#7 Doug Cifu: The Winning Formula of Vision, Values & Velocity

In this engaging episode of Stratospheric Leaders, I sit down with Doug Cifu, co-founder and CEO of Virtu Financial — a global leader in market making and execution services.

Doug takes us on an extraordinary journey: from humble beginnings landscaping lawns and scooping ice cream, to practicing law, and ultimately co-founding one of the world’s most influential market-making firms alongside Vinnie Viola.

Doug shares how his upbringing shaped a fierce work ethic, the role of trusted relationships in his career pivots, and the leap of faith required to leave a secure legal career for the entrepreneurial journey.

But this conversation goes beyond finance. Doug opens up about the heart of leadership — building inclusive teams, preserving company culture, prioritizing wellness, and leading with authenticity.

This episode is more than just a conversation — it’s a masterclass in leading with heart and a powerful reminder that success and humility are not mutually exclusive.

If you want to learn more practical lessons and real-world leadership insights from remarkable founder CEOs, you can ⁠⁠⁠⁠order Georgie's book Stratospheric CEOs out now (⁠U.K⁠. & ⁠U.S.⁠).

Key Takeaways:

• From Law to Leadership: How Doug transitioned from a law career to co-founding a global trading powerhouse

• The Power of Relationships: Why trust and personal connections are critical in shaping career-defining opportunities

• Culture Over Everything: Building inclusive, mission-driven teams that value diversity and collaboration

• Wellness as a Strategy: The importance of health, flexibility, and balance in sustaining long-term success

• Leading with Instinct: How staying true to your core values can guide big decisions in high-stakes environments

Show Links

Website - https://www.georgiedickins.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiedickins

