和优势机械学习，加固学习算法。“

截至8月4日，它也收到了一个五星级的审查。

但是，该应用程序披露了另一个不一致：在App Randing页面上的现已删除的屏幕截图中，街头地址列出 - 555机场大道，450，Builingame [SIC]，加利福尼亚州（California）的街道地址不同申请。也许不出所料，既不是地址也不允许施施“与帕洛阿尔托网络联合创始人”或成为甲骨文创始人的邻居“的邻居。”（警报读者将认识到志远阳，当然，雅虎联合创始人杰瑞杨，而不是甲骨文。）

和2019年4月的Santa Clara地址的谷歌街道地图没有在车道上显示兰博基尼。

The app experience pushed me to investigate the last bastion of many a rogue: social media. Certainly, the distribution of a formal press release and the placement of two media stories must mean that Shi and Thrones have a significant digital footprint.

Nope. Aside from the seldom reviewed apps, the tepid LinkedIn profile (which has a surprisingly small number of contacts for a player with Shi’s purported international successes — 206 as of August 7, 2019), two nonworking websites, and few retweets of the press releases, nothing.

在企业家文章中，有两张照片，据称是我上传到Google图像的企业家文章中，看看它们是否生成了任何匹配项。我想也许有一张照片从奥林匹克人或IEEE举行他的奖项。没有什么。

---

Bruce Shi显然不是他声称的。但更有趣的是，为什么他宣称这样的事情？

鉴于所有这些不一致和红色标志（还有其他人，包括Thrones Investment），包括与加州国务卿的最新申请），我解释了媒体和新闻稿被放置支持对冲基金诈骗筹集资产。如果他们是，这肯定是最透明和笨拙的骗局。

出于同样的原因，我拒绝了更多的良性解释，以便为可能合法但是管理的对冲基金筹集资产的所有这些都已完成。单独从新闻稿中判断任何潜在的投资者打开他们的脚跟：“[shi]认为，资本资本的目标是通过不断推出新的利润战略来实现可持续和稳定的增长机会，并保持盈利能力。”

我的下一个理论是SHI建立了这些公司和应用程序，并建立了媒体存在，以证明他对潜在的职员或那个帕洛克的家庭的吸引力。

这将解释为什么perbolic flattery and references to childhood math achievements and the Olympiads. Yet this would be a lot of work to woo a partner.

I’ve since become convinced that the most likely explanation is that Shi created this elaborate construct of media, brand building, and companies to support his application for a very specific purpose: an immigration visa — specifically, a First Preference EB-1 immigration visa.

根据维基百科的说法，“the EB-1 is a preference category对于美国就业的永久居留权。它适用于“优先工人”。那些是外国人，他们有“非凡能力”，或者是“优秀的教授或研究人员”。。。[包括]通过持续的国家或国际赞誉，可以展示其在科学，艺术，教育，商业或田径运动中的非凡能力的申请人。“

Specifically, I am guessing that Shi is shooting for an EB-1A visa, which “requires the petitioner to show that the individual has either won some major award (Nobel Prize, for example) or met at least three out of ten regulatory criteria and show that the individual has ‘risen to the very top of the endeavor with national or international acclaim.’” Three of those criteria that Shi’s activities clearly are meant to satisfy, as listed on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration website, are:

“收到较小的国家或国际公认奖品或卓越奖项的证据。”2016年的IEEE奖;华罗庚和奥林匹克胜利：支票。

“Evidence of published material about you in professional or major trade publications or other major media.” The福布斯and Entrepreneur articles; newswire stories in Yahoo Finance and other outlets: Check.

“Evidence of your authorship of scholarly articles in professional or major trade publications or other major media.” The three IEEE papers: Check.

就像任何其他具有非凡能力的人一样，SHI确保符合第四个标准：

“Evidence that you command a high salary or other significantly high remuneration in relation to others in the field.” The brand-building claims that Shi is the founder of “one of the most successful hedge funds in the world” and that he drives a Lamborghini and lives in a ritzy neighborhood: Check.

我将此签证理论纳入移民律师，他们协助中国客户，其中许多IT空间，他们的EB-1A应用程序。Although she does not know Bruce Shi, she said he is following the classic EB-1A playbook: Get as much national or international media as possible, demonstrate you’ve won some academic prizes and published some papers in academic journals, hint at your material success, and make clear that you perform “a critical role in a distinguished organization.”

Yet she believed that the inconsistencies and deceit I uncovered would likely not be detected by government adjudicators. For example, they would likely ask Shi for a copy of his Ph.D. diploma but not contact CMU; they would not know that Thrones is not “one of the most promising AI hedge funds in the world”; and they would not seek to validate Shi’s various claims of scholastic exceptionalism. And as the attorney importantly pointed out, an EB-1A is the only visa that allows for self-petition.

当然，我可以在我的理论中离开基地。但鉴于迄今为止的证据，似乎最有可能的解释。

要重复，我确实给了Shi和他的同事几次机会，让唱片直接 - 但又没有回复。

For now, if you know Bruce Shi or Thrones Investment LLC, please contact me and tell me your story. If you can find Thrones Capital or “AI Trading Hedge Fund” in your manager database, send me the information.

就像我说的那样，没有比对冲基金谜团更好的了。