Book excerpt: Getting into the Hedge Fund industry is hard, being successful in the hedge fund industry is even harder. But the most successful people in the hedge fund industry all have some ideas in common that often mean the difference between success and failure. The Front Office is a guide to those ideas. It's a manual for learning how to think about markets in the way that's most likely to lead to sustained success in the way that the top Institutions, Investment Banks and Hedge Funds do. Anyone can tell you how to register a corporation or how to connect to a lawyer or broker. This isn't a book about those 'back office' issues. This is a book about the hardest part of running a hedge fund. The part that the vast majority of small hedge funds and trading system developers never learn on their own. The part that the accountants, settlement clerks, and back office staffers don't ever see. It explains why some trading systems never reach profitability, why some can't seem to stay profitable, and what to do about it if that happens to you. This isn't a get rich quick book for your average investor. There are no easy answers in it. If you need someone to explain what a stock option is or what Beta means, you should look somewhere else. But if you think you're ready to reach for the brass ring of a career in the institutional investing world, this is an excellent guide. This book explains what those people see when they look at the markets, and what nearly all of the other investors never do.