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgieDickins-q7x

Transcript

0:00

Hi, I'm George Dickens, host of Stratosperi Leaders, the podcast where I get to have inspired conversations with extraordinary leaders from across capital markets. Join me to hear their game changing strategies, the pattern of story, and the powerful standby behind their strategic test. Every episode packed with wisdom inside of real-world letters, the stuff they simply don't teach you in business school. If you want to elevate your game and most importantly, elevate those around you, this podcast is for you. I was delighted to welcome the wonderful Doug Seafood to an episode of Stratospheric Leaders. And what an enjoyable conversation we had. There were many laugh-out loud moments for me. And what struck me was how real this conversation felt. And I imagine that whether you meet Doug in the boardroom or equally if you bump into him in a restaurant, he's exactly the same, which is he's warm, he's charming, he's funny, and he's a serious business person, but refreshingly, he doesn't take himself too seriously. And when we talked about the world of work, it all started for an early age, uh, from an early age for him, eager to make his own money. He started off cutting grass, uh, and then in his teenage years, he became a golf caddy. And like many of us that have had jobs um in our in our youth, there are so many valuable lessons that feed into our leadership. And for him, as a caddy, he learned how to treat people, how to treat them with respect, and how to connect with people across all walks of life. Post-high school, he went on to Columbia to study law. And this is where his mother said to him, Dougie, you're either gonna make a lot of money or you're gonna get yourself into trouble. Fortunately, he chose the former path. Doug was a successful uh lawyer for many years before he joined forces with Vinnie Viola and they founded Virtu. And this is a company which specializes in high frequency trading and market making across a wide range of asset classes. And I was really curious around why why did you name the company Virtu? It was after the word virtuous because everything they do, he said, we want it to be virtuous. There's no gray, it's black and white, and we're always going to be on the good side of white. Now in 2025, Doug has been with the company for 17 years. He's the CEO with a market cap and of around $6 billion. And having worked with the organization, I can confidently say it's a firm with some of the very best people in the industry. It's a great episode with some exceptional leadership lessons and also some genuinely brilliant personal insights. I trust you're going to enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it. Doug, I am delighted to welcome you to Stratospheric Leaders. In fact, I'm thrilled to welcome you to your episode of Stratospheric Leaders. You and I first met at a Christmas lunch several years ago, and I remember it vividly because it was that it was during this brief window between COVID lockdowns where we were able to gather in person before everything shut down again. So I think not only did we share Christmas cheer amongst the group, but also a few microbes. But since then, I've had the privilege of working with the Virtueans, uh, and you have such an extraordinary group of people working at Virtu. As part of one of the programs I ran last year, you and I did a fireside chat. And as I shared with you at the time, it was packed with such powerful lessons, rich insights, and so much humour. We talked everything from markets to hip flexes, your daughter calling you cheap. We talked about sweater vests. I mean, we we covered a whole range of topics. Um, and the conversation really left a lasting impression on me. So I have very much been looking forward to our podcast recording. Uh and so I would love, I always do my prep and we know each other really well, but I was Googling you and there's there's all about the Florida Panthers, this vertu, but you're again you there's a you're a private person as well. So I was gonna ask, well, not gonna ask, I'm gonna ask if if I was to Google search you, what's one thing I wouldn't find out? What's a lesser known fact that people wouldn't know about you? Well, that's a great one. Um I would say, and my wife would disagree with that, that I actually think I'm a terrific dancer, uh, which is and my wife actually, yeah, it's one of those things where like she says, you're a great dancer, but you're all about yourself. So, like, like I like like just having fun. So she's like, I'm like an afterthought. In fact, one of the um, so I've been married for 25, almost 26 years, and when we first started dating, um, you know, we go to this wedding, it's at the Metropolitan Club. I don't know why I'm telling you this story, but it's like a funny dance story. And this is like we'd been dating maybe like three, four, five months, and it was like her best friend was getting married, and she's in the wedding party, and she's kind of rolling me out, and it was like a big Jewish wedding, I'm not Jewish, and so she was concerned, you know, blah, blah, blah, all the nonsense and BS that people worry about. My wife used to worry about. So she's like, Don't drink that much. And I was like, All right, that's like putting like meat, meat, meat in front of a dog. Don't ever tell me not to do anything. Long story short, she goes off with the wedding party, she comes back. I don't really remember this that well, and I was hammered, and I was kind of like, I'll say dirty dancing. It wasn't like inappropriate with the groom's mother, Mrs. Miller. And she was like, What in that? So that was literally the only fight we ever had because she was like, What are you doing? And she tried to cut me off from drinking. Long story short. Um, I you know, she got over it, and um, and we're still married um 27 years later, I guess. So there you go. So she did marry you. So I love the fact you like having fun, and I'm sure that is a golden thread that's run through your life. Yeah, like I don't I don't want to say I don't take myself seriously because I I do serious kind of business things, I guess, but like I kind of am who I am. I just figured out a long time ago, I don't know, it's it probably was my upbringing. I had a fantastic mother. I'm not just saying this because you're a great mother, because I've met your children. Uh, it's 98% the mother, right? And so I had a great mother, you know, 2%, you know, the guys, you got to be there, you know, provide, kind of keep the kids in the fairway a little bit, but the mother's doing everything in the fairway. I'm a golfer, so I use golf analogies. And so I kind of figured a long time ago when I started business, like I've always had like kind of a personality, if you will. And so I was like, I can't really change who I am. I just can't, I'm not a great ass kisser. I'm not a good, you know, I have a hard time being super phony. And, you know, it's just, it was hard. So like I learned, I started as a lawyer and I was like, all right, if I'm skilled and people, you know, most people like me, some people can't stand me. And at the end of the day, you just can't worry about it. You got to control what you control. So I don't really worry about like what the world thinks of me, if you will. And I just want to like, you know, live every day and be happy and and you know, run my little firm and go to hockey games and be happy and hopefully play like some nice golf with friends and you know, that kind of stuff. Just keep it simple. I love I love and what you said there about personality, because I think as leaders ascend, like IQ is table stakes, it is about personality. Yeah, we're in the business of people. You want to engage people, and equally you want to have fun in life. Like life is the journey. Yeah, it really is. And I really actually like like people, I like meeting different people. I mean, that's like one of the best things about the job I've had for the last 17 years, like starting and then and running this little firm called Virtue Financial is it's it's first of all, the the colleagues and friends and partners I've had over the years and do still have at Virtue and watching them grow. And like, you know, Cindy, who you know very well, our CFO, she started when she was like, you know, this big and 12 years old and kind of a sheepish, like, you know, junior accountant, and now she's the CFO of this public company. That's pretty cool. And like, you know, like you know, people from different cultures, different places. I love when I take an Uber. I always talk to the Uber drivers, like, you know, and I ask them where they're from, and we talk about like Kazakhstan or like Georgia, the country, not the state, you know, and I learn like a lot about different people and their backgrounds and like you know, whatnot. I just think it's like kind of part of the the the joy of life. Yeah, I I remember uh Ali once said to me, be interested and be interesting. And that be interested, he said it sets you apart when you you're curious about others, you want to learn. Yeah, and I and I'm saying this and I'm not trying to be like, you know, the everyman guy, but like frankly, I've had much more interesting conversations with like caddies and you know, people working in my house or like you know, landscapers. I used to be a landscaper when I was a kid, uh, or Uber drivers, then I have