[fghh45sdfhr3]

I'm pretty sure we have Wall street quants here, unless one of them offers a convincing argument that yes, they are well ahead of academia, I don't believe it.

In my anecdotal experience, the financial industry is light years behind most post-graduate level mathematicians and physicists. Finanical math is kind of scary for anyone who knows more math than the average banker.

[pcl]

But that's the thing, right? Most of the people working on this stuff are disincented from discussing it, both contractually and in terms of their own profit motives.