my theory is that sage is nonius back from the dead

sage,let people live their lives. You think you are smart because you just "discovered" that quants do not make millions, I can tell that you are late, because I guess most people on this forum never expected making billions solving PDEs or running MonteCarlo simulations.May be finance for you is just about P&L, but that is your view. Most quants did PhDs in Maths or Physics because they just enjoyed it, and then they had the opportunity to make a decent living doing just what they like, why not ? Their other alternative was an academic job starting at 30 000£ if lucky, while having to teach undergrad courses to some people like you that do not show any interest in learning anything, and care only about how the exam will look like, the grades and making money.If you say traders make more money, so why be a quant ? I say drug and arms dealers make a shit load more than any other honest profession. Sometimes they even control a whole country, so why be a trader, just move to Colombia and start your own cartel !

QuoteOriginally posted by: mjmy theory is that sage is nonius back from the deadactually, I too felt that the sage's posts had the right content/tone to be considered as having emanated from the brain of Marge's fatter, older, balder son !

This is a little bit late, but...... The people who mentioned Simons are right on the money. He's worth a few billion and is about as quantitative as you can get. His RenTech fund is arguably the most successful hedge fund in history, although admittedly not the largest, and a large portion of his employees are PhDs from non-finance backgrounds. The October/November 2004 issue of the Alpha magazine has a cover article about him, although it's more about him than about his firm.