like, you know, really uptight businessmen and billionaires who like just bore the shit out of me. You know, like I I don't have like a ton of like, you know, you know, the master of the universe kind of friends. I never got that. Like these guys like seem to like all socialize with each other. It's like they're not that fucking interesting. Oh, sorry, Chris. They're just not that interesting. Yeah, and like everyone's like, oh, I got this house in the Hamptons, I'm on the board of this. It's just like, oh, forget it. I don't want to do any of that crap. Keeping it real. And you you mentioned um 17 years uh uh at Virtue, and I know you you were in law before that, but I want to rewind even before that. Uh the young dog sifu, what was his first ever job? Well, it's a great question. My first, I had a number of I was self-employed first, depends what you ask. So, like I always wanted, I was always fascinated by money because we didn't have a ton growing up. I grew up very comfortable. My dad was an electrical engineer, my mother was a nurse that worked at night, so like two salary home, and you know, but they had to put three boys through college and then graduate school and pay for all that kind of stuff, and that wasn't really that easy in the 1970s and the early 1980s. And I had two brothers that went to college and graduate school, and they paid for everything. I never had any student loans, right? So, like I was always very eager to like make my own money and have my own money. So I started literally, I used to have to, I loved cutting grass and like I'm an Italian, so Italians love landscaping and stonework. I was shitty with stonework, so I I gravitated towards landscaping. I still to this day, like I love trimming bushes and cutting, you know, cutting trees. I'll tell you a really funny story. When I first I meander and I'll come back, I apologize. When I first moved out to Short Hills, New Jersey, we moved to this like really fancy house, like the you know, this great house. I was a lawyer, and I didn't know any better. We never had a landscaper and no one ever did anything when we were kids. We did everything ourselves. My father had three boys that he had built in help. So we get to the house and it was a little overgrown. So I get like a tree saw and all this other stuff. I know how to do this stuff. Saw him in the front yard, like literally trimming trees, cutting the grass, and then all this stuff, like making it nice because it was my house. You know, I'm proud of it. And my neighbor across the street, I hadn't met him, and I was probably dressed like an animal, like a slob, like I always am on weekends, and I was all full of stuff. So the neighbor pulls in and I wait, I go, Hey, how are you? And the guy looks at me and goes, runs in the house because he thought I was the landscaper. What I learned is when you move to suburbia, you don't do any of your own stuff anymore. So, anyhow, um, I digress. Now, 25 years later, I do have the landscaper, but I go out. Actually, the guy was cutting the bushes yesterday at my house here in Florida, and I went out and talked to him and like made sure he was doing it the way I like, because I like um an Italian, I love landscape. So that was my first kind of job. Then I was a caddy at the local country club that I never could belong on. Uh, I learned a lot of lessons being a caddy. I I did not grow up in a country club. And some people were nice to me, some people were like not nice to me. Like people were mean to me. I remember well vividly one of these conversations, I was like 15 or 16, and the guy asked me where I wanted to, what I wanted to be when I go to college. I said, I'm gonna be a lawyer, I'm gonna go to like Harvard Yale, Columbia, Princeton, one of the Ivies. And he kind of laughed at me and I was like, Why is this dude laughing at me? That wasn't very nice. And I ended up going to Columbia, and here I am. So uh it was one of the life lessons, and to this day, I'm unbelievably just because I like them generally, but I'm really, really nice to caddies, and I and I'm and my nickname at the club is called BT for Big Tipper because I always want to take care of tat, I always want to take care of caddies because I I remember how how people used to look down on me when I was a caddy. But then my first real job uh was at you're not an American, so you won't get this, but it was an American New York institution called Carvel, which is an ice cream factory. It's not just a store, it's a factory. And it you made everything there. And I started working there when I was 16 and I was really good at it. Like, really good. I made cakes, I made flying saucers, I made uh I loved it. I loved it. I made $3.35 an hour. I got a promotion, I ended up being the manager. I worked for this lovely Italian grandmother named uh what was her name? Mrs. Munia. I never called her by first Mrs. Munia. She loved me. I made the cakes. Uh, they had a cake called a cookie puss, which they still make today. So I you you know, you could be a little creative. The only thing I was really hard on, I have terrible handwriting. And when you write on a cake, you know, when you write like happy birthday, when you do it with the icing bag, your handwriting still sucks, even if you're using icing bags. So I was not good at that. But I love that job. The best part of that job, which was not good for my physique, was if you made a mistake, Mrs. Munia said, if you make a mistake, you can eat it. So I would like if you fucked up a cone and did like vanilla instead of chocolate, you'd put it to the side and then eat it. So I gained like 20 pounds. But other than that, it was a great job. Uh and I love this. And going back to your caddying, you said you weren't, you know, you learnt many life lessons. One is about how you treat people. What what other what other lessons did you learn that have really stood the test of time? The other thing was really interesting. I'm glad you asked that. So, like the way it works at country clubs is they have like a caddy yard and they have like this generally disgusting building. Now it's nicer, where you sat in and think of this. I was like a 15 or 16-year-old like white kid. And like, you know, this was in Syoset. So the name of the club is called Woodcrest. It was, it doesn't exist anymore. It was kind of a high-end club in Woodbury. I'd ride my bike there. But the other, you know, people, and there were a couple other kids there, but there were a lot of like adults that were caddies, and this was not like the higher end of society, if you will. So there I am as a 16-year-old, and guys were like throwing dice and drinking, and there were African Americans there and other minorities. I had never had interacted with these people before. So it was like you had to learn one, how to interact with a large swath of society. And then the other thing is that then you went on a golf course and you had like, you know, rich people that I'd never really interacted with, that, you know, from the area that you had to like be an adult with and kind of interact with. And like, you know, some of them didn't want you to talk, some of them would engage you, some of them were super nice. So I learned like a good life lesson on how to deal with people from like, you know, the bottom of society up to like, you know, the back then doctors were like the most prominent people, and there were some Wall Street people at this club. So these were like, you know, other, you know, forms of humanity for me. I'd never met anybody, you know. You know, I grew up in a very kind of not blue-collar, but a very like basic, you know, family-oriented place where nobody had like a ton of money like that. So it was like these people that had like monies and drove Mercedes and all that kind of stuff. So how do you like deal with you know that large swath of society? Yeah, so people you you learn how to deal with different people. And I and um and and you you you went like law was um you mentioned you went to Colombia. What was it about law that interested you? What was the uh Um You know, it was a little bit, I guess it's my personality. My mother said to me, and I've said this to people before, like when I was, you know, young, and she was unbelievably supportive, so I could just like do what I want. Not I didn't run like wild, right? I was a great student and whatnot. So like, but she said, Dougie, she always called me Dougie, you know, you're either gonna make a lot of money with that math or you're gonna get in a lot of trouble. And both, you know, kind of both have happened. Uh, and it was like I was always like very verbal and like, you know, kind of almost had like ADHD talking to people and being like, you know, having a personality. So I thought, at first I thought, and I was a high school debater. I don't know if you have that in England, but we had like it's a kind of a big deal here. And I was pretty good. I was president of the debate team, kind of a geeky guy, right? I went to states and the nationals for it. I won some trophies. So I thought I was gonna be like a courtroom lawyer, um, you know, kind of like Clarence Darrow or something like that. Um, and then when I got to law school, I was like, oh, these litigation people are just angry all the time and arguing about like nonsense. It was too much, too much agida, too much stress, too much just being angry about nothing. And being a business lawyer or a corporate lawyer