Asian American candidates are stereotyped as working on quant strategies. Women are shunted into the "mommy track" of sales and investor relations, where they're expected to wear “formfitting dresses and towering high heels” and to be "deferential" and "amicable" to clients. Neely says hedge funds interview based on "fit" and that this is typically a euphemism for shared upper-middle class pastimes. Connections are arguably less important: you don't need rich parents when you're not seeding your own hedge fund start-up. The rise of massive multi-strategy funds like Citadel, Millennium, ExodusPoint makes it less likely that individual hedge fund managers will go it alone and more likely they'll join an existing fund's umbrella.
"In reality, they were all from upper middle class/affluent families and were very well-educated.” For example, one of those claiming to have bootstrapped a hedge fund career was the son of the CFO of an investment bank another had a father who was CEO of a Fortune 500 company another was the scion of a business school dean. Neely spoke to nearly 50 hedge fund professionals and she says they, “ predominantly framed their upbringings as solidly middle class," even though this wasn't exactly the case. So does generalized "intergenerational privilege." While hedge fund professionals talk a good talk about meritocracy, Neely says most have got where they are by virtue of the " social, familial and institutional forms of support typical of America’s elite upper class." Family money helps.