Who is this man?

At Bank of America's site, today, counting my scant nickels, when whom should I chance to espy but the fellow up top, kicking it with a cup of joe and a laptop. Which struck me as ironic, given his striking resemblance to this dude below, a certain David E. Shaw, founder and grand poo-bah of D.E. Shaw, one of the oldest quant shops on Wall Street. Ironic, you say, why so? Perhaps because Shaw, back in '97, had established an alliance with BofA, allowing it to play derivative games much like the ones played by John Meriweather's Long-Term Capital Management. When LTCM gave new meaning to the term systemic risk on August of '98, Shaw sustained similar losses, ultimately resulting in a $372 million write-off that nearly scuttled the BofA - Nationsbank merger. Substantial bloodletting ensued at Shaw, rumored to have reached 25% of staff in a single day, 90% overall.

Shaw has bounced back just fine, and is not poor. He continues to be able to hire smart people, and even bought FAO Schwarz, the ultimate toybox. But I didn't expect to see him poster-childing for BofA.