How to Be a C.E.O., From a Decade’s Worth of Them Adam Bryant has interviewed 525 chief executives through his years writing the Corner Office column. Here’s what he has learned. Credit... Photo Illustration by The New York Times 3 By Adam Bryant Oct. 27, 2017 阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版 It started with a simple idea: What if I sat down with chief executives, and never asked them about their companies? The notion occurred to me roughly a decade ago, after spending years as a reporter and interviewing C.E.O.s about many of the expected things: their growth plans, the competition, the economic forces driving their industries. But the more time I spent doing this, the more I found myself wanting to ask instead about more expansive themes — not about pivoting, scaling or moving to the cloud, but how they lead their employees, how they hire, and the life advice they give or wish they had received. That led to 525 Corner Office columns, and weekly reminders that questions like these can lead to unexpected places. I met an executive who grew up in a dirt-floor home, and another who escaped the drugs and gangs of her dangerous neighborhood. I learned about different approaches to building culture, from doing away with titles to offering twice-a-month housecleaning to all employees as a retention tool. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story And I have been endlessly surprised by the creative approaches that chief executives take to interviewing people for jobs, including tossing their car keys to a job candidate to drive them to a lunch spot, or asking them how weird they are, on a scale of 1 to 10. Granted, not all chief executives are fonts of wisdom. And some of them, as headlines regularly remind us, are deeply challenged people. Gift Subscriptions to The Times, Cooking or Games. Starting at $25. That said, there’s no arguing that C.E.O.s have a rare vantage point for spotting patterns about management, leadership and human behavior. After almost a decade of writing the Corner Office column, this will be my final one — and from all the interviews, and the five million words of transcripts from those conversations, I have learned valuable leadership lessons and heard some great stories. Here are some standouts. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story So You Want to Be a C.E.O.? James Nieves/The New York Times ‘The problem with values like respect and courage is that everybody interprets them differently. They’re too ambiguous and open to interpretation. Instead of uniting us, they can create friction.’ Michel Feaster, C.E.O. of Usermind READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW » People often try to crack the code for the best path to becoming a chief executive. Do finance people have an edge over marketers? How many international postings should you have? A variety of experiences is good, but at what point does breadth suggest a lack of focus? It’s a natural impulse. In this age of Moneyball and big data, why not look for patterns? The problem is ...

1. How to Be a C.E.O., From a Decade’s Worth of Them
Adam Bryant has interviewed 525 chief executives through his
years writing the Corner Office column. Here’s what he has
learned.
Credit...
Photo Illustration by The New York Times
3
By Adam Bryant
Oct. 27, 2017
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
It started with a simple idea: What if I sat down with chief
executives, and never asked them about their companies?
The notion occurred to me roughly a decade ago, after spending
years as a reporter and interviewing C.E.O.s about many of the
expected things: their growth plans, the competition, the
economic forces driving their industries. But the more time I
spent doing this, the more I found myself wanting to ask instead
about more expansive themes — not about pivoting, scaling or
moving to the cloud, but how they lead their employees, how
they hire, and the life advice they give or wish they had
received.
That led to 525 Corner Office columns, and weekly reminders
that questions like these can lead to unexpected places.
I met an executive who grew up in a dirt-floor home, and
another who escaped the drugs and gangs of her dangerous
neighborhood. I learned about different approaches to building
culture, from doing away with titles to offering twice-a-
month housecleaning to all employees as a retention tool.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story

2. And I have been endlessly surprised by the creative approaches
that chief executives take to interviewing people for jobs,
including tossing their car keys to a job candidate to drive them
to a lunch spot, or asking them how weird they are, on a scale
of 1 to 10.
Granted, not all chief executives are fonts of wisdom. And some
of them, as headlines regularly remind us, are deeply challenged
people.
Gift Subscriptions to The Times, Cooking or Games.
Starting at $25.
That said, there’s no arguing that C.E.O.s have a rare vantage
point for spotting patterns about management, leadership and
human behavior.
After almost a decade of writing the Corner Office column, this
will be my final one — and from all the interviews, and the five
million words of transcripts from those conversations, I have
learned valuable leadership lessons and heard some great
stories. Here are some standouts.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
So You Want to Be a C.E.O.?
James Nieves/The New York Times
‘The problem with values like respect and courage is that
everybody interprets them differently. They’re too ambiguous
and open to interpretation. Instead of uniting us, they can create
friction.’
Michel Feaster, C.E.O. of Usermind
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
People often try to crack the code for the best path to becoming

3. a chief executive. Do finance people have an edge over
marketers? How many international postings should you have?
A variety of experiences is good, but at what point does breadth
suggest a lack of focus?
It’s a natural impulse. In this age of Moneyball and big data,
why not look for patterns?
The problem is that the world doesn’t really work that way.
There are too many variables, many of them beyond your
control, including luck, timing and personal chemistry.
The career trajectories of the C.E.O.s I’ve interviewed are so
varied that spotting trends is difficult, and a surprising number
of the executives do not fit the stereotype of the straight-A
student and class president who seemed destined to run a big
company someday. I’ve met C.E.O.s who started out
in theater, music and teaching. Others had surprisingly low
grades in school.
So what explains it? Are there some qualities — beyond the
obvious, like hard work and perseverance — that explain why
these people ultimately got the top jobs?
I’ve noticed three recurring themes.
First, they share a habit of mind that is best described as
“applied curiosity.” They tend to question everything. They
want to know how things work, and wonder how they can be
made to work better. They’re curious about people and their
back stories.
And rather than wondering if they are on the right career path,
they make the most of whatever path they’re on, wringing
lessons from all their experiences.
“I can find interest in a lot of different things and try to put that
to work in a positive way, connecting the dots and considering
how the pieces fit together,” said Gregory Maffei, whose
background includes a college degree in religious studies, and is
now the chief executive of Liberty Media, the giant company
with interests in everything from SiriusXM to Formula One
racing.
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Second, C.E.O.s seem to love a challenge. Discomfort is their
comfort zone.
“Usually, I really like whatever the problem is. I like to get
close to the fire,” said Arkadi Kuhlmann, a veteran banking
chief. “Some people have a desire for that, I’ve noticed, and
some people don’t. I just naturally gravitate to the fire. So I
think that’s a characteristic that you have, that’s in your DNA.”
The third theme is how they managed their own careers on their
way to the top. They focus on doing their current job well, and
that earns them promotions.
That may sound obvious. But many people can seem more
concerned about the job they want than the job they’re doing.
That doesn’t mean keeping ambition in check. By all means,
have career goals, share them with your bosses, and learn
everything you can about how the broader business works. And
yes, be savvy about company politics (watch out in particular
for the show ponies who try to take credit for everything).
But focus on building a track record of success, and people will
keep betting on you. “You shouldn’t be looking just to climb
the ladder, but be open to opportunities that let you climb that
ladder,” said Kim Lubel, the former chief executive of CST
Brands, a big operator of convenience stores.

