> As for quants not knowing VC - did they come from a dev background?
No, and that was the problem. The more you venture into this field, the more you realise how much of it is coding. New idea about how price series X relates to Y? No use unless you can pull the data, do the transformations yourself.
Another critical problem is that when you're unproductive, you make contortions to make your results "real". You make rationalizations that don't hold up, because OMG it's a lot of work to test some more ideas.
No, and that was the problem. The more you venture into this field, the more you realise how much of it is coding. New idea about how price series X relates to Y? No use unless you can pull the data, do the transformations yourself.
Another critical problem is that when you're unproductive, you make contortions to make your results "real". You make rationalizations that don't hold up, because OMG it's a lot of work to test some more ideas.