“Age, privilege, and unconscious (sometimes even conscious) biases are used to gatekeep opportunities,” he wrote, adding that philosophers like Seneca the Younger and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius might have seen today’s education system as dangerous.
Two years later, Quazi is channeling that same defiance into a different arena. He turned down offers from top AI startups and tech firms to join Citadel Securities this week in New York, citing the firm’s culture of meritocracy and instant feedback.
For Quazi, the move also closes a personal loop. His mother worked in mergers and acquisitions as an investment banker, giving him early exposure to finance. And on campus, he saw how coveted quant jobs had become for math and computer-science students.
“It’s one of the most prestigious industries you could go into as a computer scientist or mathematician,” he told Business Insider.
Now, he’s living that reality in New York City. Quazi has moved into an apartment just a 10-minute walk from Citadel Securities’ Park Avenue office.
“New York has a very special place in my heart,” he said, noting that his mom grew up in Astoria, Queens.
Unlike his time at SpaceX, where his mother had to drive him to work in Redmond, Wash., Quazi’s commute is now his own: first on foot, and soon, by subway.
“I felt ready to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment,” he said. “Citadel Securities offered a similarly ambitious culture, but also a completely new domain, which is very exciting for me.”
