Laudatio

Dear President,
Dear members of the committee,
Dear Cars and, above all,
Dear Tommaso,

Congratulations on the successful defense of your PhD dissertation. It was a fine piece of work on the intricacies of markets, the importance of news, and the art, science, and magic needed to surf the waves of prices. You navigated among sharks and traders, helped by automatic signal extractions, all while skilfully avoiding the icebergs of biases, bounded rationality, fake news, and many other perils.

Congratulations not only on your dissertation, a part of which will soon be published in a respected scholarly journal, but also on the excellent presentation you've just delivered, deftly escaping even the trickiest questions from my learned colleagues.

Incidentally, I always knew you would shine in such a seemingly harsh environment. I was ready to bet far more than a spritz that you would achieve any goal you set for yourself.

Let me start by highlighting some interesting scientific insight I found in your work. After that, I'll move to some additional considerations on the path I hope you will walk. So, science first!

In the first chapter you deal with Bitcoin and provide an explanation of why people should trade in an asset with extreme volatility and zero fundamental value. The second chapter is important because it features a model where, essentially, we understand why misinformation can generate bigger effects than information itself, something we empirically observed for a long time with no clear insight.

But now, let me shift to a different topic and tell you a small story. We might think today marks a conclusion, the end of a long journey that lasted four years, back and forth from Venice to Amsterdam, not to mention Barcelona, Milan, Paris, Copenhagen, and even the "non-existent" city of Bielefeld, which we now know very well!

However, this isn't an end; it's a beginning. You might already know that every end is a beginning, but I was inspired by a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace. He told his students the following story, and now I share it with you:

There are two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who says, "Good Morning, boys. How's the water?" The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

I'll leave you to imagine who the old fish is. Is it me? Is it Cars? (Well, Cars is older than me, just to be precise… but it doesn't really matter). Perhaps you and Daniel, or another colleague, are the young fish. As "old fish", we tried to teach you something related to non-linear dynamics and agent-based models, but we also hoped to help you understand what academic water truly is. Yes, how is academic water? How do you feel swimming in this water?

Wallace asked this question to stimulate students to realise the importance of being aware of the people around them. He emphasised that working in academia is about connecting with people; it’s a process where you experience the joy and pain of discovery and disillusionment, the excitement and the fatigue of understanding, and the moments of being lost after months of hard work. We know, or should know, that we are never alone. It's not just "publish or perish", nor is it a story of "mors tua, vita mea" (your death, my life). Even old fish often forget these basic realities and may also ask themselves from time to time, "What is water?"

What about you, Tommaso? How is water? Well, I'm asking because I already know you know the answer. Indeed, you taught me a lot about the water because you proved many times, besides your scientific merits, that you cared deeply about the people around you.

While writing this deserved laudatio, I sifted through old emails and realized how often you were taking care of your peers, always looking for solutions, helping to solve problems, and never making them harsher. As an example, I'm sure you remember very well the task of organising an international workshop in Venice as part of our EPOC activities. The early stage researchers had to prepare the call for papers, evaluate submissions, contact prospective invited speakers, and sort out a variety of practical issues. I know this very well because the whole process was a "sweet nightmare" for me, as I had to handle all the administrative aspects and, ultimately, pay all the bills potentially generated by a bunch of young PhDs who asked for crazy and impossible things every other day!

I was about to surrender several times: the first time was when we decided to reimburse all the young guests with little idea on how to organise that. The second was when we (that is, you guys!) sent the invitation to deliver a plenary talk to the wrong speaker. Whenever I was about to be defeated, I ended up calling you: "Tommaso, the water is getting too hot, and we are frying… can you do something?" And you were always able to interact with your peers, finding the right compromise, overlooking the oddities of some people and leveraging the good heart of others. It was almost moving to see how you could squeeze order out of pure chaos (well, this word is a must in this chapel in Amsterdam, chaos is always the new black!). You could transform chaos into order by knowing the water and the other young fish swimming around you.

There was another occasion in which you demonstrated commitment and empathy. Exactly two years ago, I tried to use an Artificial Intelligence tutor in my course and asked for your help in setting up the entire experimental machinery. It was the first time this had been done at Ca' Foscari, and probably among the first times in Italy. You were invaluable, helping both undergraduate students make sense of this AI tool and me find useful ways to improve the lectures.

But the funny part just came a few weeks ago when I realized with terror that the system could, in principle, still be in use and the charges were still being paid on my credit card! I remember very well how quickly you sorted this out, explaining to me in detail how to retrieve the necessary authorisations and shut down the tutor forever. You might think this was a small thing and perhaps I agree; it's not going to change history. But I believe it once again shows that you know how to be helpful and encourage your colleagues, through your example, to be kinder and more collaborative.

To conclude: that international workshop was a success, I paid all the bills nicely using the provided EU funding, and the AI tutor is now eternally silent. 

But more importantly, I now know that whenever I'm in bad waters, I can email you!

I wish you a long and victorious swim in academia and in life!

ps1. Se siete curiosi, ho pronuciato questa orazione alla Agnietenkapel di Amsterdam, durante la discussione finale di uno studente di PhD. Forse dirò qualcos'altro nei prossimi post...

ps2. la trascrizione in italiano di "Questa è l'aqua" la trovate at https://www.sfrancesco.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Questa-e-lacqua-David-Foster-Wallace.pdf Ne ha parlato anche Oliviero Bergamini in un podscat che è stato dove mi sono immerso in questo mare. Potete sentirlo qui.

pa3.  per papà e mamma DF: questa è la traduzione (fatta abbastanza bene) della laudatio