Ken Griffin Modeled Citadel's Risk Wall After Saudi Aramco's Operations Board
David Senra · David Senra (Founders Podcast) on Studying Billionaires and Avoiding Their Mistakes · Apr 6, 2025 · at 17:25
David Senra recounts an anecdote from Citadel founder Ken Griffin about drawing operational inspiration from an oil company.
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“He built this thing called a risk wall in Citadel. It's 30 feet by 10 feet. It's a giant screen. And he says before they were getting like a B, B plus on how well they were managing risk. And, you know, Ken's not gonna be satisfied with B anything. And so he actually is In the office of Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, and he sees that they have this giant fucking board that's like 30 feet long, 10 feet wide, and has all the important metrics, like where the ships are, how much they're producing, everything else. He's like, oh, I'm gonna take that idea and I'm gonna apply it, not to ships and oil, but to getting, getting all of the data I need so we can start managing our risk better. And he says that one idea had him go from, you know, be whatever the case is to like one of the best like risk departments in the world.”
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