My Life as a Quant
by Emanuel Derman · first published 2004
44% recommend56% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A personal memoir by a physicist-turned-quant, recounting his career at Goldman and other firms. It offers a candid look at how financial modeling works and suits anyone curious about quant careers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
In My Life as a Quant, Emanuel Derman relives his exciting journey as one of the first high-energy particle physicists to migrate to Wall Street. Page by page, Derman details his adventures in this field--analyzing the incompatible personas of traders and quants, and discussing the dissimilar nature of knowledge in physics and finance. Throughout this tale, he also reflects on the appropriate way to apply the refined methods of physics to the hurly-burly world of markets.
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Check out "My Life as a Quant" by Emanuel Derman http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Quant-Reflections-Physics/dp/0... and this book about Fischer Black's (of Black Scholes) work in finance. http://www.amazon.com/Fischer-Black-Revolutionary-Idea-Finan...
on “Using an automated day trader to generate income” ↗Some finance books I love (and reread frequently). These books are more about characters and stories, more than traditional non-fiction. My Life as a Quant by Emanuel Derman The Quants by Scott Patterson A Man for All Markets by Edward O. Thorp Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre Flash Boys by Michael Lewis
on “Ask HN: What article/book do you recommend for my next flight?” ↗Readers of this thread might be interested in reading "My Life as a Quant" by Emanuel Derman.
on “An oral history of Bank Python” ↗…think that was the case in the 80s maybe. Alongside obviously traditional investment banking. Emanuel Derman is a legendary quant who was at Goldman for quite a few years and has a great autobiography 'My Life As A Quant' which describes Goldman at the time as quite a small company, relatively speaking. There is also infamous internal resistance to doing anything too related to consumer banking, which is only just being…
on “My Experience as a SWE Intern at Goldman Sachs” ↗…that's another topic entirely. Figure out which area specifically you are interested in: https://teddit.net/r/wallstreetbets/comments/kcs4xy/what_qua... If you want an autobiography, Emanuel Derman's My Life as a Quant is well-regarded. I have never read it myself but Amazon has often recommended me The Physics of Wall Street.
on “Probability and Markets by Jane Street [pdf]” ↗…chapter, butchering a few parts because the hosts don't know quant finance well (though they seem to know VC and product very well). I'd recommend just reading the book instead. I'd also recommend Derman's My Life as a Quant [1] for a broader take at other firms around the same time that Renaissance was taking off. [0] https://a.co/d/6x7ALkr [1] https://a.co/d/5vWBOce
on “Jim Simons has died” ↗…graduation and he changed my outlook on life, hence my praise for the field. I reccomend reading "Forunte's Formula" by poundstone, Complexity The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos by waldrop. My life as a quant by dermann. Oh and And Ploya's "How to solve it". If that doesn't give you an idea of how valuable a legitimate BS in physics is then I'm afraid you cannot be helped. CS degree or not what matters at…
on “How useful is a Physics degree?” ↗…the 60's, 70's, early 80's a fair number of physicists decamped for Bell Labs, mostly to work on computer and telecommunications related activities. A high profile example is Emanuel Derman, author of My Life as a Quant (2004) and later books, who worked at Bell Labs from 1980 to 1985 before moving on to Wall Street. He mentions quite a number of other physicists at Bell Labs at the same time. Most physicists end up…
on “Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers” ↗…It got to the point that some papers had no authors, and had apparently written themselves. So it goes. No longer with the firm." I suspect he plagiarized this whole anecdode from the autobiography "My Life as a Quant", in which Emanuel Derman is talking about his experience at Salomon Brothers, rather than GS: http://www.ederman.com/new/docs/my_life-excerpt.html "The level of fear that permeated Salomon was more…
on “Why founding a 3-person startup with 0 revenue is better than working for GS” ↗…exclusively use them. But in fact, it's the opposite. The most savvy and powerful tech companies use commodity x86_64 while the not so savvy are stuck with their 1980s mainframes. In Emmanual Derman's "My Life as a Quant", he talks about developing a new bond analytics platform at Goldman Sachs. His team decided to build it on Unix (though Genera was floated around as an idea as well), because it was the modern choice…
on “The Mainframe Is a Modern Platform” ↗Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris, My Life as a Quant - Emmanuel Derman, Plato at the Googleplex - Rebecca Goldstein, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…to give a seminar in France. In much the same way, by a process options theorists call time decay, financial stock options lose their potential as they approach their own expiration.”, Emanuel Derman, My life as a Quant
on “Youth and what happens when it's gone” ↗I used to worship institutions such as Bell Labs. But I guess when you learn how the sausage is made, it takes the luster off of things. The book, My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance, talks about why he left Bell Labs to be a quant on wall street. I remember after graduating college. I was unsure what to do next. My profs wanted me to do PhD.…
on “The PhD problem” ↗…Bottom line we all get taught that the startup lifecycle follows a normal distribution but it is actually fat-tailed so is VC returns coincidentally. I think the last chapter of Emmanuel Dermans's book, 'My life as a quant' can apply to the startup industry as well.
on “Frederick W. Smith: No Overnight Success” ↗…search for "Panel data" yields some interesting courses. MIT's OCW and Apple U should also have lots of material. As far as books go, I've been recommended "Lords of Finance" "Too Big to Fail" and "My Life as a Quant".
on “Ask HN: Good resources for learning+getting into Finance / Trading?” ↗