The New York Times likens Goldman Sachs proprietary traders to American Idol finalists. The list of "winners" who went on to fame include the likes of Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital and Eric Mindich of Eton Park Capital. But in an interesting bid to retain trading talent, the firm is apparently allowing Raanan Agus, head of proprietary equity trading, to set up an in-house fund. It could use another big winner of a hedge fund in its product lineup. The woes of the famed Global Alpha fund have been well documented. It seems that the weak performance of that fund this year has made it a bit harder to attract assets. The new fund will be the firm's first long-short offering. You can imagine other firms doing much the same. Why lose your top talent if you can offer them a shot in-house.  

For more:
- here's the NYT article