Goldman Sachs quant who went to Coinbase finds a new thing

A Goldman Sachs quantitative researcher who joined Coinbase only to be cut after less than six months has found a new job. And it’s not in crypto. 

Matt Turk spent almost three years at Goldman before joining Coinbase in December 2021, months before the crypto exchange dumped 18% of its staff. He was working on Coinbases’s applied science team with Yao Ma, a former quantitative researcher at hedge fund Millennium Management. 

Ma still seems to be at Coinbase, but Turk is off to do something different. He’s joining venture capital firm, Goodwater Capital as a senior data scientist and investor. Ma’s new role is all about automating the VC investment process: he’ll be building machine learning models to rank and value high quality startups and helping to automate due diligence. 

Turk’s career change comes as crypto firms are still struggling (Coinbase’s share price is down 70% year to date and has been languishing since May) and as data science opportunities are growing in the VC and private equity sectors. 

The pleasures of working for Goodwater Capital may be another plus. One reviewer describes it as a “rare venture firm that has actual problems of scale, which makes the problems we’re all working on fun and interesting.” However, another says working there is “not your typical 9-5.” – Like Coinbase, then. 

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Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash