Is Ryan Jacob Good or Just Lucky? We Run the Numbers

Wall Street has never had a reputation for embracing upstarts. And for Ryan Jacob, the 29-year-old former manager of the (WWWFX Quote)Internet fund, success has been bittersweet.

Not only did his fund's soaring performance inadvertently sour a deal to sell the fund's adviser, Kinetics Asset Management, to Lepercq de Neuflize, but his relative inexperience and oversize returns have drawn the scorn of some industry watchers.

More than a few have chalked up Jacob's success to dumb luck, pointing to the unprecedented gains in Internet stocks in 1998 and during the first four months of this year. ...