5. Ms. Lubel’s career twists embody that mind-set in an unusual
way. She told me a remarkable story of applying for a job with
the Central Intelligence Agency, and then — thinking she didn’t
get the job — going to grad school instead. Only later did Ms.
Lubel (whose maiden name was Smith) learn that the C.I.A. did
try to hire her, but that they had offered the job to a different
Kim Smith.
The Most Important Thing About Leadership, Part I
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
‘You shouldn’t be looking just to climb the ladder, but be open
to opportunities that let you climb that ladder.’
Kim Lubel, former C.E.O. of CST Brands
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
Because leadership is so hard, there is a boundless appetite for
somebody to come along and say, “Here’s the one thing you
need to know.” Such headlines are the clickbait of business
websites.
If only it were that simple. But one thing isn’t necessarily more
important than another. And people are, well, complicated.
Better to understand leadership as a series of paradoxes.
Leaders, for example, need humility to know what they don’t
know, but have the confidence to make a decision amid the
ambiguity. A bit of chaos can help foster creativity and
innovation, but too much can feel like anarchy. You need to be
empathetic and care about people, but also be willing to let
them go if they’re dragging down the team. You have to create a
sense of urgency, but also have the patience to bring everybody
on the team along.
“We think about our values in pairs, and there is a tension or a
balance between them,” said Jacqueline Novogratz, chief

6. executive of Acumen Fund, a venture philanthropy organization
that focuses on the world’s poor. “We talk about listening and
leadership; accountability and generosity; humility and
audacity. You’ve got to have the humility to see the world as it
is — and in our world, working with poor communities, that’s
not easy to do — but have the audacity to know why you are
trying to make it be different, to imagine the way it could be.”
The Most Important Thing About Leadership, Part II
Go ahead. Twist my arm.
Despite what I just wrote, if you were to force me to rank the
most important qualities of effective leadership, I would put
trustworthiness at the top.
We all have a gut sense of our bosses, based on our
observations and experiences: Do we trust them to do the right
thing? Will they be straight with us and not shave corners of
truth? Do they own their mistakes; give credit where credit is
due; care about their employees as people as opposed to assets?
Do they manage down as well as up?
“If you want to lead others, you’ve got to have their trust, and
you can’t have their trust without integrity,” said James
Hackett, the chief executive of Ford Motor Company, who
ran Steelcase when I spoke with him.
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Continue reading the main story
A close cousin of trustworthiness is how much you respect the
people who work for you. It’s hard to argue with this logic
from Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood executive:
“By definition if there’s leadership, it means there are
followers, and you’re only as good as the followers,” he said. “I
believe the quality of the followers is in direct correlation to the
respect you hold them in. It’s not how much they respect you
that is most important. It’s actually how much you respect them.
It’s everything.”
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Is this helpful?
Discussions about different aspects of leadership sometimes
remind me of Russian nesting dolls, because many of the
qualities can feel like subsets of one another. But I keep going
back to first principles of how we’re wired as human beings —
we can sense at a kind of lizard-brain level whether we trust
someone.
“Human beings are incredibly perceptive,” Pedro J. Pizarro,
chief executive of Edison International, a public utility holding
company. “And they seem to be more perceptive when they look
at people above them than when they look down.”
‘Culture Is Almost Like a Religion’
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
‘People seeing who succeeds and fails in the company defines
culture. The people who succeed become role models for what’s
valued in the organization, and that defines culture.’
Tae Hea Nahm, managing director of Storm Ventures
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
It’s a predictable rite of passage as many companies evolve. At
some point, the leadership team will go through the exercise of
defining a set of values to shape the culture of their company.
These lists can be all over the place — lengthy or brief,

8. predictable or quirky.
But the exercise raises an obvious question: Are there some best
practices? I have noticed some patterns.
Shorter is generally better than longer. In fact, when I ask chief
executives about their companies’ values, it’s not unusual for
them to struggle to remember them all if there are more than
five bullet points. And if the boss can’t remember them, will
anyone else?
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Continue reading the main story
Granted, others might disagree with me on this point,
including Ray Dalio, founder of the massive Bridgewater
Associates hedge fund, who has hundreds of principles for
working at his firm. But here’s a thought experiment: What if
every company that has codified its values conducted a pop quiz
with employees to see if they know them all?
Values need reinforcement beyond repetition. Many companies,
for example, make their values part of the hiring and firing
process, and hand out awards to people who bring the values to
life. “The culture is almost like a religion,” said Robert L.
Johnson, chairman of the RLJ Companies, an investment firm.
“People buy into it and they believe in it. And you can tolerate
a little bit of heresy, but not a lot.”
Michel Feaster, the chief of Usermind, a customer-engagement
software firm, shared an insight about the importance of
specificity in the values exercise.
“The best cultural lists are the behaviors you want to cultivate,”
she said. “The problem with values like respect and courage is
that everybody interprets them differently. They’re too
ambiguous and open to interpretation. Instead of uniting us,
they can create friction.”
At the end of the day, does the values exercise even matter?
Many chief executives don’t believe in them. And Tae Hea
Nahm, managing director of Storm Ventures, a venture capital

9. firm, thinks other signals are more powerful.
“No matter what people say about culture, it’s all tied to who
gets promoted, who gets raises and who gets fired,” he said.
“You can have your stated culture, but the real culture is
defined by compensation, promotions and terminations.
Basically, people seeing who succeeds and fails in the company
defines culture. The people who succeed become role models
for what’s valued in the organization, and that defines culture.”
Men vs. Women (Sigh)
Librado Romero/The New York Times
‘You have to be open and alert at every turn to the possibility
that you’re about to learn the most important lesson of your
life.’
Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
Are there differences in the way men and women lead? I’ve
been asked this question countless times. Early on, I looked
hard to spot differences. But any generalizations never held up.
Sure, there are differences in the way people lead. But in my
experience interviewing executives for the past decade, they are
more likely to be driven by other factors, like whether they are
introverts or extroverts, more analytical or creative, and even
whether they grew up in a large or small family.
That said, there is no doubt that women face much stronger
headwinds than men to get the top jobs. And many of those
headwinds remain once they become C.E.O.s.
But the actual work of leadership? It’s the same, regardless of
whether a man or a woman is in charge. You have to set a
vision, build cultural guardrails, foster a sense of teamwork,
and make tough calls. All of that requires balancing the endless