really, really like fit my skill set. It was like, you know, intellectual, you had to be smart, you had to study, you had to like really know the law, you had to keep up with the case law, but you had to interact with like, you know, high-end clients, private equity firms, big corporations, individuals on sophisticated securities, you know, I did everything in mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy, intellectual property, tax, all that kind of stuff, and give advice. And then you had to go interact with, you know, an adversary who was on the other side of the transaction, whatever it was, and get along well enough with them to be in, you know, but come to a compromise that both parties could accept, right? So they it it really kind of fit very nicely into what I thought I was good at. And so what was the defining moment then when you, you know, you you were in law for a period of time that then was like, you know what, I'm now I'm gonna leave. You know, you co-founded uh Virtu. Yeah, no, I never had any intention of um of leaving. I was very, you know, well regarded at the firm. You know, I won all these idiotic, you know, awards that lawyers give to themselves, like super lawyers, and I was in all these books, and you know, I was like private equity lawyer of the year and all this bullshit. Like I was on the management committee of Paul Weiss, which is a great, great law firm. It's been in the news recently, but a great law firm, and I was a corporate lawyer making a good amount of money. But I had this client named Vinny Viola that I had been referred to um by Journal Atlantic Partners, which was my big, my big client, um, Bill Ford, who I owe I owe a lot of my life to Bill Ford. But um, so Vinny needed a lawyer, G A Journal Atlantic had invested in the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Vinny was chairman. So Vinny called up Bill Ford and said, Hey, who was that, you know, that loudmouth guy? He didn't say, Who was that guy that represented you? If he's good enough for you, he's probably good enough for me. And that's how I first met Vinny. And I was his lawyer for a couple, three years. He had a couple very significant, like personal um, you know, business matters that I helped resolve them for. And when when you get into like the trenches with an individual client, like it means the world to them, right? It's not like I'm representing some big company, and if they make or lose, you know, half a billion dollars, yeah, it matters, but it doesn't really matter. Like this was Vinny's life. And so I had a bet, a bet of, you know, bet the company litigation, if you will, or situation for Vinny. And I did a really, really good job, partly guess because I was guess I was a good lawyer, but partly because I was really into it. You know, when you represent an individual and you really like the person, you're sort of super motivated. You know, like I'd make a lot more money doing some deal for some private equity firm as opposed to, you know, work representing Vinny. But, you know, I just we really clicked on a personal level, both Italian Americans. We have very similar kind of views of life. We both like sports and this and that. We both have, you know, family, and you know, just we both he's a West Point grad. I love military history. So we just had all these like, you know, common interests. He's very different than me, um, but we really clicked on a personal level. And I, you know, you know, I'll say this. He must have seen something in me. And he said to me after like a couple years of me being his lawyer at Paul Weiss, hey, you know, Doug, you're wasting your F and time being a lawyer. You're really smart. I want to start this business in New York, and it's gonna do, you know, X, Y, and Z. And he described what Virtue was going to be and what it is today, right? So I was like, it was one of those moments in life where I was like, and I'd never really thought about leaving Virtue. And we always like, I think lawyers always like look at their clients and say, Man, I'm freaking smarter than this guy. I should be the guy making all this money, and I should be the client. But you know, it's hard to like transition. And I so I met a crazy man who I, you know, who was crazy enough to uh trust me, and here I am 17 years later in a really cheap trading vest with a nice view of the Cheesecake Factory talking to you. So life comes at you fast. It does come at you fast. I didn't realize the Bill Ford connection because he finally did the um the intro to my book. Uh so I met him through Lance. Yeah, I know, I know, and you know he knows Lance really well. He invested in Lance's company, so yeah. Actually, I did that, I did that deal. I did that deal for GI. Did you? Okay, but I love what you said there with Vinny. You did a great job. There was like rapport, there was trust, you know, there were you know, there was consistency, there were you know, there was and and and the Virtu. I'm I'm again uh how did you call it Virtu? Was it is it something Vinny had already decided on the name? No, it's kind of a funny story. So, like, um, you know, Vinny's uh you've met him a little bit, like he's a very like kind of black and white, you know. Um, I'll say like a lot of his upbringing was informed by the United States Military Academy at West Point. So he's an army ranger at his core, right? Like disciplined. He's a little crazy, but he's disciplined and he learned all of his life lessons at the at the academy. And he would have been a great general, you know, he kind of is a general, but he would have been a great general in the United States Army. And I think, you know, for reasons, personal reasons, he had to get out of the army. But so everything was always informed by that. And when we were starting Virtue, you know, I was still a lawyer. So I said, Oh, hey, I can handle the organization of the great of the, you know, I didn't know anything about trading, so I was acting as our lawyer and our president of and our general counsel and our CFO. He was a startup. It was me and Vinny's. I was kind of doing everything. So I said, Hey Vin, what are we going to call this thing? He goes, I want to call it Virtue Financial Financial. I said, Why Virtue? He said, Oh, because everything we do, we're going to be virtuous. Right? There's no gray, it's black and white. We're always going to be on the good side of the white. Right. So everything we do, we're going to be virtuous. How we deal with our people, how we deal with the outside world, how we deal with regulators. And we tried to emulate that. And I said, oh, great. So I said, V-I-R-T-U-E, virtue, right? He said, No, I don't like the E. Take the E off at the end. I said, Vinny, I said, for the next however long, you know, we're involved with this thing, everyone's going to say, what the fuck is virtue? Where did it come from? There's like a character in like some Machiavellian, you know, I think it in a Machiavellian book. I said, no one's going to understand. He goes, I don't care. I don't like the E at the end. I said, All right, you're the senior partner. Whatever. No E. That's our relationship. Okay, so that's how Virtue, and I love that virtuous piece because what a what a strong word to underpin an incredible value. And and and you mentioned your kind of your transition from law uh into founding the business with Vinny. There are many people that want to take that leap of faith, but I think fear can take hold. What advice, like if your daughter or your son were coming to, you know, 10 years in and saying, I think you're making a change, Dad, but I've got job security, I've got reputational capital, like, you know, what do I do? What advice would you give Rachel, for example? I would say um, look, you got to go with your gut, right? Sometimes, right? And it's it's hard to do. I was 42 years old. I had what year was that? It was 2007. So I had a six-year-old and a and a four-year-old. I had a house and a mortgage, actually, two houses. I had one in New Jersey and I had a small one here in Florida and two mortgages, right? You know, I was making good money at Paul Weiss. I mean, he made it easy because he's a very generous guy, right? Like we shook hands on, and he said, This is what I'm gonna, I'll guarantee you this, and you know, for the first year or two, blah, blah, blah. And in my heart, I said, okay, well, if this really blows up and he's, you know, it doesn't work out, I could always go back and be a lawyer because I'm a good lawyer. So I had that to fall back on. But it was just like it was the right time in my life. I had been a lawyer at that point for 18 years. And when you do something, and I loved being a lawyer, but some, you know, the the grind of being a lawyer at a big law firm is it's hard to overstate what a grind it is. I mean, I worked a lot of hours. I built probably, I think like 2,700 hours or something like that. You know, my last year at the firm. I had, and and you're always like worrying about the next thing that you have to do. So you'd be working in a deal that closes, and like if you don't have another 10 deals lined up, you know, you're you're out of business, right? And so I was a partner and I wanted to be successful as on the management committee. So it was a lot. So when the deals would come in, sometimes I'd be like, oh God, I gotta find someone to work on this. And people were calling me on weekends, it's a lot. So there was that. And it was