A senior leader at the quant division of $46 billion hedge fund Point72 Asset Management is leaving the firm, according to people familiar with the matter.
Issam Bazzi, a senior quant who helped lead the buildout of a centralized trading unit at Cubist Systematic Strategies, is out after nearly three years at the hedge fund.
Bazzi’s team had struggled performance-wise for months and had been down as much as $70 million this year, Business Insider has learned.
A Point72 representative declined to comment. Bazzi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bazzi’s exit comes several months after a surprising leadership shake-up at the top of Cubist, with president Denis Dancanet leaving and ex-WorldQuant exec Geoffrey Lauprete taking his place.
Building a centralized trading unit, akin to a traditional collaborative quant fund, to trade alongside the dozens of independent pods was a key initiative for Dancanet when he joined in 2020. The firm spent tens of millions luring top talent, but none more significant than Bazzi, a Citadel Securities veteran who also overlapped with Dancanet at quant hedge fund PDT.
Amid the changes last September, Bazzi’s fate at the firm was fodder for market chatter, but in October, he and billionaire founder Steve Cohen negotiated a deal for him to stay on, Business Insider previously reported.
Cubist, which had about 60 investing teams in addition to the central team as of last fall, isn’t a stand-alone fund investors can allocate to with separately reported returns and its performance flows into Point72’s overall returns. Point72 had returned 4.5% through February, and like many funds it started March with losses amid turmoil from the Iran War.
Cubist managed about 17% of Point72’s capital as of last fall — a figure that fluctuates. The unit’s 2026 performance isn’t clear.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Isaac Casanova, who has worked at Block for nearly three years as a senior software engineer. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I wasn’t even looking at my computer at the time. One of my good friends started spam calling me. I picked up the phone, and he told me to check my email.
I read the email from Jack Dorsey, and I was like, whoa, I guess I don’t have a role anymore.
We were well aware that rolling layoffs were underway. Most people assumed it would be capped at 1,000. I didn’t feel like anything big like that was coming. For it all to happen at once like that is obviously a shock.
I never got a low rating. In my conversations with folks, I was doing fine. That’s why it’s characterized as a layoff, not a performance thing. This is just a change in business direction.
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Check your ego — the industry is tough
I’m managing my expectations as I look for work.
It seems like companies are tighter with headcount and more picky about who they want.
There are definitely fewer positions. Companies are doing more with less. These agents are automating some tasks and are slowly improving at understanding concepts.
The compensation is definitely lower. We’re hearing across the industry that stock grants are lower than they used to be. Refresher grants are lower. Bonuses — if they exist.
Once you get in, it’s stack-ranked performance management. Your output is compared to your peers from day one. It’s definitely tougher.
You’ve got to check your ego. That might be the part people struggle with more than their technical ability.
Separate your identity from your job
At the end of the day, companies are beholden to shareholders.
Jack’s memo came across as what someone in that position making a tough decision would say. A call was made, and it had to be communicated. I don’t have any negative feelings about anybody that I worked with or at the company.
The biggest expense of running an organization is employees. The higher you are — senior engineer, engineering manager, head of product — the more expensive you are.
You need to remember that and evaluate your relationship with work. Many people in these positions tie their identity to their jobs. Those are the people most affected when these things happen.
You try not to take it personally. You see it as a new opportunity. There’s a human aspect — you just lost your job, and it kind of sucks for a bit — but you can’t let it hold you down. You can’t let it define you. These things happen, and you need to adjust.
The good thing about when these things happen is the network of people that you’ve met. Build the network so that when things like this happen, you can maneuver.
Be flexible — AI is changing the role
You could tell on the inside that things were changing.
A couple of years ago, I was doing most of the coding by hand. That slowly turned into using interfaces like Cursor, Claude Code, Goose, and ChatGPT. You’d slowly read things internally like, “Let’s speed up.” You were expected to speed up because the agents could make you more productive.
You’d have conversations with some of your colleagues and be like, “I haven’t opened my IDE in a month.” As a software engineer, that’s definitely a shift.
AI turns you from a person who just turns out code into more of an experimenter — a builder.
Software engineering, for a long time, was so by the letter, by the design, by the spec. Exact and precise, but slow.
