Inside a Scion Start-Up

"Do you know who my father is?"

You would expect such a question could only come from the spoiled offspring of an affluent father, but if a Bloomberg report is to be believed, Adam Wyden doesn't exactly strike me as one of those children.

While it must be nice to have had the perks of being raised by a successful politician - U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) - the 26-year-old Wyden is clearly driven to carve out a lucrative niche of his own - and from his dad's basement at that.

According to Bloomberg News, Wyden is running ADW Capital Partners, a $3 million hedge fund, from the Senator's basement. And the elder Wyden didn't contribute a single penny to his son's new business. Wyden started the fund following an internship at the $19 billion hedge fund D.E. Shaw.

From Bloomberg:

Adam Wyden, a self-described "serial entrepreneur" with office space in the basement and second floor of the family home, began trading stocks for his own account while attending the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School as an undergraduate from 2002 to 2006, where he earned degrees in economics and management. In 2005, he landed a paid summer internship at D.E. Shaw & Co., working as an analyst on what he described as a $700 million long-short fund that bet on and against media, technology and telecommunications stocks.

"Not many college kids get to intern on a D.E. Shaw portfolio for the summer," Brian Marshall, who ran the D.E. Shaw fund and now works as a senior analyst in the San Francisco office of investment bank Gleacher & Co., said in an interview.

Granted his father's connections helped him get his foot in the door at D.E. Shaw in the first place. No matter what their vetting process is like for interns, Bloomberg points out that Sen. Wyden received the maximum campaign donation allowable from David Shaw and his wife during the 2009 campaign. And I get that a Horatio Alger-like tale of building yourself up from nothing is more inspiring, particularly during a time when a good chunk of the nation is struggling to stay above water.

But while this certainly appears to be a case of the wealthy getting wealthier, there's something to be said for a child of opportunity striking out and making the most of it, even from a basement that is probably bigger than most people's homes.