Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Look having been in your shoes of sparkling-good-but-not-elite academic accomplishment, being a mildly autistic egotistical white guy getting moderately discriminated against in hiring and academic admissions. You don't have to be a quant to make money, always opportunities surfacing and trying to wedge yourself into the elite end of the System(TM) is not necessarily going to be the best fit.
Yes, it's galling that your SBFs or whatever occasionally get grabbed off the pile for having the exact right references and autism vibes to align with the hiring team, but that's life. Poke around stuff that interests you and there'll probably be a couple million dollars lying around somewhere.
My academic accomplishment is elite, you're insulting my background because you subjectively prefer a couple of brand names. I am smarter than a lot of MIT students and my résumé clearly demonstrates it.
Yet apparently not smart enough to understand how the world works and how to get what you want out of it. Maybe the world is optimizing for something other than what you think it should be...
I'm pretty much wiping the floor of fallacies in this thread, so I think I have a better grasp on empirics of the world than the median mottizen. As for what I want out of the world, well, I've gotten what's possible so far, I'm 95th %ile income for my age and have a happy, very young marriage, which is what I wanted instead of money. Now I want to be rich, and I think I will be in 5 years, given my intelligence and track record.
Idk you seem to be struggling with the concept of pedigree and large interview sample size. I'm not sure anyone I know who is smart fails to understand the concept of a social/meritocratic signals in the form college pedigree, credentialism, etc. You seem pretty pissed about it.
This is not hard, depending on how young you are. $250k in the Bay area for a 30 year old is 97th percentile and is a starting salary for any SWE of that age and commensurate experience. I was apparently 93rd percentile a couple years back, and I'm not a money chaser and I don't live in the Bay.
Good luck, however understanding the lay of the land will be important. I think this thread has some good advice when it comes to the fact that a large percentage of the population in our culture wants to be rich and many of them are quite smart. Degrees like quants are actively setup to winnow out people, and many times to winnow out those who lack the requisite class markers like a ivy league school or advance degrees. If you really want to be rich, and are as smart as you seem to think you are, then the easier route is to be a startup founder.
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