My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance

Emanuel Derman earned his PhD in particle physics in 1973, and in 1982 abandoned his academic career for Bell Labs and then Wall Street, where he spent most of his career (1985-2002) in Goldman Sachs's quantitative strategies group. As a result, he was well-positioned to write this excellent memoir (My Life as a Quant) that covers not just his job but also the quantitative revolution in finance more generally. Derman has deep insights into what life was really like on the ground, including the theoretical challenges of pricing options and mortgage-backed securities, and the various personality types that populate Wall Street (quants, traders, executives, etc.). “I found life as a quant to be richer and less isolated than life as an academic.” Highly recommended.