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WorldQuant University instructor Cindy Lin established herself quickly in the corporate world. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with a Master of Science in Computational Finance, she landed a job at Bank of America Merrill Lynch as a quantitative analyst in New York.

Additional opportunities followed in Hong Kong, but Cindy took a risk in 2018 after discovering a passion for financial technology. She moved to San Francisco to immerse herself in the startup environment.

“I realized that if I stayed in Hong Kong, I would not be able to learn the latest technology,” she says.

The culture shock in San Francisco was intense but refreshing for Cindy, who found a better fit for her personality. Since the move, she has led data initiatives at tech startups, conducted investment research, and explored opportunities at the intersection of machine learning and cryptocurrency.

“San Francisco it is mainly driven by tech, so people appreciate innovation,” she says. “You can just talk about any crazy idea, and people are receptive and willing to give you feedback and work with you.”

The pivot to a new environment was not the first for Cindy, who was born and raised in Taiwan. She figured out that she liked math as a child, so she majored in commerce and actuarial science at the University of Toronto in Canada. She came to Carnegie Mellon in the United States to combine her math skills with finance.

“I just wanted to follow what I love and learn more about it,” Cindy says.

Early in her career, Cindy made a deliberate decision to optimize for happiness.

“It’s so easy to optimize for money,” she says. “But the important thing is to be happy, enjoy life, and have a really great life experience and have no regrets.”

Lately, Cindy has enjoyed developing her expertise in artificial intelligence. She writes about her lifelong learning journey in Mindful Data on Substack, where she shares practical wisdom on navigating the AI landscape. Cindy also teaches financial data, econometrics, and machine learning for finance in the Master of Science in Financial Engineering program at WorldQuant University.

Her advice for students is simple: “Don't try to learn everything at once,” she says. “Stay focused on mastering one AI product or skill at a time. Embracing a continuous learning mindset is key.”

Watch on YouTube

• Voices from the Field: A Conversation with Cindy Lin (45:03)
• AI With a Human in the Loop (1:05)
• Optimizing for Happiness (1:05)