Higher frequency transactions between high frequency traders trends towards zero-sum, or at-least very-near-zero-sum. It's a bit of an edge-case, but relevant for what GP is talking about.
D.E. Shaw is not a high frequency shop. I would be very surprised if their daily transactions was more than 5% or so of their total book.
More broadly, quant shops are not out to place bets on what they think will happen in the next few seconds. They're much more like traditional hedge funds than HFT firms in terms of their betting horizons. It's just that the trades they choose to make on those horizons are generated algorithmically.
So they’re both zero sum and extracting wealth from others? That’s a neat trick.
The firm under discussion isn’t HFT. But both HFT and the firm under discussion trade with everyone; they’re not in some walled off market. As such they provide liquidity, and participate in the same trades as the entire financial system. It’s hard to claim this is zero sum by any means.
More broadly, quant shops are not out to place bets on what they think will happen in the next few seconds. They're much more like traditional hedge funds than HFT firms in terms of their betting horizons. It's just that the trades they choose to make on those horizons are generated algorithmically.