31–40 of 89 posts
Clearly these include:
Cliff Asness (AQR is huge, lots of publications)
Ronald Kahn (early pioneer, standard book, successful ex. BGI people everywhere)
Neill Chriss (Almgren-Chriss)
Pete Muller (famous stat arb pioneer, PDT still going strong)
Not sure who I’ve overlooked.
I wonder how fun being a modern quant really is. It seems like one of those things that sounds more fun in your head, but the reality is different. Kinda like "studying physics", going pro in a sport, or becoming a rockstar. People see the end result and don't see how much work it takes to get there or what the day to day is really like
Trading huge equity portfolios and getting paid a lot? Pretty fun
Pricing structured products all day in a bank that charges you for lunch? Not great
I wonder how fun being a modern quant really is. It seems like one of those things that sounds more fun in your head, but the reality is different. Kinda like "studying physics", going pro in a sport, or becoming a rockstar. People see the end result and don't see how much work it takes to get there or what the day to day is really like
Imo the fun quant stuff these days is about predicting returns and not pricing derivatives. As others have said here, the pricing part is mostly commoditised and more about managing software.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I came across this guide (dated 2025) a couple years ago and thought it was interesting. Not a quant or even in finance though, so I don’t know how accurate it is: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/da7zfjj2rplwzf2sfiriz/Buy-Sid...
Gappy is one of the more decorated, public figures in the space. That PDF gives a candid overview of what it's like to interview/work in the industry.
I wonder how fun being a modern quant really is. It seems like one of those things that sounds more fun in your head, but the reality is different. Kinda like "studying physics", going pro in a sport, or becoming a rockstar. People see the end result and don't see how much work it takes to get there or what the day to day is really like
Im reasonably familiar with the exotics quant space. It’s essentially IT/data work - the days of sophisticated maths are mostly gone. There always was a lot of code, but these days for most people there’s little to no new maths. From what I’ve seen, post-2008 the job changed significantly, with more IT, less maths, more standardization - basically the job moved from bespoke everything to super industrialized. You’ll…
Intellectually, it's interesting when you start. There's all these weird payoffs that you are introduced to, and it feels like a game.
The thing is, there's a limit to how exotic things can get. People have already figured out how to price most of the things you can imagine, including all the things that customers normally ask for. Most of the day goes on looking after your hedges, basically implementing the model.
It's like a zoo. When you arrive there's a bunch of different, interesting animals. After a while, you've met them all. There's no new animals, just variations of existing ones.
However the thing that is really an issue is how the business works. Over time I came to the conclusion that the quants in the derivs space are really secondary to the salespeople. How important is the quant who can get the price right to within 1%, when the sales guy can talk the customer into overpaying by 5%? Sometimes it feels like the customer is not even shopping the structure around at all, he just feels comfortable with his sales guy and is willing to hand over a few million bucks of customer money with barely any thought.
Kind of reads 25 people's stories about "How I became a parasite". Why not create new things, instead of making a career out of leeching the wealth created by others?
Did you actually read them? I didn't go to NYC, but Money is fungible so it's a simple math problem. How much non-parasite good can you do making $50k/year * 10 years? Even if we ignore taxes and you donated your entire salary, that tops out at $500k worth. If instead you could make, say, $500k/year * 10 years, and then quit and form your own non-profit for $2,000,000 and do 4x as much good.
I wonder how fun being a modern quant really is. It seems like one of those things that sounds more fun in your head, but the reality is different. Kinda like "studying physics", going pro in a sport, or becoming a rockstar. People see the end result and don't see how much work it takes to get there or what the day to day is really like
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Im reasonably familiar with the exotics quant space. It’s essentially IT/data work - the days of sophisticated maths are mostly gone. There always was a lot of code, but these days for most people there’s little to no new maths. From what I’ve seen, post-2008 the job changed significantly, with more IT, less maths, more standardization - basically the job moved from bespoke everything to super industrialized. You’ll…
I started my career in derivatives. Mostly vanilla, but I did have a look in the exotics. Intellectually, it's interesting when you start. There's all these weird payoffs that you are introduced to, and it feels like a game. The thing is, there's a limit to how exotic things can get. People have already figured out how to price most of the things you can imagine, including all the things that customers normally ask f…
You need quants and sales and trading. Which is why all banks have all three.
Kind of reads 25 people's stories about "How I became a parasite". Why not create new things, instead of making a career out of leeching the wealth created by others?