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Hedge-Fund Billionaire Suggests the Key to Success Is Not Lactating

Paul Tudor Jones
Uses the word bosom. Photo: Jimi Celeste/Patrick McMullan

Hedge-fund managers are not, by and large, known for their progressive gender politics. Paul Tudor Jones, a Connecticut billionaire who starred in one of the all-time classic Wall Street documentaries and is known for his annual Christmas light display, should be more sensitive than most, given that he has three daughters.

And yet, Jones stepped in it the other day when he suggested during a closed-door panel at the University of Virginia that women with children don’t often become successful hedge-fund macro traders because the pressures of child-rearing tend to “kill” their focus. Or, as Jones awkwardly put it, “As soon as that baby’s lips touched that girl’s bosom, forget it.”

He continued, according to a video that was obtained by the Washington Post via a Freedom of Information Act request:

Every single investment idea . . . every desire to understand what is going to make this go up or go down is going to be overwhelmed by the most beautiful experience . . . which a man will never share, about a mode of connection between that mother and that baby. And I’ve just seen it happen over and over.”

Jones has already walked back his statements, calling them “off-the-cuff remarks” that don’t reflect his true views. Still, he might want to pick up a copy of Lean In before his next speaking gig.

Hedge-Fund Billionaire: Avoid Lactating