that's a whole-ass book! I nearly crashed my poor little box, she barely has the ram to open 400+ page PDFs without my browser also being open.
This sounds like you're on a Pentium 386
How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
41–50 of 89 posts
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#42Earlier 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…
This matches my experiences as a non-quant, but havin done support work for quite a few of them. You can feel the novelty slough off of them as they get burned down into realizing they're just fitting curves.
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#43Kind 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.
If you’re only make on average 500k/year after 10y — you’re not really in the game at all
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Gappy is very good but occupies a slightly odd role in that he's sort of a jobbing philosopher for hedge funds at this point
The exception rather than the norm, yeah but IMO his takes are refreshing/insightful.
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 get your point, but that was the exact logic of Effective Altruism and Sam Altman is now jailed for the Largest Fraud of All Time. It's a slippery slope.
Sam Bankman-Fried. And I think he’s a bit of a special case, others do not need to be worried they’ll succumb to multi billion dollar fraud schemes if they try to earn-to-give.
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#46I 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…
What happened? Is this a case of the actual job changing, or just title inflation? I’d expect the quants to be the ones doing the math and implementing the kernels…
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#47I 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
What kind of quant? 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 don't think quants actually trade, though? Like the division of labor usually separates research, code, and trading. Unless you start your own sole prop quant trading shop, which is fun but unless you're the next Jim Simons it can be pretty hard to do it profitably.
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#48I 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…
There's definitely room for new math but , at least for banks, the process of getting your fancy model validated by internal model validation teams and regulators is so time and energy consuming that most people don't want to bother with using all the fancy math they could use and instead rely on simplifications and simple extensions.
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#49I 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
and I wonder how much of your success / failure is luck vs advanced-anything. You could wager 7-figure bankrolls in vegas on blackjack or baccarat and _possibly_ double or triple it. Doesn't mean your equation-solving had anything to do with it (in fact it expressly doesn't in that case).
> and I wonder how much of your success / failure is luck vs advanced-anything
Well take someone who YOLO on a 0 DTE option and makes 80x (not unheard of) vs someone who wins the same amount over, say, four years and 8 000 trades... Well it's not impossible that the YOLOer is more skilled and has an edge (while also being a degen but that's not the point): it is just very unlikely.
Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of trades is not the same as "gambling one night in Vegas".
Re: How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
#50Earlier 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…
> but these days for most people there’s little to no new maths. You are right. For most people there's little to no new maths. But not for all. There's still plenty of good quality math to be done in the exotics space. However, there's a bit of Catch 22 that prevents people from doing new math: all the big shops have had exotics libraries since before 2008, and because of the exotics hiatus between about 2008 and ma…
What is being meant by exotics in this discussion?