just the and and and I I want to say this in a way that doesn't sound incredibly egotistical and arrogant. I've been accused of that, particularly by my wife and my children. Is I I I I did look at the universe and say, you know, I'm pretty smart. I don't mind making decisions. I have, I'll say balls. Can you say balls on this? I have balls. You can say balls, yeah. I get along with people. Like, I don't know anything about financial markets, but I've always thought I could run something or at least be like in a, you know, on the business side of things. And, you know, a lot of my work as a lawyer, I had paid like window dressing to like, you know, what the hell the client was really telling me. But at the end of the day, I was kind of making 99% of the decisions anyhow. I was just charging by the hour as opposed to being the principal. So I always thought, geez, I could do this. And I and I I met the perfect partner for it, right? He was, I'll say, you know, you know, uh bold, I was gonna say crazy, but bold enough to think that a smart, loudmouth, arrogant, you know, big firm lawyer could transition from that to like starting, and we were literally like two guys in a garage. It wasn't a garage because it was the World Orf Astoria, because if any was a successful guy, but you know, it was a it was a it was definitely like a change. And the hardest thing is like, you know, when you have a job, you have a job, and like every month or every quarter, whatever it is, or every two weeks you get a paycheck and money comes this way. When you start a business and every two weeks you're paying rent, you're you know, we hadn't we weren't trading yet. When no money's coming in, money's just going out. You know, and it wasn't like my wife was panicked. I had a lot, you know, I was a good saver and whatnot, and and Vinny was going to be fair to me, but it was definitely like a risk, if you will, but it was a it was a calculator risk. So, what I would say to people is like, you know, always keep your eyes open, um, never be an asshole. If I had been an asshole in that transaction that Vinny was on the other side of the table, uh, I would I'd be sitting at Paul Weiss selling hours still and I wouldn't be talking to you. Um and um and and have a voracious desire to learn things. You know, I think he saw that within me. Like, I, you know, a lot of lawyers in particular like tend to get pigeonholed and into like a particular, like, oh, I'm a private equity MA lawyer and I've done da-da-da-da-da, 20 different deals, right? And it's it gets sort of like and you become a subject matter expert. Like, I may not have been the best private equity lawyer, but I was a pretty damn good, really broad lawyer. You know, I knew enough about tax and intellectual property and all this kind of stuff. And if I didn't know something, it would bother the crap out of me. So I would go read it and learn it and read cases and and ask questions and try to like, you know, um recall as much of it as or remember as much of it as possible. So I think that has really um you know done me well here and in in trying to like you know start, grow, and run this business. So like if you have those kind of, you know, if you're it's not just ambition, it's like desire to like better yourself and to learn more and to like be more and to just be broader in life, right? Like I didn't, you know, Vinny said to me, you know, he said to me in 2008, you're gonna be an industry leader in this thing. And he would say these things. He vinnies has these like unbelievably like you know broad statements he makes about things. And like, you know, sometimes I'm gonna be honest, they go in one ear out the other. I'm like, ah, this guy's just talking. But I remember him saying that, I'm thinking, ah, there's no freaking chance. And he took me to see Terry Duffy at the CME. I was like, wow, this is Terry Duffy of the CME. And like he took me to see Bob Greifeld at NASDAQ. Like, he knew all these people, Donnie Wilson in New York, and he's really nice. He kind of took me around. He basically said, I'm gonna hold your hand for like a year, then you know, you're you're off in the wild. And uh, you know, I guess I am kind of an industry leader now. So it actually kind of worked. And the word that struck me when you said about the balls, it's about courage, isn't it? Courage and belief. And that, and and to your point, it's calculated risk. It's not being reckless, it's like, you know what, if if it doesn't work out, I can I can still go back. But there's that belief that it's gonna be okay. Yeah, I think it's a belief in yourself. Like I always, you know, like I was not the most politically correct guy at Paul Weiss, and which is, you know, big law firms. I mean, and Paul Weiss is a pretty great firm, but like I didn't really like play the game because I didn't have to. Like I said to myself, okay, if I'm really good, if clients like me and the partners like me when I'm young, I'm gonna get a lot of work, which I did. I'm gonna get more work than I can imagine. And then clients are gonna then I'm gonna make partner because they're gonna see how good I am. And clients are gonna like me, and I'm good with people, I'm a good schmoozer, I'm good on a golf course, I'm not half bad in a pub. So, like I'll get clients and I'll get work and I'll always be, I'll always have a business. Maybe you won't be, you know, a hundred million dollars of of you know, legal fees, it might be 10 million or it could be 20 or whatever it is, but I'm gonna always be successful as a lawyer because I have all those skills. So screw it. Who cares what people think about me? I don't have to like, you know, I don't I'm not looking to be everybody's best friend. I'm looking to like, you know, have great colleagues, you know, collaborate with people and and have a and have a good uh have a really good practice that I'm proud of. And so it was that kind of mentality when we started Virtue. I was like, okay, um, all right, I'm I'm I'm a talented guy. I'm gonna figure this shit out. I remember like I had like I used to put on my wall in my first office in the temporary office, I'd have like little stickies on all the acronyms because people would say, like, EBS, eSpeed, you know, they'd have like all of the months for crude would have different abbreviations, and I didn't know any of the stuff. So I'd be in these conversations, you know, you're the president of the firm, and people expect you know what the hell left from right is. And I didn't know it's like learning a new language, you know. I mean, it's like I was literally like an immigrant dropped off a boat at Ellis Island and I didn't speak English. I was speaking Swahili, you know. So it was like I had a hurl, I had to learn a whole new language. But to your point, you were a voracious learner. And if you, you know, you you figured it out. If you don't know the answer, you go, as you said, I'd go away. I'd listen to case studies. I'd you know, it's it's it's a that desire to want to grow. Yeah, and the other thing is I'm not again, uh I it's the right way to to say this is I'm not afraid to be embarrassed. So I would ask questions where it was very clear I didn't I didn't understand something, but I was smart enough and worked hard enough to have context around the question I was asking, if that made sense. Yeah. I didn't just go up to our technology and say, oh, what's an operating system? Right. Like I'd learned enough about it. And then I would go to our our CTO, Aaron Simons, who sits a couple of doors down in 2009, and I would ask him a question about like, oh, how does the PCI bus work? What's a kernel bypass? Like, what's an FPGA card? How does it really work? I think I understand it. How does this really work? And I'm sure he would roll his eyes sometimes, like, I cannot believe I work for this schmuck and doesn't know any of this. But uh, he was a great teacher and he would teach me a lot, and then I would like recall a lot of it and I would, you know, grow and then I would read a lot of the stuff that our technologists did. So, like, you know, for a guy who is, I don't know what I am, a baby boomer, whatever. I was born in 1965, right? Like, who missed like the computer age, if you will, in this in a in a material way. Like when I was in college and law school, I didn't have a laptop. When I did my law review note, I had to go to like a room, the computer room, and like type it out, right? You know, it was like we didn't have laptops, right? So, and to this generation now, our technologists, it's like it's like an appendage. And so it's a different language. So to be able to interact with them on a, you know, kind of a peer managerial but a peer basis, you know, that's that's been uh a struggle, but a struggle that I'm willing to undertake. Yeah, and I love what you said there. It's you know, and and it's asking the question, providing context. And I suppose the key thing, if you're asking the same questions several times, then that's what it's going to irritate people. Yeah. And and we we referenced your daughter a minute ago, Rachel. Yeah. I haven't met her, I've met your wife, Vanessa, who's fabulous. But you you you in our in our fireside last year, you spoke about Rachel who's who's a STEM, was a STEM graduate or is a STEM graduate, uh, working at a PE firm. And and I was just curious because I've worked with a lot of your female uh leaders. No, by the way, they're no longer called