As a person that has been on both the positive and the negative side of the sum, I can tell you that most people don't really think about this when they get into the speculation.
1) Serious quant trader types are rarely good at anything other than mathematics. Even if they are, if they are getting $500k+/yr it would be hard to start as an entry-level engineer for $60k. So most people don't really have an option once they get started in trading.
2) It's addictive. The top hedge fund manager in the US is paid to the tune of $1.7 BILLION per year. On January 2nd the next year, he's back in the office. Once you get in the quickpaced environment of trading everything else looks very boring.
3) It's usually a collective game, so your particular performance is not as important as the performance of the firm. You could do excellent, but somebody else could tank the whole bank. Similarly, you could have a bad year, but if the company is doing OK you'll still get a decent bonus.
After all, the same applies for startups. If you don't assume that you are better than most people at what you do, there's hardly a point in doing it.
1) Serious quant trader types are rarely good at anything other than mathematics. Even if they are, if they are getting $500k+/yr it would be hard to start as an entry-level engineer for $60k. So most people don't really have an option once they get started in trading.
2) It's addictive. The top hedge fund manager in the US is paid to the tune of $1.7 BILLION per year. On January 2nd the next year, he's back in the office. Once you get in the quickpaced environment of trading everything else looks very boring.
3) It's usually a collective game, so your particular performance is not as important as the performance of the firm. You could do excellent, but somebody else could tank the whole bank. Similarly, you could have a bad year, but if the company is doing OK you'll still get a decent bonus.
After all, the same applies for startups. If you don't assume that you are better than most people at what you do, there's hardly a point in doing it.