A Hedge-Fund Sensation's Rich Parting Shot

Andrew Lahde Is Dropping Out With a Word for the 'Stupid'

Wall Street's newest meme wants us all to know that he's not about to gloat while much of the country is getting whacked by the stock market.

Then again, Andrew Lahde -- sudden viral sensation, mystery man, briefly America's greatest hedge-fund manager -- does have a few things to say as he fades into retirement at the rickety age of 37 with the riches he made predicting the subprime mortgage meltdown.

In a goodbye letter to his customers that has become a smash hit on the Internet, Lahde explains that the "low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking.

"These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

Now that Lahde, founder of Lahde Capital Management in Santa Monica, Calif., is "dropping out" to repair his stress-damaged health, he suggests we all "throw away the Blackberry and start enjoying life."

Of course, Lahde is comfortably situated after his fund outperformed all his competitors, growing about 870 percent last year -- in other words a $100,000 investment would be worth about $970,000. He doesn't explain, though, how to drop out comfortably while your retirement savings are evaporating.

And since he's got our attention, he thought he'd also put in a plug for both industrial hemp and marijuana. Legalization would lessen our dependency on foreign energy, he writes, plus "innocuous" marijuana "gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating."

Oh, and he wants billionaire George Soros to host a "forum for great minds" to invent a new form of government.

He hasn't shown his face, but they love him in the Land of Twitter, where Lahde's letter is being hailed as a "classic, poetic, an absolutely must-read"; he's the "hedge fund manager with a soul." One writer confesses to having a "guy crush" on him.

A man who answered the phone at Lahde's office this week said his former boss hadn't responded to 80 interview requests. No pictures of Lahde are available, the man said, because none has been taken -- "he's not into the limelight."