10. paradoxes of leadership, and doing it in a way that inspires
trust.
A suggestion: I believe it’s time to give the narrative about
whether men and women lead differently a rest. Yes, we need to
keep talking and writing about why there are so few women in
the top ranks. But this trope about different styles of leadership
among men and women seems past its expiration date.
And while we’re at it, could everyone agree to drop the
predictable questions about how female chief executives juggle
family and work? Or start asking men the same questions, too?
I Have Just One Question for You
Ruby Washington/The New York Times
‘By definition if there’s leadership, it means there are
followers, and you’re only as good as the followers. I believe
the quality of the followers is in direct correlation to the respect
you hold them in. It’s not how much they respect you that is
most important. It’s actually how much you respect them. It’s
everything.’
Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hollywood executive
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
A big surprise has been all the different answers I’ve heard to
the simple question I’ve posed to each leader: How do you hire?
Even in recent weeks, I was still hearing job-interview
questions I had never heard before.
Just last month, for instance, Daniel Schwartz, the chief
executive of the parent company of Burger King, told me that he
likes to ask candidates, “Are you smart or do you work hard?”
(Yes, there is a right answer, he said: “You want hard workers.
You’d be surprised how many people tell me, ‘I don’t need to
work hard, I’m smart.’ Really? Humility is important.”)

11. Their creativity is no doubt born of necessity. Candidates are so
trained to anticipate the usual questions — “What are your
biggest strengths and weaknesses?” — that C.E.O.s have to
come up with bank-shot questions to get around the polished
facades.
This has inspired a kind of running game I’ve played with many
chief executives: If you could ask somebody only one question,
and you had to decide on the spot whether to hire them based on
their answer, what would it be?
I’d nominate a question that surfaced during my interview
with Bob Brennan, an executive director at CA Technologies, a
software firm, who was the chief of Iron Mountain, the records -
management company, when I spoke with him.
“I want to know how willing people are to really talk about
themselves,” Mr. Brennan said. “So if I ask you, ‘What are the
qualities you like least and most in your parents?’ you might
bristle at that, or you might be very curious about it, or you’ll
just literally open up to me. And obviously if you bristle at that,
it’s too vulnerable an environment for you.”
I’ll let the human resources professionals debate whether such a
question is out of bounds.
But I’m hard pressed to think of a better crystal ball for
predicting how somebody is likely to behave in the weeks,
months and years after you hire them. After all, people often
adopt the qualities of their parents that they like, and work hard
to do the opposite of what they don’t like.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
The point is reinforced time and again in my interviews. When I
ask executives how their parents have influenced their
leadership style, I often hear powerful themes that carry through
their lives and careers.
“I grew up in a big Italian family,” said Sharon Napier, the
chief executive of Partners + Napier, an ad agency. “Fighting

12. and being loud at the kitchen table was normal. I didn’t realize
when you went to somebody else’s house they didn’t argue
about something. So I love what I always call creative tension
in the agency.”
She added: “I like having a good debate. At first, people think
that’s combative. I really want to hear if you have a different
opinion. There has to be enough trust to do that.”
My Favorite Story
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
‘I just naturally gravitate to the fire. So I think that’s a
characteristic that you have, that’s in your DNA.’
Arkadi Kuhlmann, a veteran banking C.E.O.
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
I heard it from Bill Green, who was the chief executive
of Accenture, the consulting firm, at the time of our interview. I
asked him about his approach to hiring, and near the end of our
conversation, he shared this anecdote:
“I was recruiting at Babson College. This was in 1991. The last
recruit of the day — I get this résumé. I get the blue sheet
attached to it, which is the form I’m supposed to fill out with all
this stuff and his résumé attached to the top. His résumé is very
light — no clubs, no sports, no nothing. Babson, 3.2. Studied
finance. Work experience: Sam’s Diner, references on request.
“It’s the last one of the day, and I’ve seen all these people come
through strutting their stuff and they’ve got their portfolios and
semester studying abroad. Here comes this guy. He sits. His
name is Sam, and I say: ‘Sam, let me just ask you. What else
were you doing while you were here?’ He says: Well, Sam’s
Diner. That’s our family business, and I leave on Friday after
classes, and I go and work till closing. I work all day Saturday
till closing, and then I work Sunday until I close, and then I
drive back to Babson.’ I wrote, ‘Hire him,’ on the blue sheet.
He had character. He faced a set of challenges. He figured out
how to do both.”

13. Mr. Green elaborated on the quality he had just described.
“It’s work ethic,” he said. “You could see the guy had charted a
path for himself to make it work with the situation he had. He
didn’t ask for any help. He wasn’t victimized by the thing. He
just said, ‘That’s my dad’s business, and I work there.’
Confident. Proud.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
Mr. Green added: “You sacrifice and you’re a victim, or you
sacrifice because it’s the right thing to do and you have pride in
it. Huge difference. Simple thing. Huge difference.”
The story captures a quality I’ve always admired in some
people. They own their job, whatever it is.
Best Career and Life Advice
My vote for career advice goes to something I heard
from Joseph Plumeri, the vice chairman of First Data, a
payments-processing company, and former chief executive
of Willis Group Holdings. His biggest career inflection points,
he told me, came from chance meetings, giving rise to his
advice: “Play in traffic.”
“It means that if you go push yourself out there and you see
people and do things and participate and get involved,
something happens,” he said. “Both of my great occasions in
life happened by accident simply because I showed up.”
Mr. Plumeri learned this lesson firsthand when he was looking
for a job while in law school. He was knocking on doors of
various firms, including one called Cogan, Berlind, Weill &
Levitt. He managed to get an audience with one of the partners,
Sandy Weill, who informed the young Mr. Plumeri that this was
a brokerage firm, not a law firm.
Despite the awkward moment, something clicked, and Mr. Weill
gave him a part-time job. And Mr. Plumeri moved up as the firm
evolved into Citigroup, and he spent 32 years there, many of
them in top jobs.

