Fortress CTO leaves to start own fund

Steve
Helber/AP

• The chief technology and information of $41 billion
  Fortress Investment Group is leaving the firm. 
• Hylton Socher, a long-time exec at Fortress, is
  starting his own investment management firm that’ll focus on
  data and machine learning. 

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Hylton Socher, the chief technology and information officer of
Fortress Investment Group, the $41 billion hedge fund, is leaving
the fund to start his own venture, Business Insider has
learned. 

Socher, whose career at Fortress spans a decade, fell down the
rabbit hole of big data and other new-wave technologies sweeping
Wall Street, he said in an interview. 

LinkedIn

Socher’s firm, which he expects to be up-and-running by the first
quarter of 2019, will focus on algorithmic trading leveraging
artificial intelligence and machine learning. He’s calling it
VaraQuest, which stands for valuable relationship
awareness.

“I will be looking to take huge amounts of data, and connecting
them, and then squeeze alpha out of that,” Socher said. “The
example everyone knows: watching the traffic in the Walmart
parking lot to see where the stock will go … you want to look
at those non-obvious connections.” 

He’s now in the early stages of getting the firm off the ground,
he said, without giving specifics about the size or structure of
the fund.  

Socher, who joined Fortress in March 2008, previously served as
chief information officer of trading firm Susquehanna
International Group. 

Socher’s fund would join a string of other high profile hedge
fund launches this year, including
those from billionaire
Steve Cohen , ex-Millennium
head Mike Gelband and former Viking
Global chief
investment officer Dan
Sundheim .

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