"Give Me Strength," Asness Begged Green Lantern. "Show Me The Way," He Implored Captain America. "Stop The Ass-Bleeding," He Cried out To Clark Kent

Author:: Bess Levin
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Feb 2, 2010

David Einhorn favors stuffed animals. George Soros goes with the Pez dispensers. Jeffery Gundlach, his most prized dildos. What sort of good luck charms money managers keep in their office (along the windowsill or around their monitors but always within arm's reach) might not seem that important but its these little garden gnome-type figures who watch over things, and who some of the most powerful investors in the world turn to when times get tough. Who helped Cliff Asness survive the quant meltdown of '07 (and the mutual fund hiccups of the future)? The answer may not surprise you. From Scott Patterson's The Quants:

Friday morning at AQR, August 10. Asness glanced pensively at a candy-colored array of Marvel superhero figurines lined up along his east-facing window.
Spiderman.
Captain America.
The Hulk.
Iron Man.
Comic book heroes of his boyhood days on Long Island.

Exhibit A: Friday morning at AQR, August 10. Cliff Asness glanced pensively at a candy-colored array of Marvel superhero figurines lined up along his east-facing window. Spiderman. Captain America. The Hulk. Iron Man. Comic book heroes of his boyhood days on Long Island.--The Quants, by Scott Patterson, page 100. On an August morning, Asness walks to his sun-dappled office windowsill and picks up a Captain America action figure. The hedge-fund mogul owns a panoply of action heroes, from the Hulk to the Silver Surfer, and the comic books that spawned them.--Bloomberg Markets Magazine, October 7, 2010 "Hedge funds charge far too much in general by claiming to be geniuses," says Asness, lounging on a sofa in his corner office, surrounded by foot-high plastic models of comic book heroes.--Fortune, December 19, 2011 As a child, Clifford Scott Asness gave no sign of his future as a Wall Street tycoon. He was born in October 1966 in Queens, New York. When he was four, his family moved to the leafy suburban environs of Roslyn Heights on Long Island. In school Asness received good grades, but his interest in Wall Street didn’t extend beyond the dark towers of Gotham in the pages of Batman. Obsessed with little besides girls and comic books, Asness was a listless teenager, without direction and somewhat overweight. At times he showed signs of a violent temper that would erupt years later when he sat at the helm of his own hedge fund.--The Quants, by Scott Patterson, page 12. “His super-villains are intellectual dishonesty and ignorance,” says Jonathan Beinner, a managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a former classmate of Asness. “When someone offers an opinion that Cliff feels is incorrect or dishonest, whether it be related to investments, politics or pizza, he feels it is his duty to stand up, even if it’s not in his best interest.” Asness admits to a superhero complex. His favorite Marvel comic book character is Captain America, who gains strength with the help of a secret serum and whose shield can be used as an indestructible weapon. Asness has an image of the shield tattooed on his left arm.--Bloomberg Markets Magazine, October 7, 2010 Exhibit B: The above is a rendering of a Batcave that will soon be built in the home of an unnamed Greenwich resident. When it is completed in Novemeber, the spread will include "a Batcomputer, Batmobile, Batsuits, 180 degree film screen, sound effects, gargoyles and even a Bat-themed elevator." The problem? This guy is not only infringing on Asness's territory as resident super hero obsessive/aficionado/scholar-in-residence/neighbor who dresses up and role-plays his character of choice but is apparently too cowardly to show his face or reveal his name so that Cliff might confront him. The other problem? Captain America doesn't have some kind of cool underground lair setup of his own. The only recourse? Someone spends the next couple weeks writing a series of fan fiction that describes his house, and then spends $20 million to have that built. Greenwich Resident Building $2 Million Batcave In Home [CTNews] Dark Knight superfan spends $2MILLION creating home cinema replica of Bruce Wayne's cave [DM]

Even billionaires can't always get what they so desperately want.