PE firms, they're alternative asset managers. Alternative asset managers, sorry. They do more than private equity, anyhow. Uh and what have you learned from her around what it means to be a female in the financial services world today? Because things are shifting very quickly. Things are really, really shifting. Um, I mean, obviously I'm incredibly proud of her. She's just almost like, and as is my son too. Um, but like she's always been like she came out of the, you know, she literally came out of Melissa and like was like ready to rock and roll. I mean, at age two, she was like telling me what to do. And I was like, all right. I think at age 12, I gave up parenting because I was like, all right, she's smarter than me. She's got it all figured out. You know, I remember a funny story when she was in high school when she allowed me into her very, very messy room one time, and I see on the floor like a book like AP Statistics. I'm like, I call her dude. I'm like, dude, you're taking statistics? She's like, Yeah, why? I said, because that like we do a lot of that at Virtu. So I start leafing through. I said, wow, this is really interesting. I said, I had no idea you were doing it. I said, what else are you taking? Like that's that was like our relationship. Like I wasn't like an absenteed father. I think if you asked her, she would say, Well, I'm a great dad and we have a great relationship. But like she was just so driven and so like, you know, Uber focused on on getting on, she was just so results oriented. It's just shocking to me. I remember when I was her age, 17, 18, I didn't have my shit together nearly in the way that she did. Like she wanted to get herself into Yale. She did it 100% on her own. She took 16 AP tests, 16 and got fives on every one of them, did it all on her own, never had a tutor, never did any of that. She was just like, and she wanted to go work at this large alternative asset manager that starts with a K in Manhattan, right out of college, and she got that job. Um, so I I do think the world has changed dramatically from when I was applying for a job or my wife was applying for a job. I mean, you know, I kind of looked at law firms even back in 1990 when I was looking for a job. I'm an Italian American. I said, I don't want to go to like a real white shoe waspy kind of firm because those people are so different than me. You know, I didn't, you know, I didn't know anybody named Trey or had it or had like, you know, initials or, you know, the third or the fourth behind their name. I wasn't a country club guy. So that's why I went to Paul Weiss because I was like, ah, it's uh it's an old schmata firm. They'll accept me for who I am. Um so the world's changed dramatically. I I think the you know, the the firm in particular she is she's at has a number of like you know female role models, and within her group, um, you know, there are a number of like you know mentors and people that she works with. So it's much more um egalitarian, if you will. And so I don't think that was ever really an issue for her. I think the world has changed pretty dramatically. And I and I've tried very much, and you know, the story of why we started the wind turn program and why I was excited to meet you is because I, you know, I looked at, you know, we bought a couple legacy kind of Wall Street firms, and they were very, very, you know, very much skewed towards males in terms of their population. And I was like, my daughter was had just started at Yale. And uh I was like, well, wouldn't it be cool if we had like undergrad, like you know, freshmen and sophomore young ladies that were STEM students that didn't quite know, or maybe were would be intimidated by Wall Street or whatever it was, you know, because it's definitely, you know, the kind of frat boy bro trading culture. If we brought them in and gave them just like a taste of Wall Street, like, you know, that would be good for them, and I'm doing a good thing for the universe, but also hopefully they'll come back as interns and then employees. And we have a number of them now, they're employees. So she was my inspiration behind that. You know, I always treated her and my son exactly the same, and I always encouraged her to go into business. And the cool thing now is that she works in private credit. And a hundred years ago, and I was at Paul Weiss, I did a lot of private credit, I did a lot of structured credit. So now, like I've gone from being the you know, obnoxious, overbearing, like leave me alone dad, who she kind of acknowledged I had a good career, but was like, you know, she was, I'm sure proud of, but like I was embarrassing. Now we talk, we can talk about transactions and covenants and interest coverage ratios and how you calculate IBITA and like, you know, and what you know, how you calculate sofa and all this kind of stuff, and like some of the structured stuff she's doing is like has got significant legal issues associated with it. And it's amazing the breadth of stuff that that she knows already. It's really incredible. Like, uh, and then I'll shut up. And this isn't just about Rachel, it's about the the I would say the maturity and breadth of understanding of some of the young people that I've interacted with through this wintern program and even the intern program just astonishes me. It it it's maybe because they're a lot smarter than I am and they grew up in you know in households that encouraged it, as as did mine, but I do think it's access to information and technology has uh enabled, you know, 17 to 22-year-olds or 23-year-olds that that have that have a proclivity to wanting to learn this to um uh you know, to just be so much more accelerated than I was. I mean, when I was, you know, she, you know, a sophomore, a junior in college, I was like, you know, I worked in the parks department in New York inspecting hot dog carts. You know, I thought it was the greatest job in the world. I made $7 an hour. It didn't even occur to me to try to go work like at a financial services firm or anything. I wouldn't, I didn't have a suit. Like I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't know, as my father would say, I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground. So it was like, you know. And I well, I work really closely with you and Versu, and and what I'd say about your internship programs and your winternship, was it wintership, wintership? I was gonna pronounce winternship, yeah. Winternship. It gives um those coming in such a platform to experience what it's like to be in the market, you know, because you we can read everything conceptually in textbooks and but actually it nothing quite replaces the experience of it. And and you know, when you're speaking about a Rachel, I think what one of the you know, the difference that makes a difference when you look at grads is a set of attitudes. And you talked about her drive, you know, that is something that's within your control. And I think it's it's it's it's you know, what are you bringing? And that, you know, you I mean, I hope my children have that drive that I think they're boys, they might need a bit more of a uh a different uh yeah, I was gonna say a stick approach, but I'm not in saying I'm gonna, but you know, but if a like Yeah, then it as my father would say, they need a kick in the ass. I mean, girls are yeah, girls are a lot. I have one of each. I love my son dearly. He's working in in Wall Street, he's a great kid, he's super smart, he's you know, he's figured it out, he's super motivated, he's gonna do great as well. He's a great golfer, um, and a really, really good baseball player. But like, you know, he's been he needed a little more motivation, primarily from his mother around like schoolwork and this and that. I mean, their default in life is like, you know, video games, you know, you know, talking smack with their friends and like you know, eating bad food, right? You know, women. It's always funny like this. Even today, like, you know, I I uh will like my wife will be with like friends and I'm like, what are you guys talking about? Like, oh, children, this and that. Then, like, you know, you go out on a golf course with a bunch of guys, what are you talking about? And you can imagine what we talk about, right? Either nothing or sports or just nonsense, you know? Like and and with with I remember the story you said last year when we were talking about Rachel, you said she's a truth teller. You was was it you were gonna get rid of some of the snacks in the kitchen, and she said don't don't don't be cheap, Dad. Yeah, no, she's like my uh um what do you call them, Gen Z? What is I don't know what that generation's even called now, like the 20, the 20-year-olds. So like I bounce stuff off her all the time about like you know, things we do around the firm. So like I go, you know, during COVID, like we know, we started having free lunches, you know, because people weren't the people that came in and were, you know, I wanted to, you couldn't go out, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we had like eight different types of like jerky, you know, ostrich, beef, chicken, you know, whatever it was, like 12 different kinds of sparkling water. So I was like, this is ridiculous, right? That we're basically running like a deli at Virtu, you know. So I said, you know, she had worked at, she was working interning at another firm in New York, and they provided nothing. So I