The making—and unmaking—of a Wall Street Legend 

Gone Rogue: Season 1, episode 1 recap 

What happens when a trading prodigy’s rise sparks more than admiration—and starts raising real suspicion? 

In the explosive first episode of Gone Rogue: The SAC Capital Story, we plunge into the murky origins of Steve Cohen’s audacious journey and the early days of SAC Capital Advisors, where astounding—almost unbelievable—returns quickly escalated into a torrent of suspicion. 
This isn’t just a story about performance. It’s the opening chapter of one of Wall Street’s most infamous scandals—and a look into the culture, structure, and blurred lines that fueled it. 

It was a time when the lines between aggressive trading and outright misconduct didn’t just blur—they dissolved. In that grey zone, SAC Capital didn’t just thrive. It helped redraw the boundaries. 

Founded in 1992, SAC Capital quickly rose on the back of jaw-dropping returns—so high they didn’t just spark rumors, they raised red flags. The numbers invited scrutiny, and with it, growing speculation about whether this success came from insight—or inside information. 

We examine SAC’s now-infamous “pod system”—a structure that gave individual traders wide autonomy over their books, while giving Cohen a layer of distance from how information was sourced. To some, it was operationally savvy. To others, a deliberate design for plausible deniability. 

The episode features unflinching interviews with seasoned voices like Bethany McLean and Charles Gasparino—two journalists who don’t hold back in their assessment of Cohen’s opaque persona and the ethically murky culture that surrounded SAC. 

They pull back the curtain on why insider trading is so notoriously hard to prosecute—thanks in large part to the vague, often unspoken rules around information gathering that still shape Wall Street’s grey zones.

The birth of a legend—or a myth?

Steve Cohen’s $8,000 profit on his first day at Gruntal & Co. became part of Wall Street lore, burnishing his image as a trading prodigy from the start. But as Bethany McLean points out, origin stories like this are often polished in hindsight. Where does real skill end—and the mythmaking begin? 

“There was a mystery surrounding him too. No one really knew how he did it.” – Turney Duff 

The unfathomable returns

In 1999, while most hedge funds were chasing 14%, SAC posted a staggering 138% return. It didn’t just raise eyebrows—it raised serious questions. Returns that outsized didn’t just break the mold; they hinted at something far more suspect. 

Bethany McLean, with her characteristic sharp insight, details how SAC was “extremely aggressive”—not just in their trading, but in their relentless pursuit of any whisper, any hint of information that could give them an edge. They weren’t just participating in the market; they were actively manipulating the flow of information, paying “really big commissions” to get the jump on everyone else. It’s a picture of a firm operating constantly on the edge, if not already over it.

The “Pod System”: Built for autonomy—or avoidance?

SAC’s now-notorious “pod system” gave individual traders wide autonomy over their books—a structure that, as Bethany McLean notes, also gave Cohen plausible deniability. This system conveniently gifted Cohen with a potent, if not entirely convincing, defense: He could simply claim blissful ignorance regarding his traders’ questionable information sources. But the burning question remains: At what point did Cohen’s supposed unawareness transform into willful blindness when a lucrative, yet tainted, idea became pivotal to the fund’s scandalous success? 

The early cracks: Lawsuits that hinted at trouble ahead

The storm didn’t hit all at once. Before the FBI raids and public scrutiny, there were quieter signs of trouble. Lawsuits from firms like Biovail and Fairfax weren’t isolated flare-ups—they were early indicators of a pattern: aggressive, edge-pushing behavior that repeatedly landed SAC in legal crosshairs. These were the first cracks in the facade, suggesting that the ‘too good to be true’ returns came at a significant, and potentially illicit, cost.

A glimpse behind the enigma

Charles Gasparino’s rare, face-to-face encounter with Steve Cohen offers a glimpse into the man behind the mystique. At first, Cohen came off as surprisingly personable, a “genuinely nice guy.” But as their conversation turned to his trading strategies—particularly the controversial “teenies” tactic—his demeanor shifted. The guardedness revealed a more complicated figure: one part market legend, one part tightly wound mystery.

Navigating the ethical minefield

Turney Duff and Charles Gasparino don’t hold back in describing the ethically murky world of “information gathering” on Wall Street. Their conversations unpack the informal quid pro quo dynamics that made insider trading so hard to prove—and so easy to rationalize. It’s not just that the rules were unclear. It’s that no one really wanted them to be any clearer.

“SAC and Steven Cohen had this sort of larger-than-life reputation. He was a God to most people.” – Turney Duff

The hunt begins: Cohen as the government’s “White Whale”

The FBI raids of SAC-linked hedge funds—and the subpoena of SAC itself—marked a turning point. Regulators were no longer circling. They were closing in.

Bethany McLean captures it with one line: “Steve Cohen really was the white whale.” He wasn’t just a person of interest. He was the prize for journalists and for the government because everyone heard the rumurs. Proving a case against someone with that kind of power and mystique would be a career-maker. 

And in the shadow of SAC’s returns, many looked the other way. As McLean bluntly puts it, “When someone is making a lot of money for investors, no one wants to ask questions.” The complicity wasn’t hidden. It was built into the culture.

Conclusion

Episode one of Gone Rogue doesn’t just introduce the SAC Capital story—it sets the tone for everything to come. We’ve traced Steve Cohen’s rise from trading floor phenom to the architect of a fund that delivered astonishing—and increasingly suspect—returns.

This opening chapter explores the structural loopholes, cultural blind spots, and mounting regulatory pressure that defined SAC’s early years. It’s the groundwork for a story that’s only just beginning to unravel. 

Tune in so your financial institution can learn from one of the most high-profile compliance failures in hedge fund history—and avoid the kind of blind spots that allowed misconduct to scale in plain sight. 

Listen to Gone Rogue: Episode 1, to hear the full story in the voices of those who lived it.