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Epstein created a virtuous cycle of social capital for himself by MIT accepting his donation. While it was anonymous to outsiders, the insiders all knew.

For the tech crowd here familiar with venture capital, it would be like one of the top branded VC's being the first money in to your startup. It's a strong positive signal to others.

This NYTimes article has plenty of detail:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-...

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Funnily enough, I had a visceral reaction when I went from capital markets to startup land, and the startup world was praising Point72. Equally shocking was how candid the Point72 team was on funding startups with the potential to have valuable “fire hose” data from retail trading patterns. Given the past history of the firm, I would have thought they would be a little more discreet about their intent.

To put it more bluntly, he’s a rainmaker — the people who care about making deals know who can get it done, and he made it clear he was capable.

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