Conversations with Maya: Eric Sporkin

Maya Ajmera, President & CEO of Society for Science and Executive Publisher of Science News, chatted with Eric Sporkin. Sporkin is an alumnus of the 2007 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), a program of Society for Science, and is a software engineer at Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm.

What are your favorite memories from ISEF?

The whole ISEF experience was outstanding. I’ve never been to anything so big and diverse. Being in Albuquerque, N.M., for ISEF was exciting, and I think I remember hearing there were more than 50 countries represented. What was even more incredible was the intellectual density. I felt like everyone I met was an expert in some obscure field, even though we were all high schoolers. My project, for example, focused on a math concept called full reptend primes, which are prime numbers (P)
where 1/P repeats only after P-1 digits.

You’ve spent your career at Jane Street, a market maker. What is a market maker?

A market maker helps connect buyers and sellers by simultaneously offering to buy or sell various assets to meet natural demand. My go-to example is a college bookstore. When most textbooks were still physical books, people would go to their school bookstore to buy and sell their used textbooks. Students could try to find each other directly — and sometimes they succeeded. But there were often significant gaps in both time and space between the sellers and the buyers, and it would be a lot of work for any one person. The bookstore provided this service by buying textbooks from students looking to sell and then holding onto that inventory for when students are looking to buy. A market maker provides a similar service but for tradable financial instruments, such as stocks, bonds, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and other securities.

What is your role at Jane Street?

We don’t have proper titles at Jane Street. There are no VPs or managing directors or head of this or that, which helps to encourage a flat culture. People feel more independence to pursue ideas or chime in on conversations. I feel like it helps instill a sense of entrepreneurship and autonomy. I enjoy the flexibility of my role. I’m a software engineer, and I focus on a variety of projects across areas. My role involves managing the international ETF desk developer team. I also help to coordinate a number of cross-desk initiatives. The technological design challenges I think about every day are fascinating.

To be honest, when I was in college, I never thought that a trading firm was a viable path for a theoretical math major. I thought that working in trading would mean shouting a lot and taking huge, risky bets based on gut intuition. In reality, places like Jane Street are very mathematical and rigorous in how we approach trading, and the culture is a great mix of welcoming and intellectual. The day-to-day is much more about collaboration and problem-solving.

Many fields are being transformed by emergent technologies such as AI. What do you foresee for the future of quantitative trading?

There’s no question that AI has and will continue transforming finance. However, I think people underestimate the difficulty of applying AI successfully in financial markets. These technologies have been very successful at solving deeply complex problems, but the shifting rules and relationships in markets pose a unique challenge that has taken a lot of time to overcome.

That said, machine learning is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in quantitative trading. There is a new wave of technologies changing the business by developing a deeper understanding of the massive universe of relationships between tradable assets, for example. It’s difficult to say what exactly this means for the future of trading. It’s possible that AI and machine learning will lead to fundamental changes in how markets operate, but I’m hopeful that it helps us access increasingly efficient markets.

For a decade, you’ve been heavily involved with Resolution Project. Tell me about that work and why it’s important to you.

Resolution Project is a youth leadership program that helps fund, accelerate and support social ventures founded by college students. Over the last 10-plus years, I’ve served as a mentor, a board member and a judge at the Social Venture Challenges, business plan–style competitions, where we select our fellows.

I feel like the similarities between Resolution Project and ISEF are numerous. Both programs center on bringing young leaders together and unleashing their potential for breakthrough thinking. Both take great pride in fostering a lifelong passion for innovation from an early age.

Through Resolution Project and your involvement with other social impact ventures, you’ve collaborated with many rising social entrepreneurs. What are the most important traits for those working to build something new?

Most successful social entrepreneurs I know did not set out to start a venture. They became hyperfocused on a problem, searched for an existing solution and eventually realized that the only way to solve it would be to start a new venture. The commitment and dedication required to succeed as a social entrepreneur is huge and requires a lot of sweat equity to succeed. It can be all-consuming, it can feel impossible and it can be lonely. That is why I care so deeply about programs that provide support and mentorship to young innovators and entrepreneurs because having support at those moments is so critical.

Who inspired you when you were younger and who inspires you today?

Growing up, I was lucky to have mentors who encouraged me to care deeply about my work and to push myself. My high school math teacher taught me that math could be fun and encouraged me to enter my local science fair, which led to ISEF.

My life was also greatly impacted by my grandfathers. My maternal grandfather was a strong, serious man with a “work to live” mentality. He was a successful small-business owner, but his job didn’t define him. He taught me to focus on what matters most, to put family first and to approach things with a healthy dose of common sense. My paternal grandfather was a brilliant businessman and entrepreneur, who taught me the value of creativity, of hard work and of being willing to chart my own path.

What books are you reading now, and what books impacted you as a young person?

Right now, I’m reading Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green. It’s a fascinating and fairly depressing book about the history and continued impact of one of the deadliest diseases of all time. It’s a painful reminder that many treatable illnesses are still killing millions of people. A book that made a big impact on me early in my career is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. If you want to understand how your own mind processes and responds to information, this is a must-read book. Finally, a book that I wish I had read much earlier in life is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. As someone who’s always needed more alone time and can find certain environments overstimulating, the book gave me a better understanding of myself.

There are many challenges facing the world today. What’s keeping you up at night and what gives you hope for the future?

We talked about AI and productivity, and I’m frightened about the consequences of enabling rapid development of technology by people who might not understand or even read the code that they produce. As these systems become increasingly complicated and tightly coupled with other pieces of infrastructure, we risk scary scenarios that will be difficult to prepare for or even predict. Progress is a double-edged sword. I’m excited about what these technologies will enable, but I also imagine that there are going to be challenges along the way that we’ll have to overcome.

I think the thing that gives me hope is the ingenuity of young people. Students and young professionals are often the ones who have the most energy, the most idealism and the most enthusiasm to tackle the world’s problems. I believe that they should be helping to lead right now, whether or not the rest of us think they’re ready.