You should take with a grain of salt any assertions you see that Aleynikov was bringing in billions in revenue. The sub-industry he worked in doesn't see those kinds of numbers from any individual's effort.
Please elucidate exactly to which sub-industry Goldman-Sachs belongs. I'm all ears.
Last time I checked, banks are the most powerful industry, and GS is the most powerful bank[1]. Aleynikov was single handedly building, deploying, maintaining and updating Goldman-Sach's HFT framework.
If you believe that key people like Aleynikov don't make the HFT industry profitable, a certain Medallion Fund and a Dr. James Simons would beg to differ.
I don't know of any big software companies getting government bailouts after gambling with money they scammed from average citizen . Once you can get away with that, and not have a single executive do jail time, come back to me. Every industry is subservient to the whims of banks. They'll tell you otherwise, but actions speak louder than words.
Aleynikov worked for a specific trading desk at Goldman-Sachs, which carries out high frequency strategies in some equity markets. High frequency equity trading is the sub industry I'm referring to. Since you're apparently confused about this: Goldman is a large bank. It has many lines of business, same as Microsoft produces many software products. Some of Goldman's business endeavors fall within the US high frequency equities space, but you'd be making an enormous error of scope if you confused one of their high frequency equities desks with their entire business.
I call shenanigans on the claim that Aleynikov was single handedly running the trading infrastructure for even a single one of their desks. That's complete nonsense.
As for Jim Simons: It's generally believed that the main cause of Renaissance's success is that they have a couple hundred of the world's smartest people all working together. It's not a 'key man' shop at all. (Also: You seem to be suggesting that Simons himself did all the work. The fact is that he spends most of his time smoking cigarettes and handing out wads of cash.)
