So, you think wall street would be first to identify some brilliant coder who liked video games too much to have the grades to get into MIT? I doubt it. Quantopian sounds like the right platform to access that type of talent.
At most hedge funds, "alpha" boils down to information asymmetry (aka "how well-connected is my fund manager?") Pure quant platforms almost never outperform because they're so easy to replicate. Quantopian doesn't have enough "levers" to be able to build a comprehensive arbitrage plan. They might be able to provide low-cost hedging on the greeks, but that's just 1980s finance with computers.
Furthermore, it's not the brilliant coder who just joined who makes you all the money. It's the brilliant coder with 15 years experience under his belt who makes way too much to bother with Quantopian who is writing the winners. It's not unheard of for top quant programmers to pull down 8-figures annually.
Those guys are just not gonna mess with Quantopian -- they're going to eat it (and any platform like it) for lunch. In quant finance, if you're not the smartest guy in the space you're playing in, you're just another sucker.
I know you're trying to cargo cult some machismo from GGGR, but the stats don't support your claim. There're literally hundreds of successful quant finance firms. Which one is 'the best'? I'll be sure to let Ken Griffin or David Shaw or whoever isn't 'the best' know that they're just 'suckers'.
As an individual with orders of magnitude less in funds, there are a lot more opportunities out there picking up the "pennies" that the bigger guys are just too big to get into. I have a strategy that mostly picks up small and microcaps, and have had market beating returns since I have run them the last 4 years. I can't find a reference to it now, but Warren Buffet in an interview talked about some of the ways he could easily invest up to a million dollars and have a margin of safety that should easily allow him to beat the market. The closest thing I could find describing it is this: https://valuebin.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/warren-buffett-on-...
This link, while it doesn't go into the methods, at least directly quotes Buffet on the subject: https://www.sovereignman.com/investing/warren-buffett-its-a-...
That's one attractive advertisement. :-) It makes me want to play that game.
This is complete nonsense. What is your source? In the current environment, max low 7 figures will be heads of quant research or senior directors.