14. “I tell people, just show up, get in the game, go play in traffic,”
Mr. Plumeri said. “Something good will come of it, but you’ve
got to show up.”
ADVERTISEMENT
How to Be a C.E.O., From a Decade’s Worth of Them
Adam Bryant has interviewed 525 chief executives through his
years writing the Corner Office column. Here’s what he has
learned.
Credit...
Photo Illustration by The New York Times
3
By Adam Bryant
Oct. 27, 2017
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
It started with a simple idea: What if I sat down with chief
executives, and never asked them about their companies?
The notion occurred to me roughly a decade ago, after spending
years as a reporter and interviewing C.E.O.s about many of the
expected things: their growth plans, the competition, the
economic forces driving their industries. But the more time I
spent doing this, the more I found myself wanting to ask instead
about more expansive themes — not about pivoting, scaling or
moving to the cloud, but how they lead their employees, how
they hire, and the life advice they give or wish they had
received.
That led to 525 Corner Office columns, and weekly reminders
that questions like these can lead to unexpected places.
I met an executive who grew up in a dirt-floor home, and
another who escaped the drugs and gangs of her dangerous
neighborhood. I learned about different approaches to building
culture, from doing away with titles to offering twice-a-
month housecleaning to all employees as a retention tool.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story

15. And I have been endlessly surprised by the creative approaches
that chief executives take to interviewing people for jobs,
including tossing their car keys to a job candidate to drive them
to a lunch spot, or asking them how weird they are, on a scale
of 1 to 10.
Granted, not all chief executives are fonts of wisdom. And some
of them, as headlines regularly remind us, are deeply challenged
people.
Gift Subscriptions to The Times, Cooking or Games.
Starting at $25.
That said, there’s no arguing that C.E.O.s have a rare vantage
point for spotting patterns about management, leadership and
human behavior.
After almost a decade of writing the Corner Office column, this
will be my final one — and from all the interviews, and the five
million words of transcripts from those conversations, I have
learned valuable leadership lessons and heard some great
stories. Here are some standouts.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
So You Want to Be a C.E.O.?
James Nieves/The New York Times
‘The problem with values like respect and courage is that
everybody interprets them differently. They’re too ambiguous
and open to interpretation. Instead of uniting us, they can create
friction.’
Michel Feaster, C.E.O. of Usermind
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »

16. People often try to crack the code for the best path to becoming
a chief executive. Do finance people have an edge over
marketers? How many international postings should you have?
A variety of experiences is good, but at what point does breadth
suggest a lack of focus?
It’s a natural impulse. In this age of Moneyball and big data,
why not look for patterns?
The problem is that the world doesn’t really work that way.
There are too many variables, many of them beyond your
control, including luck, timing and personal chemistry.
The career trajectories of the C.E.O.s I’ve interviewed are so
varied that spotting trends is difficult, and a surprising number
of the executives do not fit the stereotype of the straight-A
student and class president who seemed destined to run a big
company someday. I’ve met C.E.O.s who started out
in theater, music and teaching. Others had surprisingly low
grades in school.
So what explains it? Are there some qualities — beyond the
obvious, like hard work and perseverance — that explain why
these people ultimately got the top jobs?
I’ve noticed three recurring themes.
First, they share a habit of mind that is best described as
“applied curiosity.” They tend to question everything. They
want to know how things work, and wonder how they can be
made to work better. They’re curious about people and their
back stories.
And rather than wondering if they are on the right career path,
they make the most of whatever path they’re on, wringing
lessons from all their experiences.
“I can find interest in a lot of different things and try to put that
to work in a positive way, connecting the dots and considering
how the pieces fit together,” said Gregory Maffei, whose
background includes a college degree in religious studies, and is
now the chief executive of Liberty Media, the giant company
with interests in everything from SiriusXM to Formula One
racing.

17. Editors’ Picks
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Million
The First of Nadal’s 100 French Open Victims Has His Say
The Forgotten Queer Legacy of Billy West and Zuni Café
Continue reading the main story
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Continue reading the main story
Second, C.E.O.s seem to love a challenge. Discomfort is their
comfort zone.
“Usually, I really like whatever the problem is. I like to get
close to the fire,” said Arkadi Kuhlmann, a veteran banking
chief. “Some people have a desire for that, I’ve noticed, and
some people don’t. I just naturally gravitate to the fire. So I
think that’s a characteristic that you have, that’s in your DNA.”
The third theme is how they managed their own careers on their
way to the top. They focus on doing their current job well, and
that earns them promotions.
That may sound obvious. But many people can seem more
concerned about the job they want than the job they’re doing.
That doesn’t mean keeping ambition in check. By all means,
have career goals, share them with your bosses, and learn
everything you can about how the broader business works. And
yes, be savvy about company politics (watch out in particular
for the show ponies who try to take credit for everything).
But focus on building a track record of success, and people will
keep betting on you. “You shouldn’t be looking just to climb
the ladder, but be open to opportunities that let you climb that
ladder,” said Kim Lubel, the former chief executive of CST

18. Brands, a big operator of convenience stores.
Ms. Lubel’s career twists embody that mind-set in an unusual
way. She told me a remarkable story of applying for a job with
the Central Intelligence Agency, and then — thinking she didn’t
get the job — going to grad school instead. Only later did Ms.
Lubel (whose maiden name was Smith) learn that the C.I.A. did
try to hire her, but that they had offered the job to a different
Kim Smith.
The Most Important Thing About Leadership, Part I
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
‘You shouldn’t be looking just to climb the ladder, but be open
to opportunities that let you climb that ladder.’
Kim Lubel, former C.E.O. of CST Brands
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
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Continue reading the main story
Because leadership is so hard, there is a boundless appetite for
somebody to come along and say, “Here’s the one thing you
need to know.” Such headlines are the clickbait of business
websites.
If only it were that simple. But one thing isn’t necessarily more
important than another. And people are, well, complicated.
Better to understand leadership as a series of paradoxes.
Leaders, for example, need humility to know what they don’t
know, but have the confidence to make a decision amid the
ambiguity. A bit of chaos can help foster creativity and
innovation, but too much can feel like anarchy. You need to be
empathetic and care about people, but also be willing to let
them go if they’re dragging down the team. You have to create a
sense of urgency, but also have the patience to bring everybody
on the team along.
“We think about our values in pairs, and there is a tension or a