Now we have these tools, the industry expects you to move fast. You can shift your mindset from that rigid engineering, step-by-step, to more of an exploratory “attack the problem, solve it, refine it later.”
Don’t get too trapped in the domain that you’re working in. Block tended to hire specialists who could also generalize when needed. So, be flexible. Using these tools allows you to get context in areas that you might not have had the opportunity to work in.
Do you have a story to share about tech layoffs? Contact this reporter at cmlee@businessinsider.com or on Signal at cmlee.81.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maddi Thimont, 37, based in London. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I always wanted a big career in law. I finished my law degree in 2007 with first-class honors and got my big break at a private law firm, gaining experience in corporate law.
It was very busy, with long hours, but it was amazing training, so it suited me really well at the time.
Securing my next role in corporate counsel at a Big Tech firm was a real career high. It was intense, but the experience really shaped me. But then, I became a mother of two, and at first, the perks of working for such a big brand were indisputable. Despite that, I started wondering if I could really have it all.
I wanted a 4-day week
This company had a great plan allowing a phased return from maternity leave, so both times, I did two and a half days a week for eight weeks. Being able to gradually get back into my career while still spending time with my children was priceless. Then, for the second half of the year, I worked a four-day workweek.
That was when it started to get tricky, and when I began to question: can I have it all? I had hoped that I could make a four-day workweek my new normal, but there wasn’t much of a precedent for it in my team, so I felt like I’d be navigating uncharted territory on my own.
Maddi Thimont says her weekends start at 3:10 p.m. on Fridays.
Courtesy of Maddi Thimont
And based on the pace I was already familiar with, I anticipated that I would have just had to fit a full-time load into less time. The thought of that didn’t thrill me, so that’s when I started to think about other opportunities.
I took a job that allowed me to have a shorter workday
I booked a call with a life coach to talk about what I wanted to do. I told her my ideal job would involve being intellectually stimulated during the day, but then to be around for my children, now aged 3 and 5, in the evening.
I started manifesting, in a way, by looking for my dream job as a senior lawyer that I could do during school hours. I did a double take when I saw a head of legal role advertised on LinkedIn for data analytics company Sagacity for 25 hours a week.
Just before Christmas 2023, I had an interview with the outgoing general counsel there. She talked about how she gave up her legal career for 15 years while raising her kids, and when she wanted to get back into it, someone gave her a chance in a part-time role. She wanted to pay that forward.
I did the math with my husband, and with our eldest close to starting school — meaning we’d have lower day care fees to pay — we were confident that we could make my new part-time salary work. I started my new job in March 2024 as Sagacity’s head of legal, working 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., five days a week. A year later, I was promoted to general counsel.
I have clear priorities and processes
What helps is having a really clear “ticket” system at the company for anyone who needs legal support. They raise a ticket, which goes into our legal dashboard with a deadline and a priority level (high, medium, or low). My team and I then provide an anticipated response date.
I’ve also created more templates and FAQs so people can be empowered to not have to come to legal for every single thing.
I am now on the senior leadership team and have frequent one-to-ones with other members to help prioritize my work. Then, obviously, if the CEO needs something, it usually takes priority.
I’m also very efficient with my time. If someone asks for a half-hour meeting, I try to cut it down to 15 minutes. I won’t accept a meeting without an agenda, either. I also don’t tend to have many coffee breaks or lunches with colleagues. I know it might sound a bit sad, but every minute counts.
I get to have a big career and be with my kids
I recognize that I’m in a privileged position to do this, as my husband is a lawyer too and works full-time as a partner at a firm. But I honestly feel so lucky, because our lives have totally changed.
Now, I still get to be a senior lawyer, and I can take the kids to their afternoon activities, like swimming and piano, and I can see how well they’re doing, which I love being part of. On Fridays, we just chill. I always say that our weekend starts at 3:10 p.m. on Friday.
With my shorter working hours, I have also found time to fit in additional opportunities. For example, I recently passed a well-recognised GDPR data protection qualification. I was also able to train for and complete the London Marathon.
Without this way of working, I would have likely continued on the corporate path with the long hours, paying for nannies, and after-school clubs. The alternatives may have been to take a demotion or find a part-time job doing something else, or just not work at all – none of which were right for me.
Committing to both work and the kids can feel intense at times – but I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Our family life is quite calm, so everything feels fulfilling.
