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Inside the New York City offices of $45 billion hedge-fund firm Two Sigma

Inside the New York City offices of $45 billion hedge-fund firm Two Sigma

The office has a sundeck, which is open 24/7.

Back at 101 Avenue of the Americas, there's a music room. There's even a Two Sigma band, the Algorhythms, which plays the office holiday party. Here they are rehearsing.

Here's another gym, this time with treadmills with a view of Manhattan.

The Two Sigma Ventures office space also has a library, complete with nooks where staff often go to get quiet time.

The Two Sigma Ventures office area has coworking space for 90 people, who tend to work at the smaller startups it has backed. Once these startups reach a certain size or get to a certain level of funding, they tend to move out and find their own space.

It had the obligatory foosball table.

The Two Sigma Ventures offices were bright and airy.

Two Sigma Ventures invests in early stage startups, primarily at seed stage and in Series A funding rounds, though it follows on as companies progress. It has invested in more than 50 companies to date, most of which are focused on data science and analytics. The idea is that Two Sigma's expertise in these fields gives the venture arm an advantage in finding and selecting attractive investments.

The architecture and furniture have a very modern feel.

It was a quiet day when we visited. Still, it was striking that the office didn't feel like the finance offices we've visited. Apart from a few big screens on the walls with charts, there was little to giveaway that this was the office of a $45 billion hedge fund.

There are also several retro "Space Invaders" games around the office.

There are lots of meeting spaces and quiet corners.

The office also has several gyms.

Two Sigma also hosts an annual artificial-intelligence competition, and in 2016 it pitted AI against humans in a game of air hockey.

You can see what happened in the competition here.

The hacker space is run by Rachel, who used to be a lighting designer.

Rachel told us that programmers often visit for 20 or 30 minutes at lunch as a diversion. "This is my way of expressing myself," she said, as she showed us some jewelry with LEDs.

There's also this guy.

This is Baxter, a humanoid robot made by Rethink Robotics. Two Sigma Ventures is a backer.

The space is full of old screens and computer gear, and staff are welcome to drop in and spend time taking things apart, building things, and playing with the 3D printer. The space also hosts classes in the evening.

The wall is covered with quotes from the likes of author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, legendary physicist Freeman Dyson, and science fiction hero Doctor Who.

The Two Sigma office has a hacker space.

All employees are taught how to use LEDs on their first day at the firm.

Here's some more computing history.

The office is decked out with references to computing history, including these old-school keyboards.

The shelves are stocked with games that look pretty well used.

Two Sigma hosts cook-offs at the office, where all the ingredients have to be sourced from the pantry.

Across the road at 100 Avenue of the Americas, there's another kitchen, with staff taking time out to play games.

The kitchen was well stocked.

You may be able to see a Juicero machine on the left side. Two Sigma Ventures, the venture arm of Two Sigma, is an investor in Juicero, which recently announced a price cut and layoffs.

There was a teach-in on Python for Research when we visited 101 Avenue of the Americas, one of three talks the firm hosts weekly.

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