The bodily transformation that Coates’s traders experienced made for a positive feedback loop. They’d have a winning day, build up more testosterone, and take on more risk. Because most traders start out being too risk-averse, at first this helped; they were getting closer to the optimal, profit-maximizing level of risk. So they’d have more winning days, get yet more T, and take on yet more risk. You can probably guess what happened next. Before long, they were the equivalent of steroid-infused meatheads, barreling right on past optimal to dangerous, potentially catastrophic, Sam Bankman-Fried
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