It sounds like you’d be surprised about how many industry leaders come from STEM backgrounds. If you take a headcount of the partners of all the quant firms that have been profitable over the last ten years, I’m not sure if STEM nerds would be the majority but they’d certainly make up a significant portion.

I’m pretty sure the Rentech and DE Shaw founders were mathematicians. I’ve heard Simons in particular is stupid good at math and there are apocryphal stories to that effect. Wouldn’t surprise me if other quant funds were also ran by the math-heads themselves as well