Alexandr Wang Posts That Ten Years Ago He Taught Hudson River Trading Executives to Use Snapchat While He Was an Intern
Alexandr Wang: HRT's quarterly revenue exceeds Snap's market value
Meta's Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang posted that ten years ago, when he was an intern, he taught Hudson River Trading executives to use Snapchat; now the company's quarterly revenue is greater than Snap's market value.
He then told current interns that if they want their company to achieve a quarterly revenue of $2 trillion, they should teach executives to use Muse. The post did not specify the exact quarter for Hudson River Trading nor provide revenue statements.
Bloomberg and the Financial Times reported in August 2026 that Hudson River Trading's second-quarter trading revenue reached a record $11.4 billion, with a net profit of $7.4 billion, and revenue grew more than three times compared to the same period last year. During the same period, Jane Street reported significant losses in July, while Hudson River Trading claimed to remain profitable in July.
Snap's market value was approximately $9.39 billion on October 2, 2026. Based on this metric, the $11.4 billion quarterly trading revenue exceeds Snap's entire market value at that time. Snap's revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was $1.6 billion, a 19% year-on-year increase, with daily active users at 493 million.
The $2 trillion mentioned in Wang's post is a statement directed at interns, not a quarterly revenue that Meta has achieved. Meta's market value is approximately $1.86 trillion. Muse was launched in early September, and he is responsible for this assistant.
The numbers being compared are not of the same type. Hudson River Trading sells trading revenue, while Snap is being compared based on equity market value. The event was driven by a post with a recruitment tone, with no new trades or investments. The beneficiary is Muse, which is portrayed as a reverse training sample for interns, while the pressured party is Snap, which is compared based on quarterly revenue to total market value.
Wang did not specify the department he interned in at Hudson River Trading or the specific occasion when he taught Snapchat.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Alexandr Wang framed his internship experience from around 2016 as reverse training: an intern teaching Hudson River Trading executives to use Snapchat. Ten years later, he uses the same phrasing to promote Muse. Hudson River Trading is a market maker, with second-quarter trading revenue of $11.4 billion and net profit of $7.4 billion, derived from volatility and spreads, not social advertising.
Snap's market value on October 2 was approximately $9.39 billion, with second-quarter revenue of only $1.6 billion. Wang compares the quarterly revenue of a private trading company to the total market value of a public company, which are different metrics, but numerically, $11.4 billion is greater than $9.39 billion. The $2 trillion quarterly revenue has no corresponding Meta financial report, and Meta's market value is about $1.86 trillion, with the post framing the market value as a revenue target.
Comparable examples include early Facebook employees bringing product usage habits to advertisers, and Jane Street and Citadel training tools to increase trading desk adoption rates. Wang's phase is distribution. Muse is already launched, and he uses an old internship story to assign tasks to interns, which is to make executives users.
Essentially, this is a transfer of pricing power. The value of social products was once reflected in daily active users, while the value of trading companies is reflected in quarterly revenue. The mechanism is that the same group of people first learns a consumer application and then turns the application usage into an internal workflow. The post did not generate contracts but placed Muse in the same training position as Snapchat.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Quarterly revenue can exceed another company's total market value.
Interns teach executives, teaching the default tools of the future.
Different metrics compared together measure attention.