19. balance between them,” said Jacqueline Novogratz, chief
executive of Acumen Fund, a venture philanthropy organization
that focuses on the world’s poor. “We talk about listening and
leadership; accountability and generosity; humility and
audacity. You’ve got to have the humility to see the world as it
is — and in our world, working with poor communities, that’s
not easy to do — but have the audacity to know why you are
trying to make it be different, to imagine the way it could be.”
The Most Important Thing About Leadership, Part II
Go ahead. Twist my arm.
Despite what I just wrote, if you were to force me to rank the
most important qualities of effective leadership, I would put
trustworthiness at the top.
We all have a gut sense of our bosses, based on our
observations and experiences: Do we trust them to do the right
thing? Will they be straight with us and not shave corners of
truth? Do they own their mistakes; give credit where credit is
due; care about their employees as people as opposed to assets?
Do they manage down as well as up?
“If you want to lead others, you’ve got to have their trust, and
you can’t have their trust without integrity,” said James
Hackett, the chief executive of Ford Motor Company, who
ran Steelcase when I spoke with him.
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A close cousin of trustworthiness is how much you respect the
people who work for you. It’s hard to argue with this logic
from Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood executive:
“By definition if there’s leadership, it means there are
followers, and you’re only as good as the followers,” he said. “I
believe the quality of the followers is in direct correlation to the
respect you hold them in. It’s not how much they respect you
that is most important. It’s actually how much you respect them.
It’s everything.”

20. Today in Business
Latest Updates
Updated
May 28, 2021, 12:54 p.m. ET
May 28, 2021
May 28, 2021
Today in On Tech: Facebook takes on superspreaders.
Boeing puts off 787 deliveries again to provide more
information to the F.A.A.
Prices jumped 3.6 percent in April, the fastest pace in 13
years.
Is this helpful?
Discussions about different aspects of leadership sometimes
remind me of Russian nesting dolls, because many of the
qualities can feel like subsets of one another. But I keep going
back to first principles of how we’re wired as human beings —
we can sense at a kind of lizard-brain level whether we trust
someone.
“Human beings are incredibly perceptive,” Pedro J. Pizarro,
chief executive of Edison International, a public utility holding
company. “And they seem to be more perceptive when they look
at people above them than when they look down.”
‘Culture Is Almost Like a Religion’
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
‘People seeing who succeeds and fails in the company defines
culture. The people who succeed become role models for what’s
valued in the organization, and that defines culture.’
Tae Hea Nahm, managing director of Storm Ventures
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
It’s a predictable rite of passage as many companies evolve. At
some point, the leadership team will go through the exercise of
defining a set of values to shape the culture of their company.

21. These lists can be all over the place — lengthy or brief,
predictable or quirky.
But the exercise raises an obvious question: Are there some best
practices? I have noticed some patterns.
Shorter is generally better than longer. In fact, when I ask chief
executives about their companies’ values, it’s not unusual for
them to struggle to remember them all if there are more than
five bullet points. And if the boss can’t remember them, will
anyone else?
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Granted, others might disagree with me on this point,
including Ray Dalio, founder of the massive Bridgewater
Associates hedge fund, who has hundreds of principles for
working at his firm. But here’s a thought experiment: What i f
every company that has codified its values conducted a pop quiz
with employees to see if they know them all?
Values need reinforcement beyond repetition. Many companies,
for example, make their values part of the hiring and firing
process, and hand out awards to people who bring the values to
life. “The culture is almost like a religion,” said Robert L.
Johnson, chairman of the RLJ Companies, an investment firm.
“People buy into it and they believe in it. And you can tolerate
a little bit of heresy, but not a lot.”
Michel Feaster, the chief of Usermind, a customer-engagement
software firm, shared an insight about the importance of
specificity in the values exercise.
“The best cultural lists are the behaviors you want to cultivate,”
she said. “The problem with values like respect and courage is
that everybody interprets them differently. They’re too
ambiguous and open to interpretation. Instead of uniting us,
they can create friction.”
At the end of the day, does the values exercise even matter?
Many chief executives don’t believe in them. And Tae Hea

22. Nahm, managing director of Storm Ventures, a venture capital
firm, thinks other signals are more powerful.
“No matter what people say about culture, it’s all tied to who
gets promoted, who gets raises and who gets fired,” he said.
“You can have your stated culture, but the real culture is
defined by compensation, promotions and terminations.
Basically, people seeing who succeeds and fails in the company
defines culture. The people who succeed become role models
for what’s valued in the organization, and that defines culture.”
Men vs. Women (Sigh)
Librado Romero/The New York Times
‘You have to be open and alert at every turn to the possibility
that you’re about to learn the most important lesson of your
life.’
Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
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Continue reading the main story
Are there differences in the way men and women lead? I’ve
been asked this question countless times. Early on, I looked
hard to spot differences. But any generalizations never held up.
Sure, there are differences in the way people lead. But in my
experience interviewing executives for the past decade, they are
more likely to be driven by other factors, like whether they are
introverts or extroverts, more analytical or creative, and even
whether they grew up in a large or small family.
That said, there is no doubt that women face much stronger
headwinds than men to get the top jobs. And many of those
headwinds remain once they become C.E.O.s.
But the actual work of leadership? It’s the same, regardless of
whether a man or a woman is in charge. You have to set a
vision, build cultural guardrails, foster a sense of teamwork,

23. and make tough calls. All of that requires balancing the endless
paradoxes of leadership, and doing it in a way that inspires
trust.
A suggestion: I believe it’s time to give the narrative about
whether men and women lead differently a rest. Yes, we need to
keep talking and writing about why there are so few women in
the top ranks. But this trope about different styles of leadership
among men and women seems past its expiration date.
And while we’re at it, could everyone agree to drop the
predictable questions about how female chief executives juggle
family and work? Or start asking men the same questions, too?
I Have Just One Question for You
Ruby Washington/The New York Times
‘By definition if there’s leadership, it means there are
followers, and you’re only as good as the followers. I believe
the quality of the followers is in direct correlation to the respect
you hold them in. It’s not how much they respect you that is
most important. It’s actually how much you respect them. It’s
everything.’
Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hollywood executive
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
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A big surprise has been all the different answers I’ve heard to
the simple question I’ve posed to each leader: How do you hire?
Even in recent weeks, I was still hearing job-interview
questions I had never heard before.
Just last month, for instance, Daniel Schwartz, the chief
executive of the parent company of Burger King, told me that he
likes to ask candidates, “Are you smart or do you work hard?”
(Yes, there is a right answer, he said: “You want hard wor kers.
You’d be surprised how many people tell me, ‘I don’t need to

