Pete Muller is an American businessman, singer-songwriter, and philanthropist.
Muller is a
hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...
manager and quantitative trader who founded
PDT Partners
PDT Partners (Process Driven Trading Partners) is a hedge fund company, led by quantitative trader Peter Muller, that was founded in 1993 as part of Morgan Stanley's trading division and spun out as an independent business in 2012. It has offices ...
in 1993 as part of
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
's trading division, which spun out as an independent business in 2012. He was described by the
Bloomberg.com
Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Tele ...
as an "unlikely executive", a math wizard, and a person with diverse intellectual interests and hobbies.
As a singer-songwriter, Muller recorded and released four studio albums. His original song, "San Diego (When You Coming Home)", reached No. 27 on the
''Billboard'' Adult Contemporary Chart
The Adult Contemporary chart is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary radio stations in the United States. The chart is compiled based on airplay data submitted to ''Billboard'' by sta ...
in March 2020. In September of that same year, his single "God and Democracy" also reached the ''Billboard'' Adult Contemporary Top 30.
Early life and education
Muller was raised in
Wayne, New Jersey
Wayne is a Township (New Jersey), township in Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. Home to William Paterson University and located less than from Midtown Manhattan, the township is a bedroom suburb of New York ...
with his sister. His parents were both immigrants to the United States; his Austrian-born father was an engineer and his mother, a native of Brazil, was a practicing
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
.
Muller graduated in mathematics with honors from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, where he also played
Ultimate Frisbee
Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...
and was a member of the
Colonial Club
Colonial Club is one of the eleven current eating clubs of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1891, it is the fifth oldest of the clubs. It is located on 40 Prospect Avenue.
A private social club for underg ...
.
Business career
Muller began his career working at
Barra Inc., a financial analytics firm in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
. He joined
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
in 1992.
Muller founded
PDT (Process Driven Trading) Partners inside Morgan Stanley in 1993 and serves as Founder and CEO. PDT has offices in New York City and London and has returned 20% on average annually through 2010.
PDT was spun out of Morgan Stanley in 2013 and as of 2019, had over $6 billion in assets under management. In 2019, Forbes reported that Muller earned around $150 million in the previous year, making its list of the highest-earning hedge fund managers for 2018.
Musical career
A singer-songwriter and pianist, Muller tours regularly and has made appearances at music events such as
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...
in Switzerland, the Jazz Open in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
, Germany, and the
Telluride Jazz Festival
Located in the legendary outdoor venue in the mountain town of Telluride, Colorado, the 42nd Telluride Jazz Festival, August 3–5, 2018, celebrates the cultural tradition, modern styles and cutting edge progression of the American Jazz art for ...
. In the early stages of his music career, Muller played the electronic keyboard in
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...
.
In 2019, Muller released his fourth studio album, ''Dissolve'', produced by renowned
Rob Mathes
Rob or ROB may refer to:
Places
* Rob, Velike Lašče, a settlement in Slovenia
* Roberts International Airport (IATA code ROB), in Monrovia, Liberia
People
* Rob (given name), a given name or nickname, e.g., for Robert(o), Robin/Robyn
* Rob ( ...
. It was featured in ''
American Songwriter
''American Songwriter'' is a bimonthly magazine covering songwriting. Established in 1984, it features interviews, songwriting tips, news, reviews and lyric contest. The magazine is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
History
The ''American Songwri ...
''and''
People
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
''magazine. "San Diego (When You Coming Home)", from that album, reached No. 27 on the ''Billboard'' Adult Contemporary Chart. His single "God and Democracy" was a Top 30 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart in the Summer of 2020.
[
]
Philanthropy
Muller's main philanthropic interests are music, math, and the environment. He is a founding board member of Math for America
Math for America (MfA) is a nonprofit organization, founded in January 2004 by American billionaire mathematician, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist Jim Simons to promote recruitment and retention of mathematics teachers in New York City seco ...
and a Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...
Trustee. In September 2017, with the support of the New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment and the Economic Development Corporation, Muller with Berklee acquired Avatar Studios
Power Station at BerkleeNYC, formerly known as Avatar Studios (1996–2017) and Power Station, is a recording studio at 441 West 53rd Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. The bui ...
, also known as The Power Station, which gained renown as one of the finest acoustic environments for recording in the world.
Personal life
Muller is married to his wife Jillian and together they have two children.
He writes crossword puzzles
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the ans ...
for the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' periodically and has a monthly feature in ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
''. In 1998, Muller made the final table of the $3,000 Limit Hold 'em event at the World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...
and came in 4th at the World Poker Challenge. He also practices vinyasa yoga, snowboards, and surfs.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Pete
American hedge fund managers
Living people
People from Wayne, New Jersey
Wayne Valley High School alumni
Princeton University alumni
American male singer-songwriters
Year of birth missing (living people)