When Joseph Plazo stepped onto the TEDx stage, the audience expected another polished talk about markets and innovation. What they got instead was a startling revelation: human traders haven’t been driving price action for a decade—algorithms have.
In true Plazo Sullivan fashion, he highlighted that the transition wasn’t about speed alone—it was about precision, risk mitigation, and emotionless execution.
Goodbye Human Traders
Plazo began by describing how, a decade ago, traders still stood behind screens and made real-time decisions. Today, he noted, those decisions have been delegated to algorithms designed to operate thousands of times faster.
The Institutional Motive Behind Automation
Plazo made it clear: hedge funds replaced humans not because humans were wrong—but because humans were slow.
3. The Rise of Algorithmic Ecosystems
He described how these systems now manage everything from order execution to risk balancing—often with zero human intervention.
The Uncomfortable Truth Plazo Exposed
Yet, he also offered hope: humans can win—not by being faster, but by understanding how these systems think, move, and rebalance.
What the Audience Never Expected
As Joseph Plazo concluded, he left the crowd with a message that resonated long after the applause faded:
“Human intuition isn’t dead. But in today’s markets, intuition must be paired with algorithmic understanding—or it will be crushed by it.”
His TEDx talk didn’t just explain the last decade of change—it armed the public with the truth behind modern trading.
And for many, it was the more info wake-up call they never saw coming.