was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna, and I I asked Joe Maluso, what does all this cost us? I said, ah, I'm gonna give it. So I said to Rachel, what do you think? You know, we got we got a barista, we got this, we got that. She's like, you can't get rid of it. We love snacks. We can we kids, you can't be cheap, Dad. I'm like, all right. So hence we have ostrich jerky. But you know what, we all need truth tellers in our tribe. And talking about our our our tribe, you know, I I've you know had the privilege of working with Bertie. You've got some extraordinary, I mean, and I truly mean that, really extraordinary people working at the firm. What what do you think are the characteristics or the attributes that that kind of contribute to creating that winning team? You know, what do you look for in your people? Yeah, I would say first and foremost, we don't have a type, right? So like, you know, we're not looking for, I don't want to, I guess I'm a frat bro. We're not looking for like, you know, frat bro, Ivy League, you know, jocks that like know somebody and like, you know, spend the summer on the jersey, sure. We we we have plenty of those. We like them, they're good people, but like, you know, you gotta, you gotta like broaden the net, right? So we we want, and there's a certain amount of obviously like just kind of raw competence, i.e. intellect that you have to have. Um, you have to have a personality where you can be collegial and you're as worried about like the whole as you are about yourself, and you have to be really a self-starter. It's not a it it's not like it's not a warm place, but it's not like a coddling place where you're gonna have like a manager or project managers that's gonna sit on top of you and tell you you have to do this, that, or the other thing. We just don't have the infrastructure intentionally for that. So this is not like, you know, I'm sure not that I've ever worked at Google or Facebook or one of those or Uber, one of these technology places where, you know, there's like developers and then there's like you know, senior developers, and there's like a project manager and you have a team and you have very, you know, concrete this and then you know, blah, blah, blah. It's much more fluid than that, right? Um, I mean, certainly within, you know, we have training and whatnot, certainly there's organization. But if you're not like a person that will enjoy that kind of environment, right, um, you're gonna have a hard time. And so we want people um that that have that kind of personality. And then the last thing I would say is, and everybody says this, but when we first started Virtue, literally probably through like 2017. So for the first 10 years, I interviewed everybody because there's nothing worse than an asshole in an office. Like there's nothing, I have a rule. Like, if I meet people, even if they've been here a while, and I really like when they're when they're walking towards my office or I see them and I want to like duck and go the other way, they can't they can't stay at the firm. Because if I'm feeling that, then other people are feeling that. And so it's not like it it's calling them assholes is probably the wrong thing. They just don't fit in, right? Like maybe they have a maybe they're too self-centered, maybe they're annoyed because they want to be at like a payout firm. And if you know their desks made $12 million, they should make four million dollars, you know, that kind of crap that goes on at hedge funds and other places. Like that's just not virtue, it's not what we're all about. So, you know, squeaky wheels get way too much oil. And so my management philosophy is always just make the hard decision and move on. You'll never, I've never regretted a single Decision I've made. I don't make regret any decisions, but particularly like personnel decisions. Like, you'll survive. You'll survive. Well, people, people come to us and say, you know, I got an offer from so and so, and I'm leaving, and they're paying me 40% more, 50% more. You know what I say to them? I would say, I say, God bless you. That's a great decision you've made. And I wish you and your family nothing but the best. I never bid against people because I'm like, you know what? Like, there's nothing wrong with that. Like, you know, in the rare, rare case, if I think we've made a mistake and we've undervalued somebody, I would do it. But that's happened, you know, less than the fingers on one of my hands in the last 17 years. But I think the the a-hole, or I call them the jerk geniuses, because often they're super smart, but they're just cancerous. Again, they're cancerous. And it's kind of you're going to take the cancer out. And how how do you what is your barometer for like, you know, when you said you used to interview anyone, not anyone, everyone, like how would you detect? Like, what would be is it a question? Is it a feeling? Is it yeah? Yeah, I would always like I when I do interviews, because probably because I'm not generally not as smart as the people person that I'm interviewing, and certainly not as technical, I would just, it would just be a conversation like you and I are having. And you can tell when people respond to things and you ask them questions, if it's always like I, I, I, me, me, me, as opposed to like, oh, I was, you know, I was on a great team in high school and we won the state championship. It's like, you know, or this or that other thing. Um I don't know. I guess I have a pretty good to the extent I have a skill set, as I've said, it's it's knowing people and kind of knowing their backgrounds and kind of learning a little bit about them and kind of seeing what met what motivates them, you know. Like we want, I want super talented people that like wanna want to be accomplish something and want to stand out. But I would love, you know, I remember interviewing, you know, folks that were like on a math team or like a physics team or did like a science project, and they would be like, Oh, I was with this great group, and I had a wonderful like advisor, and we did this, that, or the other thing. We submitted this paper and it got published. You know, like that's the kind of person you want, as opposed to like, oh, I won the, you know, I won three, you know, I remember we used to be obsessed with like the math, there's a math Olympiad. I don't know if you're aware of this. Yeah, and so all the geeks love this. And you can Google and see, and like people will be like, oh my God, this guy won, you know, two golds. Um, you know, when he was like, you know, 19 years old. Like, you know, there's some you know, person I think has won like three gold medals, you know, they're like the the smartest math person of all time. But at the end of the day, they may not be assholes, but they're just not able to like communicate and be practical about what they are. So, you know, the best employees we've had here are like, you know, super smart for sure, like in in like a general way, and we we definitely test for that. But in terms of like problem solving and dealing with issue issues, they'll do it like in a collaborative way, right? And they're more than happy to take, they're not just saying it's my way, the highway. You know, we've had some really, really talented people here that have like kind of you know had friction in terms of like priorities, in terms of this, in terms of that. Like if you can't like articulate why you think what you what what you know a priority over something else to some to people advert to, then in my view, it's it's you, not them. Yeah right. Like I know enough of the senior people here, and people have been here for years and years and years. Like, yeah, we all have egos, but no one is going to like, you know, say no to something out of, you know, because it wasn't their idea. Right. So that wasn't their project. So that I think that's what makes us really, really strong. Part of what I'm saying. And it really it really comes up to me then that you know, people's the way of being has to be kind of sympatico with the values of the organization. You know, that that that congruency piece is really important. And and it one of the things I think I really wanted to touch on today is, you know, when we look at the world around us, change is move, you know, is I think we can all agree, change is constant, but that the the pace of change is is pretty unprecedented, uh, whether that's the the the political environment, climate change, uh, but yeah, changes around us, and you've led, you know, organizations over the last few decades. And I was curious, how do you how do you lead in those volatile times? Yeah, I mean, I think the um I've always been consistent in the way that I approach things, right? Like I'm um I can be volatile. I mean, I inherited from my dad, as I tell people, like a bad hip and like a temper, right? So like uh I I definitely have and I've I've gotten better as I've gotten older, right? But I can definitely be volatile. But I've been consistent about my approach to leading and growing this firm, right? This is not like we're a public company now, and even like quarter to quarter, you know, I don't sit there and like, you know, get get panicked about a quarter or a day or a week. You know, Vinny and I built this firm for the long term to do, you know, to to try to be the best bid and the best offer and and to be able to, as he said, we just want to feed our families. And our families