Mom gaped at me. “Jamie, that’s half a million dollars for half an hour.”
“My time is worth more than that,” I said.
From the TV, a new segment began.
“We’re now joined by Dr. Richard Ashworth, professor of economics at Columbia. Doctor, where does Jaime Chin rank among legendary investors?”
“In terms of documented performance,” he said, “she’s top five of all time. Her risk-adjusted returns are actually better than Warren Buffett’s first seven years. She has an uncanny ability to identify emerging trends before anyone else. Remote work platforms in 2019. mRNA technology in 2018. Crypto mining in 2020, after most assumed the bubble had burst. That’s not luck. That’s prescience.”
Dad stared at the screen. “There are articles here going back two years,” he said. “‘The Smartest Investor You’ve Never Heard Of.’ ‘Who Is J.M., the Ghost of Wall Street?’”
Mom’s lips moved silently, counting zeros under her breath.
“We’re hearing too,” the anchor added, “that Chin has donated roughly two hundred million dollars to education and scientific research over the past three years, via an anonymous foundation.”
Mom’s head snapped toward me. “You… donate that kind of money?”
I shrugged. “There are only so many apartments one person needs.”
Dad’s phone rang again. He answered, sounding shell-shocked. “Hello. Bill. Yeah.” He listened. “No, I… I’m not her adviser, I’m her father. I don’t control who she takes as clients—yes, I’ll mention it, but… I understand it’s urgent.”
He hung up slowly.
“That was Bill Richardson,” he said. “Of the Richardson Fund.”
“I know who he is,” I said.
“He manages eight billion dollars,” Dad said. “He wants to… he wants to give it to you. All of it. Says even with your ‘two and twenty’ fee structure, he’d still come out ahead with your returns.”
“No,” I said.
Dad blinked. “No? Jamie, he’s offering you eight billion dollars in capital.”
“I’m not accepting new clients,” I said. “I have a waiting list of investors offering substantially more than that. Richardson doesn’t meet my criteria.”
“Your… criteria,” Marcus echoed.
He opened one of the articles and read aloud, voice thinning as he went. “Her personal net worth is estimated at 3.2 billion…” He skimmed. “She personally owns her firm’s headquarters building, valued at two hundred million… and a Tribeca penthouse purchased in cash… thirty million in London… twenty-eight million in Malibu… twelve for a private island…”
“The island was underpriced,” I said. “The previous owner was overleveraged.”
Mom made a small, wounded noise. “You have an island?”
“It’s not that impressive,” I said. “It barely has infrastructure.”
Marcus just stared at me.
Dad looked at all three of us, then at his cooling salmon, then back at me. “Why,” he said quietly, “didn’t you tell us?”
“I tried to,” I said. “Several times.”
“You said you ‘managed investments,’” Mom said.
“I do,” I said.
“You didn’t say you were a billionaire,” Dad said.
I shrugged. “Would it have changed how you treated me?”
“Of course,” Mom blurted, then flinched at her own honesty. “I mean—that’s not—Jamie—”
“Would you have been less dismissive?” I asked. “Would you have listened when I told you I was fine, instead of assuming I was lying to myself?”
“No,” Marcus said automatically, then hesitated. “I mean… maybe. I… I don’t know.”
Dad rubbed a hand over his face. “We… we were worried about you,” he said. “We thought you were struggling.”
“You weren’t worried,” I said. “You were embarrassed. There’s a difference.”
Mom recoiled like I’d slapped her. “How can you say that?”
“Because when you thought I was just a modestly-paid ‘stock broker,’ you looked down on me,” I said calmly. “You told me my work wasn’t real. Tonight you staged an intervention to try and ‘save’ me from the career I built. Now that you know there’s a ‘B’ in front of my ‘-illion,’ suddenly you’re proud. That’s not about me. That’s about you.”
“You’re being unfair,” Marcus said. “We’ve always wanted the best for you.”
“No,” I said. “You’ve always wanted the version of ‘best’ that you understand. That’s not the same thing.”
Mom opened her mouth, closed it. Her phone buzzed again on the table and she ignored it.
“Jamie,” Dad said, voice lower now. “We may not have understood what you were doing, but we love you. That hasn’t changed.”
I looked at him. “Hasn’t it?”
From the TV, a panel of talking heads debated my existence like I was a theoretical physics problem.
“The SEC has already investigated her three times,” one said. “They found nothing illegal. No front-running. No insider trading. Just absurdly good timing and uncanny pattern recognition.”
“What happens now?” another asked. “Will she go public? Start a larger hedge fund? Take a government role?”
I tuned them out.
“So,” Marcus said slowly, clearing his throat. “You… you’re responsible for seventeen billion dollars?”
“Assets under management are approximately fourteen billion,” I said. “Plus my personal 3.2. So yes, about seventeen.”
He let out a weak laugh. “Our whole family business is worth maybe two hundred million.”
“It’s a nice business,” I said.
“A rounding error in yours,” he said.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said. “On my balance sheet, at least.”
He finished his drink in one swallow, then set the glass down with a clink. “I told you you were wasting your time,” he said. “I called you a middleman. I bragged about a four-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus.”
“You did,” I said.
“And your returns are what,” he asked, “like, a hundred million a quarter?”
“Last quarter was unusually strong,” I said. “About nine hundred million. But some quarters are lower. Some are higher. It averages out.”
Mom made that little whimper again.
“So when I was flexing about my bonus,” he said, staring at his hands, “you were quietly making… what? Two thousand times that?”
I thought about it for a second. “Approximately,” I said.
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