Dissastisfied, Some Wall Street Technologists Flee for Start-Up Life

<p><pre><code> But even quants are not immune to the feeling that what they're doing for a living is not adding up to anything. </code></pre> Not sure about this, but isn't the quants who are responsible for developing new pricing models for some esoteric options, new algos to capture the fleeting abnormalities in the market , improving (say) the existing Gauss Copula method that so that 2007 subprime crisis could be predicted or being avoided altogether (<a href="http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant</a>) and so on.<p>How can you say that kind of work is unsatisfying and lacking of creativity?

I share office space with Andrew - didn't actually know he'd been at a bank, but I can verify that he seems pretty happy to be doing what he's doing.<p>I never worked full time at a bank, but I did a summer internship in Goldman's tech division and the work was extremely boring. I didn't really get the impression that anyone on my team was having fun, with the possible exception of my manager. I'm sure there are some tech jobs at the big banks which <i>are</i> fun, but I think they're the minority.

wonder if this influx of NYC bankers will be better or worse for the consumer internet world - don't know if the ethics and values of banking translate to those of web startups.