Bezos' AI Lab Recruits Heavily From Hedge Funds and Trading Firms
Project Prometheus, the AI lab launched by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos last year, is building its team by hiring directly from financial services firms and recruiting people who left finance for AI companies.
This week, Andrei Margeloiu joined Prometheus in London after spending 18 months doing FX quant research at hedge fund Citadel. He holds a PhD from Cambridge focused on using neural networks for data analysis.
The hiring pattern extends beyond direct poaching. In February, Prometheus hired Jamie Watson, who spent seven years at Niantic but previously worked as a structured credit trader at Morgan Stanley. Late last year, it hired Shiyuan Guo, who left Citadel Securities after two and a half years as a FICC/equities quant to join Anthropic, before moving to Prometheus.
Prometheus maintains tight secrecy around its operations. The Financial Times reported the lab has hundreds of staff, yet fewer than 80 people list the project on LinkedIn.
Finance Hiring Extends Across AI Industry
Other major AI labs are following the same pattern. xAI hired Daniel Pfeifer from electronic trading firm Optiver last month, and recruited Depei Li from Five Rings Capital in January. LinkedIn data shows over 150 people from hedge funds and trading firms joined Anthropic or OpenAI in the past year alone.
The shift reflects how AI labs view financial services talent. Quant researchers and traders bring experience with neural networks, data analysis, and pattern recognition in high-stakes environments where precision matters.
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