24. work hard, I’m smart.’ Really? Humility is important.”)
Their creativity is no doubt born of necessity. Candidates are so
trained to anticipate the usual questions — “What are your
biggest strengths and weaknesses?” — that C.E.O.s have to
come up with bank-shot questions to get around the polished
facades.
This has inspired a kind of running game I’ve played with many
chief executives: If you could ask somebody only one question,
and you had to decide on the spot whether to hire them based on
their answer, what would it be?
I’d nominate a question that surfaced during my interview
with Bob Brennan, an executive director at CA Technologies, a
software firm, who was the chief of Iron Mountain, the records-
management company, when I spoke with him.
“I want to know how willing people are to really talk about
themselves,” Mr. Brennan said. “So if I ask you, ‘What are the
qualities you like least and most in your parents?’ you might
bristle at that, or you might be very curious about it, or you’ll
just literally open up to me. And obviously if you bristle at that,
it’s too vulnerable an environment for you.”
I’ll let the human resources professionals debate whether such a
question is out of bounds.
But I’m hard pressed to think of a better crystal ball for
predicting how somebody is likely to behave in the weeks,
months and years after you hire them. After all, people often
adopt the qualities of their parents that they like, and work hard
to do the opposite of what they don’t like.
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The point is reinforced time and again in my interviews. When I
ask executives how their parents have influenced their
leadership style, I often hear powerful themes that carry through
their lives and careers.
“I grew up in a big Italian family,” said Sharon Napier, the

25. chief executive of Partners + Napier, an ad agency. “Fighting
and being loud at the kitchen table was normal. I didn’t realize
when you went to somebody else’s house they didn’t argue
about something. So I love what I always call creative tension
in the agency.”
She added: “I like having a good debate. At first, people think
that’s combative. I really want to hear if you have a different
opinion. There has to be enough trust to do that.”
My Favorite Story
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
‘I just naturally gravitate to the fire. So I think that’s a
characteristic that you have, that’s in your DNA.’
Arkadi Kuhlmann, a veteran banking C.E.O.
READ THE ORIGINAL INTERVIEW »
I heard it from Bill Green, who was the chief executive
of Accenture, the consulting firm, at the time of our interview. I
asked him about his approach to hiring, and near the end of our
conversation, he shared this anecdote:
“I was recruiting at Babson College. This was in 1991. The last
recruit of the day — I get this résumé. I get the blue sheet
attached to it, which is the form I’m supposed to fill out with all
this stuff and his résumé attached to the top. His résumé is very
light — no clubs, no sports, no nothing. Babson, 3.2. Studied
finance. Work experience: Sam’s Diner, references on request.
“It’s the last one of the day, and I’ve seen all these people come
through strutting their stuff and they’ve got their portfolios and
semester studying abroad. Here comes this guy. He sits. His
name is Sam, and I say: ‘Sam, let me just ask you. What else
were you doing while you were here?’ He says: Well, Sam’s
Diner. That’s our family business, and I leave on Friday after
classes, and I go and work till closing. I work all day Saturday
till closing, and then I work Sunday until I close, and then I
drive back to Babson.’ I wrote, ‘Hire him,’ on the blue sheet.
He had character. He faced a set of challenges. He figured out

26. how to do both.”
Mr. Green elaborated on the quality he had just described.
“It’s work ethic,” he said. “You could see the guy had charted a
path for himself to make it work with the situation he had. He
didn’t ask for any help. He wasn’t victimized by the thing. He
just said, ‘That’s my dad’s business, and I work there.’
Confident. Proud.”
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Mr. Green added: “You sacrifice and you’re a victim, or you
sacrifice because it’s the right thing to do and you have pride in
it. Huge difference. Simple thing. Huge difference.”
The story captures a quality I’ve always admired in some
people. They own their job, whatever it is.
Best Career and Life Advice
My vote for career advice goes to something I heard
from Joseph Plumeri, the vice chairman of First Data, a
payments-processing company, and former chief executive
of Willis Group Holdings. His biggest career inflection points,
he told me, came from chance meetings, giving rise to his
advice: “Play in traffic.”
“It means that if you go push yourself out there and you see
people and do things and participate and get involved,
something happens,” he said. “Both of my great occasions in
life happened by accident simply because I showed up.”
Mr. Plumeri learned this lesson firsthand when he was looking
for a job while in law school. He was knocking on doors of
various firms, including one called Cogan, Berlind, Weill &
Levitt. He managed to get an audience with one of the partners,
Sandy Weill, who informed the young Mr. Plumeri that this was
a brokerage firm, not a law firm.
Despite the awkward moment, something clicked, and Mr. Weill
gave him a part-time job. And Mr. Plumeri moved up as the firm
evolved into Citigroup, and he spent 32 years there, many of

27. them in top jobs.
“I tell people, just show up, get in the game, go play in traffic,”
Mr. Plumeri said. “Something good will come of it, but you’ve
got to show up.”
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Continue reading the main story
As for life advice, my favorite insight came from Ruth
Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University. Her
suggestion to students:
“They should never assume that they can predict what
experiences will teach them the most about what they value, or
about what their life should be,” she said. “You have to be open
and alert at every turn to the possibility that you’re about to
learn the most important lesson of your life.”
Thanks to everyone who followed Corner Office over the years.
I hope you found useful lessons in the interviews — I sure did.
And thanks to all the executives who were so candid with me
about the challenges they’ve faced and the mistakes they’ve
made along the way.
Perhaps their stories will inspire others to learn how to be better
leaders. It’s not easy, but the ripple effects of thoughtful
leadership are worth the effort.
As for life advice, my favorite insight came from Ruth
Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University. Her
suggestion to students:
“They should never assume that they can predict what
experiences will teach them the most about what they value, or
about what their life should be,” she said. “You have to be open
and alert at every turn to the possibility that you’re about to
learn the most important lesson of your life.”
Thanks to everyone who followed Corner Office over the years.

