Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys, which details the ultrafast, high-frequency trading that takes place on the stock exchange, you’ll recall his prefatory riff on a hedge fund that ran a fiber-optic cable from New York to Chicago. The goal was to shave a few milliseconds off the regular Internet route between the two financial hubs, and gain a split-second advantage over other high-frequency shops. The cost was reputedly $300 million, which indicated the stakes involved.
