Shane Parrish is Wall Street’s biggest influencer

Mikhail Goldenkov/Strelka
Institute/Flickr

• Wall Street’s biggest influencer, Shane Parrish, is a blogger
  from Canada with an affinity for Warren Buffett.
• Hedge fund billionaire Dan Loeb is a fan, as is Bridgewater’s
  Ray Dalio. 
• The blog focuses on personal betterment and emphasizes
  reading regularly and mindfulness.

From fitness models to mommy bloggers,
social media is awash with influencers touting millions of
followers and big brand connections. 

But for financiers seeking an edge, a seemingly humble blog has
become a mecca for the world’s biggest money managers. Shane
Parrish, a former intelligence official from Canada, is changing
the landscape for how big financial players get ahead. An
unashamed Warren Buffett devotee — his blog Farnham Street is named after Berkshire
Hathaway’s address in Omaha — Parrish, 39, has concluded that
even as algorithmic trading and big data dominate finance,
self-improvement remains important to Wall Street. 

And billionaire investors agree. 

Around 80% of Parrish’s readers are financiers, with 190,000
people signed up to his weekly Brain Food newsletter.  Third
Point’s Dan Loeb is a fan and Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio recently
did a podcast with him.
In some instances, Parrish has been hired as
a personal decision-making coach to financiers.

The blog focuses on personal betterment and emphasizes reading
regularly and mindfulness. The tagline? “Upgrade yourself.” 

“These guys are driven to get that incremental edge — they
are competitive, gladiatorial in that respect,” Parrish said in
an interview with the
New York Times. “We are trying to get people to ask
themselves better questions and reflect. If you can do that, you
will be better able to handle the speed and variety of changing
environments.”

Wall Street’s obsession with gaining a competitive edge has
driven big data and machine learning to the forefront of the
industry. But, as Parrish’s success has demonstrated, sometimes
the biggest change comes from within. 

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