have grown, right? We have a thousand employees now and public shareholders and things like that. But the the original thought behind this firm was like, hey, if if Vinny and his then three, and now he's got nine grandchildren, if his three, if his you know, family are comfortable and me and my my what you know, two kids are comfortable, then we've satisfied ourselves and we've we, you know, that was a very simple kind of ambition. So like, don't do anything expedient, don't take risk, don't go out of your comfort zone and like hire people that might make money in the short term but would ruin the culture. Don't go into products and services that aren't consistent with kind of what our central mission about being a market maker, right? You know, uh we've made two material acquisitions and they were both very, you know, well thought of and thought through, excuse me, and highly strategic in terms of growing our strategic remit, but certainly consistent with our core philosophy, right? So I think what ends up happening with a lot of CEOs, particularly a lot of public company CEOs, because they have pressure on them to perform and grow, and they worry about stock prices and all this kind of stuff, they do things that are just like not core or fundamental to the firm and do things that are um that don't make a lot of sense, frankly. And so, like, I think if there's something, if there's a benefit to our, there's many benefits to our partnership and to Vinny being our controlling shoulder, it's it's enabled me as a day-to-day leader to be much more measured and consistent about what we do. We've had great quarters, we've had great days, we've had down quarters and down years. I'm not sitting here worried about my job. I'm not worried about how much money I make. I don't worry about the stock price. Right? I worry about, all right, are we a little more excellent today than we were the day before? Do I feel good about the firm? Is the zeitgeist of the firm, the morale of the firm good? Are people happy? And, you know, are my people that that I'm close to around me that I directly interact with? Are they doing their jobs? Is their morale got high? And um, are they moving the firm forward? If so, that's great. You know, the universe is going to give us a lot some days, and it's gonna give us nothing some days, right? And you have to like go with the flow. And and you said that, you know, stick to the central mission, like don't be part of the contagion. To your point, you you you you know the vision, you know the mission, and and and and don't be emotional led. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, a lot of yeah, like the firm we bought Night Capital in 2017 was a perfect example. They had a great core business around wholesale retail market making, right? But and then, I mean, I wasn't here then, but like they bought like a reverse mortgage business. They bought like a uh, you know, uh an old school fixed income desk up in Greenwich. I mean, they bought all this stuff that didn't make any real sense to the core mission, which frankly was just a distraction. And so every time you do that, you're just chipping away at the excellence of like what the core business is, and that by definition is going to degradate. You're gonna take your eye off the ball of that core mission, and that's exactly what happened. Like I come, you know, Citadel Securities came in as a competitor, you know, they started, you know, price the the pricing of of wholesaling in terms of price improvement um um became more acute. And frankly, night just couldn't survive in that format. It didn't, it didn't stick to its knitting about what it's what it what what it was, and it grew in a very haphazard and non-virtuous kind of way. I love that. And look, I uh you know, you you said, you know, I well, I don't want to ask your age, but 60 59. 59. I thought it I thought you had had your 60th. Sorry, it's recent. Yeah. So 59. Okay, so when are you when are you 60? June. What are you gonna be doing to celebrate? Uh, I'm going to Europe with the wife and kids. I found this great spot. I'm not gonna say where because I do have some haters in the world. In the uh, but it's it I have to satisfy a daughter who doesn't play golf and likes a high-end resort and loves to like, you know, go to an amazing pool and eat great food late at night, and a son who hates all that crap and wants to play a world-class golf course. So there's about three of those in the world, and I found one. But surely this should be about you. It's your birthday. You get to sit the set the rules. You know what? My my my wife and some of my friends have asked me that, and I you know what I say to them, and this is gonna sound really like trite and like I don't really mean it, but I mean it like every day's my birthday. I live with I I'm uh I I'm the I'm very, very happy with where my life's at. I can do anything I want, I can kind of buy anything that I want. I don't really want anything, as you can tell. I I don't not really a sartorial person, you know. I won the Stanley Cup last year with the Florida Panthers. My name's on the Stanley Cup. I mean, it's like what else? Life is good. Life's good. So, like, you know, I thought about for my 50th, my wife was great. We rented a great, I'm a huge fan of the band Queen. I know every Queen song backwards and forwards. And so I rented a like a performance space in New York called uh City Winery or something like that. And we had the greatest, I'm not gonna call them a cover band because they're a tribute band called Almost Queen. This is one of the highlights of my life. So I had a couple hundred of my best friends there, and Almost Queen came, and I they were so cool. We paid them, obviously. They let me do the set list. So it was every Queen song I liked in a specific order. So what's what's your favorite Queen song? Do you have a favorite? You know, the answer is like you can't ask me which is my favorite child, right? Okay. So there you go. Uh, I would say, like, I mean, I like all the big hits like Bohemian Rhapsody, you know, um, We Will Rock You, you know, Don't Stop Me Now, We Are the Champions. I, you know, obviously I love everything other that, but I like there's a song called Now I'm Here, which was on the Sheer Heart Attack album. I'm a big Brian May fan. Yeah. One of my one of my life goals, which I have not accomplished yet, is I want to meet Brian May. I understand the closest I've come to him is I met a guy who serviced his fish tanks at his his house in Notting Hill. So um, when I go to London, I always try to eat like in Notting Hill on the hopes that, and I always look around like looking for a shaggy gray hair. Um but but visualize it, manifest it. And and and last question, if you were to go back and give your younger, you know, the younger Doug Sifu some pulls of wisdom, what would you tell him? Well, the answer I've been giving everybody, because I just had uh an operation on my hip, is um take care of your hip flexors and stay flexible. Because I did not, I had genetically bad flexibility. My dad had his hip replaced, and I sort of ignored it. I exercised a lot, I work out a lot, and I have had a real problem with my right hip recently, but I've I got it all fixed. So, like, you know, you can you get overwhelmed. I say this to my daughter, you know, because she's now working, right? And they work a lot. And I'm really, really proud of her because she listened to me and she goes to do one of these like Pilates kind of things. I never, you know, solid core. I don't know what the hell it's called, but and she looks great, like she's in great shape. She, you know, whatever. Uh, she's doing it and she loves it. She does it like five, six times a week. So I'm probably like of the the things I've influenced. I hope I had some influence on my children. That's probably uh at the top of the list. Because I said to her, I said, listen, dude, you're gonna work your tush off, like you're gonna be there from eight to eight, you're gonna like eat free meals there, you're gonna take the Uber home, you're gonna like do conference calls all the time. You know, she's an investment professional. That's what I used to do. It you get caught up in that and you use it as an excuse to let like your your physical side, you know, not not keep up with your intellectual, your work side. I I did that for a long time. And it's hard to like undo that, you know, and to try to catch up, which I'm trying to do now. So that's the best advice I could give to young people, which is like you'll be able to work. There's always time for the for the term sheet, there's always time for the conference call. There's not always time for your health. Yeah, and the body does keep the score. It the body keeps the score. It does. Well, look, thank you. I have laughed uh through this. Uh, as well as you know, there's so many serious points on the leadership lessons, you just bring such joy, uh, effervescence, and incredible energy to uh all the conversations we've had. And I'm excited for people to be able to listen to your lessons because I know the impact that it's gonna have. So thank you. Well, I thank you very much. I greatly appreciate everything you've done for the firm because um uh I've got nothing but great feedback from uh my colleagues and and um so you've positively influenced a lot of a lot of great people at Virtue, and that means a lot to me. So thank you. Oh, thanks, Doug.