The problem is not that there are too many physicists on Wall Street, he said, but that there are not enough. A graduate, he told the young recruits, can make $75,000 to $250,000 a year as a quant but can also be fired if things go sour. He said an investment banker had told him that Wall Street was not looking for Ph.D.’s, but what he called “P.S.D.s — poor, smart and a deep desire to get rich.”
