The new Steve Cohen? The controversial founder hedge fund firm SAC Capital has often been characterized as "reclusive." But then came the insider trading investigations that put the hedge fund industry on edge. These probes have implicated a number of former SAC employees, though neither the firm nor a current executive has been charged. Still, this is a very uncomfortable position for Cohen, who many speculate is the big fish the government is targeting.

He has clearly received some PR advice recently, and that advice has been to open up--to make him less of a recluse, less of a human "black box" and more of a real live human being. It's easy to demonize a black box, less so a human being that people see as normal except for massive wealth and hard-won success.

This is standard advice for people in his situation. Part of the battle is for the public mind to drum up support that might be useful down the road when the legal battles begin in earnest (if ever).

So, it was that Cohen sat for an interview recently with colleague Paul Tudor Jones at a conference. The media wasn't invited but the interview ended up in the New York Times anyway. And it does indeed make Cohen a less enigmatic figure. He discussed his start at Gruntal and his business philosophy.

"During the early days, he described SAC as a 'pure trading shop' but soon realized the business was scalable. So he said he went about hiring 'people who were smarter than me' and who were 'young and hungry,' " notes the Times. Did that backfire on him?

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