7 ms·
How I Became a Quant (2007) [pdf]
- huvarda 9mo agoFake field for business majors to larp as programmers and make fake money off other people doing real work but muh market efficiency
- djoldman 9mo ago(2007) MUCH has changed since then.
- keiferski 9mo agoI 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-Side-Quant-Job-Advice.pdf?e=6&ref=thediff.co&rlkey=8abc10koby01w9l84mqfglfeq&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/da7zfjj2rplwzf2sfiriz/Buy-Sid...
- apt-apt-apt-apt 9mo agoWhat's a convenient and safe way to open PDFs safely? Some options seem to be: Upload to google drive (inconvenient), use some open-source tool (LLM suggests DangerZone), use a VM (very inconvenient)
- nebezb 9mo agoI use markitdown[0] religiously. You’ll lose fidelity for anything complex (math equations, images), but it does a great job 95% of the time in my experience. I’m assuming the attack surface is reduced. I invoke it through a docker container. But this might be a misplaced sense of safety. [0] https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown https://github.com/microsoft/markitdown
- qwertox 9mo agoDropbox is rendering that pdf as html, so using that link should be safer than downloading the pdf.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- philipkglass 9mo agoOpen it with Firefox. The Firefox PDF renderer is implemented in Javascript and sandbox-restricted like any unknown web site.
- g8oz 9mo agoSumatra PDF if you are on Windows.
- nickpsecurity 9mo agoA one-way link (data diode) transmits it to a box with simplified hardware (eg RISC architecture). The box has a dedicated monitor and keyboard. Once you're finished, you sell the box on Craiglist. Then, buy a new, sealed replacement from Best Buy. Pay per view was an expensive, business model for cable. For PDF's, it's even more expensive. Note: It's more convenient than full, per-app, physical security.
- bormaj 9mo agoGappy 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.
- r_lee 9mo agoShould be added to the title.....
- altmanaltman 9mo agoDon't think it's a guide like "Hey here's how YOU can BECOME A QUANT!" bs, more about the stories/history of 25 different quants. So more of a personal story/history doc. I think it's an interesting read if you are a finance nerd
- dang 9mo agoYear added above. Thanks!
- KellyCriterion 9mo agoyeah, nearly 20 years :-D
- b00ty4breakfast 9mo agothat'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.
- anonu 9mo agoThis sounds like you're on a Pentium 386
- nickpsecurity 9mo agoIt might be a custom chip with all SRAM, no DRAM, that they normally use for AI acceleration. Running Firefox and PDF's on the side would be a nice, value add.
- neko_ranger 9mo agoI 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
- quanttnauq 9mo ago[dead]
- mathisfun123 9mo agoi don't know what the point of this book is - there's nothing rockstar about being a quant. not only do not all quants "generate alpha", even the ones that do are just overworked data scientists. ask anyone that actually works in the industry - fancy math is no longer a thing ("exotic option pricing"). so would "how i became an accountant" be just as interesting? how about (more accurately) would "how i became a data scientist"?
- 609venezia 9mo ago> ask anyone that actually works in the industry - fancy math is no longer a thing Huh? What happened? This is a very interesting claim I would love to hear elaborated
- sharifhsn 9mo agoThe “fancy math” associated with quant usually refers to pricing derivatives like options. The thing is that there isn’t really strong institutional demand for exotic derivatives, people are happy using existing methods and just applying those to current markets. The other type of fancy math has to do with deriving alpha, which is also not that complex, from a statistics perspective you’re mostly using linear regression or other basic forms of regression. The hard part of quant is implementation, making sure your data is right, hunting through poorly understood markets, and managing risks carefully and understanding them. There’s also ML but that’s equally complex in quant as it is anywhere else.
- nrclark 9mo agoKind 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?
- fragmede 9mo agoDid 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.
- darth_aardvark 9mo agoI 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.
- IrishTechie 9mo agoSam 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.
- antonvs 9mo agoI'm not defending SBF, but I think you may not be completely taking into account how strong the pressures are on someone like that. I'm pretty sure he didn't set out to commit a multi-billion dollar fraud, he was sucked into it as a consequence of the expectations on him and so forth. My point here is just that this is a symptom of a societal problem, and SBF is just a well-positioned scapegoat.
- Smaug123 9mo ago
- conformist 9mo agoAs a practitioner in this area, I’d say some of the authors here stand out as extremely influential to this day. 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.
- TrackerFF 9mo agoQuant trading/research is one of those very, very niche fields that you likely only know about if you're: A) A finance or STEM student at a fairly prestigious university, close to a major financial hub. B) Belong to a certain social class where high finance is a known and respected field. Of course, it has become more mainstream - simply due to the high comp, and high comp jobs eventually finding their way to lists with mainstream audience.