"Maybe it was because I was in the financial field. It's a zero sum game. You cannot make money unless someone else is losing money. That's one of the reasons why I like science: it doesn't work that way."
Source: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080116/full/451240a/box/1.ht...
That's embarrassingly false.
Thing is, D.E. Shaw was not in the long-term investment business... and I doubt he's that ignorant about Finance. I mean, his hedge fund is quite prestigious...
This seems plausible, but of course, it comes at a cost. Part of that cost is that for smart people it can be more lucrative to trade something than to make something.
Don't forget that the sole purpose of trading is to finance making. Trading has no intrinsic value. It's the bureaucracy of capitalism ;-)
Making is ultimatively just pushing atoms (or ideas), too.
Computing, just as trading, has no intrinsic value. It has value only insofar as it achieves its goals. I doubt that trading has been achieving its goals in the most efficient and effective way possible recently.
In 2007 the financial industry in the US made 70% of all corporate profits. Obviously, something was out of balance and it's rebalancing now. Part of that rebalancing will no doubt be a shift of labor away from that bloated financial services sector.
I don't think this critique should be taken as offensive or disparaging at all.
No offense taken.
Trading = Zero Sum
Investing != Zero Sum