Next-Gen PayPal Mafia? Meta AI’s Head and Hyperliquid’s Founder Both Cut Their Teeth at HRT

On October 19, Alexandr Wang, Meta’s Chief AI Officer, posted a mountain-side group selfie with two others on X, captioning it: “got the HRT gang back together!” The other two individuals in the photo are Jeff Yan, founder of Hyperliquid, and Scott Wu, co-founder and CEO of Cognition. Ten years ago, all three interned together at the quantitative trading firm Hudson River Trading. Today, they each lead pioneering efforts in three cutting-edge domains: foundational AI models, on-chain trading, and AI-powered programming—respectively. The photo quickly went viral across Chinese and English social platforms. Crypto KOL AB Kuai.Dong dubbed it the “photo of the century,” while numerous users rushed to identify the figures and join the discussion.