28. I hope you found useful lessons in the interviews — I sure did.
And thanks to all the executives who were so candid with me
about the challenges they’ve faced and the mistakes they’ve
made along the way.
Perhaps their stories will inspire others to learn how to be better
leaders. It’s not easy, but the ripple effects of thoughtful
leadership are worth the effort.
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44298x1E+SELL OptionsSWBI-1500$0.1116,500.00reserved-
44299x1E+SHORTOptionsPLBY-150$0.609,000.00reserved-
44299x1E+SHORTOptionsPLBY-150$0.355,250.00reserved-
44299x1E+SHORTOptionsSNDL-5000$0.0840,000.00reserved-
44299x1E+SHORTOptionsSPCE-170$1.0718,190.00reserved-
44300x1E+SHORTOptionsGME-450$1.5770,650.00reserved-
44301x1E+BUYCryptoXRP45,506.261.76-80,000.00reserved-
44302x1E+COVEROptionsSNDL5000$0.16-80,000.00reserved-
44302x1E+SHORTOptionsSNDL-
25000$0.0375,000.00reserved-
44302x1E+COVEROptionsGME45000Week 2 ^^reserved-
44306x1E+BUYOptionsPTON5$2.41-1,205.00reserved-
44306x1E+BUYFuturesLUMBER20$1,374.800reserved-
44306x1E+COVEROptionsSNDL25000$0.04-
100,000.00reserved-
44308x1E+BUYFuturesLUMBER10$1,195.000reserved-
44309x1E+SELL CryptoXRP-
64093.6177$1.0969,605.67reserved-44309x1E+SELL
OptionsPTON-500reserved-44309x1E+SHORT
PROCEEDSEquitiesPTON-500$105.0052,500.00reserved-

33. 44309x1E+COVEREquitiesPTON500$100.392,305.00reserved-
44309x1E+SHORT PROCEEDSEquitiesPTON500$100.39-
52,500.00Week 3 ^^reserved-
44316x1E+BUYFuturesWHEAT10$753.500reserved-
44316x1E+BUYFuturesSOY10$1,534.000Week 4 ^^reserved-
44319x1E+BUYFuturesLUMBER30$1,277.100reserved-
44319x1E+COVEROptionsSPCE170$3.15-53,550.00reserved-
44319x1E+SELL FuturesWHEAT-10727.00-13,250.00reserved-
44321x1E+SELL FuturesLUMBER-
20$1,595.20$484,880.00reserved-44321x1E+SELL
FuturesCORN-25$747.50214,062.50reserved-
44321x1E+BUYFuturesLUMBER1001,384.380reserved-
44322x1E+BUYFuturesCOPPER20$4.600reserved-
44323x1E+BUYFuturesLUMBER2601,516.270Week 5
^^reserved-44327x1E+SELL FuturesLUMBER-250$1,383.65-
1,778,150.00reserved-
44337x1E+COVEROptionsSNDL30000Week 6^^
Analytics
Portfolio Returns
2.9999999999999997E-4 7.3000000000000001E-3 4.41E-2 -
3.2099999999999997E-2 -2.29E-2 -1.7899999999999999E-2
9.4000000000000004E-3 1.1299999999999999E-2 -
6.4999999999999997E-3 -1.6999999999999999E-3 -
0.12479999999999999 -0.20979999999999999 -
0.14580000000000001 -9.2499999999999999E-2
9.5699999999999993E-2 0.3095 0.29320000000000002
0.3342 0.43919999999999998 0.64 0.8377 1.1852
1.4404999999999999 2.4984000000000002
3.5108000000000001 0.80549999999999999 -
1.9873000000000001 -3.0678999999999998 -
3.7892999999999999 -4.7441000000000004 -
5.7465999999999999 -6.8266 -5.8578999999999999 -
4.8658000000000001 -3.8273999999999999 -
4.4386999999999999 -4.4886999999999997 -5.45 -
6.0347 -6.2003000000000004

34. Return Percentage
Total Profits and Losses
Total -22000 72000 -30043.86 -9720.8799999999992
-9972.84 -10002.959999999999 -37500 -68000
60000 -20000 -60000 20913.509999999998 -
20000 25000 0 0 0 16500 9000 5250 40000
18190 70650 -80000 -80000 75000 0 -
1205 0 -100000 0 69605.67 0 52500 2305 -52500
0 0 0 -53550 -13250 484880 214062.5 0
0 0 -1778150 0
Total
Class Learning Objectives
· Describe various types of forward and futures contracts
· Price both forward and futures contracts
· Understand various investment styles of hedge funds and their
use of derivative instruments
· Explain the meaning of arbitrage and how it applies to pricing
of futures contracts and options
· Explain various speculative and hedging strategies
· Outline the specifications of a futures contract and calculate
margin levels and position gains or losses
· Calculate forward rates on stocks, indexes, commodities and
currencies
· Understand the basic principles of call and put option pricing
· Understand and apply Black-Scholes option pricing model
· Explain the basic and advanced option strategies

35. BlackRock
Alex B, Hong J, Marc C, Michael F, Netanel Y, Ryan D,
Portfolio Simulation Project
Team Roles - need to add a sentence to each
Alex B: Risk Officer
Hong J: Fund Manager
Marc C: Market Strategist
Michael F: Options Strategist
Netanel Y: Equities Strategist
Ryan D: Lumber Specialist
Hedging
Futures (Ryan)
Equities (Alex)
The first purchases we made for our stock portfolio were
equities. When looking at equities, rather than investing into
individual stocks, we chose to invest into several ETFs. This
decision was greatly due to the fact that from our equities in our
portfolio, we were looking to get consistent returns with
minimal volatility and risk associated. The first ETF we chose
to invest in was the JETS ETF, an industrial equities ETF
composed of strictly companies involved in air transportation.
This industry as a whole suffered greatly during the COVID-19

36. pandemic, as the vast majority of major airline companies saw
sharp decreases in revenues due to flights being grounded and
other travel restrictions. The JETS stock saw a significant
decrease in share value at the start of the pandemic, its price
falling from $31.33 on 02/10/2020 (one-month prior to
pandemic restrictions) to $12.49 on 03/16/2020 (just after travel
restrictions imposed). This ETF hit an all-time low on
05/11/2020, a 61.7% decrease of its value just two months pri or.
Over time as certain travel restrictions were lifted and vaccines
became more readily available, the airline industry began to
bounce back. In April, as our stock portfolio simulation started,
vaccines were becoming increasingly available to the publ ic,
and international travel restrictions were lifted, making our
group optimistic regarding the future performance of the JETS
ETF. We purchased just over $30k of this stock at $27.87 a
share, a 3% investment of our overall portfolio value. We were
optimistic about the performance of JETS due to its slow but
steady increase in value over the past few months, but
ultimately the airline industry did not recover in the timeframe
we anticipated and we suffered a loss of 3.66%. The next
equity we invested in was Vanguard’s VOO stock, an ETF
which aims to closely track the S&P 500 index’s returns. With
an expense ratio of just 0.03%, we felt that this index was a
cheap route for us to spread our assets across the many sectors
found in the S&P 500 and take advantage of the around-the-
clockwork by the analysts at Vanguard. We invested 1% of our
initial portfolio value into this ETF and ultimately realized a
3.28% return. Although this return was relatively insignificant
to our overall portfolio performance, we were confident in the
long-term growth and profitability potential, allowing us to
invest our time into closely monitoring more risky investments
such as options and futures contracts. The remaining 2% of our
portfolio holdings invested in equities were equally split
between Vanguard’s S&P 500 value and growth ETFs (VOOV
and VOOG). VOOV is an ETF which invests in stocks in the
S&P 500 value index, or in other words, companies whose stock

