Stevens credits much of his success to a series of fortunate events. First, as an undergraduate senior, he convinced his school to let him take the entire first-year finance PhD coursework. “I was in over my head and had to work twice as hard as everyone else to keep up, but it was an invaluable experience because it was my first exposure to what I ultimately fell in love with—research in finance.”
Second, he applied and was accepted, off the wait-list, into Chicago’s Finance PhD Program. “I had a system. I read every assigned paper in every class exactly 10 times. That was my only way of getting through the program. The first couple of times I was lost. The next few times I started to get the main ideas. The next few times things started to click. The last one or two times, the information was truly imprinted. I remember every one of those papers to this day.”
Third, he had the good fortune to be the teaching assistant of future Nobel laureate Eugene F. Fama, MBA ’64, PhD ’64, who also co-chaired Stevens’s dissertation committee with Rob McCulloch, visiting professor of statistics. “When I was applying to PhD programs, I asked each of my five finance professors at the time for advice. They had each done their PhDs at Chicago, and each independently told me the same two things: First, if you get into Chicago, go. Second, even the remote chance of being able to work with Gene Fama, and the certain opportunity to watch him in the finance seminar every week, is reason enough to go. They were right.”
Fourth, after Chicago, Stevens went to work at Goldman Sachs with Fischer Black—former Booth professor and one-half of the groundbreaking Black–Scholes equation—and with Cliff Asness. “It was incredible. Two of the greatest minds in finance. I felt so lucky and would physically pinch myself every morning on the way to the office. Plus, working with Fischer and Cliff made me feel like I never left Chicago.”
Finally, when Stevens founded his firm, he built it squarely upon the principles he learned at Chicago. “Chicago and Fama teach you that risk and return can be linked and that certain common factors are priced,” Stevens said. “They also instill humility about markets. While that was foundational, the most influential research on me, by far, was Fama’s work on the principal-agent problem.”
Stevens continued, “I’ve quietly built my career based on my discovery and development of priced risk factors in a world of non-zero agency costs. If that sounds like a PhD thesis, it’s because it is, or could be. I’m an academic at heart, in practitioner’s clothing. My career has essentially been a 25-year extension of what I learned during the PhD Program. I’ve yet to find an upper limit in my gratitude towards the school and the incredible faculty. There is no amount of money I could donate to Booth such that I didn’t get the better end of the deal.”
Stevens’s gift, Fama said, “shows his appreciation for the deep background in UChicago finance and economics that has been the foundation of his professional life.”
UChicago president Paul Alivisatos said, “Recognizing the impact his experience at the university has in shaping his life, Ross offers a profound testament to the transformative power of being immersed in Booth’s distinctive intellectual culture as a student. With the establishment of the Stevens Doctoral Program, he has enabled the school to deepen and extend the quality of its already world-class doctoral program for the next generation of scholars and business leaders.”
Stevens is the founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Holdings Group, based in New York, which focuses on alternative asset management, reinsurance, and bitcoin.
The $100 million gift from Ross Stevens, PhD ’96, and the naming of the Stevens Doctoral Program will be celebrated at Chicago Booth’s PhD Centennial Celebration on May 12, 2023.