I know many of his classmates through high school. As speculated on the thread, the Barnett family is wealthy and he was family-funded until another one of his classmates, another real estate heir, got involved and brought in his family office as well. I heard he was posting single digit % returns last year, which is ok since it seems to come from a slight edge instead of blind market exposure. He's not necessarily a strong trader but definitely good at marketing.
Update: CNBC interview. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-22/meet-future-trading-25-year-old-math-phd And a video from 8/1/12:
LOL! Your ignorance is appaling. Nearly every measurement in decades of trading. Drop the gonzo jealousy vibe man, its getting old and sad. Merry christmas! surf
Only the ignorant think vic only sold volatility. He made fortunes for himself and his investors. Vic is a true american hero.
He ranked 801 in the world on 8/7/13. http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tennis/Players/Ba/S/Sam-Barnett.aspx If you see the Forbes video of him, he has a wicked serve.
Would be nice to find how is his fund doing in terms of performance. That is the first item a hedge fund website should post. One of his interviews it says the fund takes 100s of thousands of positions and plays them out for quarter or more. Never heard of such high volume trading fund or did I read something wrong. Then he says we are not HFT (mainly because they sit on a position for long times). Sure does look like a research intensive team though, math and programming skills sure give them edge.
Looks like this gentleman is no-nonsense i.e. his system is for real. As for December 2014 the AUM has grown to $177M. Must be giving good performance. http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000340524#. https://www.facebook.com/SBBRG Started in Early 2011 and by Feb-2012 had 18% returns vrs .8 of the SP500.