37. price seems to be low in relative comparison to their financial
performance. The assumption with value stocks is that over
time, their share values will rise to reflect the true potential and
financial health of the company, anticipating their growth to
outperform their competitors and the industry as a whole when
looking at a long-term time horizon. VOOG is an ETF which
invests in stocks in the S&P 500 growth index, or in other
words, stocks who are expected to outperform market returns on
a short-term time horizon. Although these growth stocks do not
typically pay dividends in an effort to internally reinvest capital
and further accelerate growth, investors anticipate making
money through capital gains when they sell their shares in the
future. We evenly split our investment between these two ETFs
due to their low risk and consistent performance, on both a
short and long term timeframe. Ultimately, we saw an increase
in value of 4.43% with VOOV and 2.26% with VOOG. Overall,
we were satisfied with the returns from our equities
investments, and felt that it was a valuable contribution to our
overall portfolio by mitigating risk through portfolio
diversification.
Options (Michael)
Diversification - marc
BlackRock’s strategy was to keep a well-diversified portfolio
across multiple sectors, by investing into both local trends
(lumber) and traditional trends (S&P). We watched massive
success but suffered even worse losses. We had a competitive
nature with little to no communication, and a failure to adapt in
the present market. Ultimately leading to the demise of our fund
in just 6 weeks. While analyzing our first 3 weeks we showcase
a market entry and pivot strategy, and in the last 3 weeks, our
rise in success and quick defeat. In the regular market this may
happen on rare occasions. Unfortunately, we neither took the
opportunity to adapt in the market or account for major sales

38. and purchases.
We had a group consensus on finding sectors individually then
report back to discuss strategies. Of the 58 trades made, 23 were
options, covers, and shorts, 7 were equities, 5 were in cryptos,
and 13 in futures. Of the first option trades placed at the open
of week 1, was a SNAP buy at $.22 costing $22,000 and a SNAP
short at $.72 cents. Here we made a cover strategy to protect the
firm from risks in market volatility, which became an immediate
success and a model going forward. The gain from the SNAP
short was 4.41%. Of the first trades in equities we invested into
vanguard ETF’s VOO, VOOG, & VOOV. This served 2
functions, one as a bet on the rising S&P index, and the second,
a comparative measure for our portfolio. When we looked at the
crypto sector as a team, we prioritized lower cost alternative
coins such as XRP, feeling that the market will drop in price for
Bitcoin. XRP is a blockchain ledger that offers a mode of secure
currency transfers, comparative to SWIFT and is currently in
litigation with the SEC. We are confident in XRP performance
because of the adoption and use through central banks in
countries across EUR-ASIA and South East Asia. We purchased
$20,000 worth of XRP at $1.03 and in user error, sold at $1.08
and repurchased, with a minuscule gain. These were the only
crypto trades we made, we would have liked to increase our
holdings in other coins such as ETH and LTC.
As we strategize in each type of trade, we try to rely heavily on
articles, communication, and an awareness of the market. The
first future contracts decided were global corn futures, 25
contracts at $576.25. By the end of Week 1 we had made 17
trades, 9 in options, 4 in equities, 3 cryptos, and a single future
contract. We saw this as an excellent start of keeping a well -
diversified portfolio expandable. At the open of week 2 our
portfolio was down -1.79%. During week 2 we made a total of
10 trades, 9 option short sells, and covers between SNDL, GME,
PLBY, and SPCE. Of these four trades we invested into the

39. cannabis agriculture, gaming retail, adult entertainment, and
commercial spaceflight. The last trade made in week 2 was a
buy into XRP for $80,000 at $1.76. In retrospect we should have
sold our holdings in XRP and reduce the risk of time
depreciation instead of purchasing more. At the closing of week
2 we managed to reduce our portfolio return to -.17% with a
total of 27 trades made. When the markets opened on week 3
our portfolio had dropped to -12.48%, and even further -20.98%
the following day. We had a group meeting to discuss strategies
to correct our portfolio standing. The result from our
conversation was to invest into lumber futures, we reaffirmed
our position because of personal, and industry knowledge and
purchased 30 contracts at an average of $1,284.90. We had high
confidence in the trade because of rising prices in physical
lumber from the past 2 months in this inflationary market. This
was a massive opportunity that we had not realized, by the end
of the 3rd week our portfolio closed at 9.57%. Content with our
turn around, we purchased PTON options, and extended our
future contracts into wheat and soybean futures. We felt the
agriculture industry would see a rise in prices across the board
as with corn, and diversified further with these contracts. We
ended week 4 with a return of 64%. In the beginning of week 5
we sold our contracts in lumber, corn and wheat, with a profit
of $712,192.5. Here was our exit strategy ensuring us the 5%
stake on return. By the end of week 5 our portfolio was up
351%, we purchased 20 copper futures to continue diversifying
while 360 lumber futures were bought. The open of week 6, our
returns had dropped to 80.55%, and this was our last
opportunity of liquidating to preserve our returns. The next day
our portfolio dropped -198.7% while the entire market dipped
for many reasons. A transaction of 100 contracts in lumber
futures was also sold and our portfolio has gone belly up hitting
peaks of -600%
While communication should have been prioritized in
purchasing decisions for every major trade, BlackRock was

40. structured horizontally so that many trades were placed without
discussion in trust of risk management strategies. Had we made
the correct decision to communicate exit strategies and
prioritize our earnings, we would have felt confident in
continuing our strategy.
The Good - analytics - hong
The Bad - analytics (Yonker)
Lessons & Takeaways
Exhibits