Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines, and Wired Markets

Chapter 14. Nerds Gone Green

Nerds on Wall Street, off Wall Street

This book closes with another chapter that, like the previous two, I didn't expect to be writing. Recent headlines (Wall Street layoffs could reach 200,000, Citigroup is cutting 50,000 jobs) imply that many nerds on Wall Street (NOWS), mostly innocent bystanders in the meltdown, may soon find themselves on the real street. The scramble to create electronic markets for the stealth securities that caused the mess will allow some to find their way back to applying their experience in finance, but many NOWS will not.

Technology has a way of spreading outside its original zone of application. The Internet started out as a way for the Department of Defense to link military computers. Similarly, there are future uses for market technology that may rival those involving CUSIPs.^[] Efficient environmentally sound use of energy is one of the most important. We hear from voices as diverse as Thomas Friedman, T. Boone Pickens, and Ted Turner that energy technology is the next big thing. The last two so-called next big things, dot-coms and extreme finance, turned into fabulously bursting bubbles, so pessimists may want to stockpile long-dated batteries.

There is no denying that clean energy is a critical issue for the future. Actually, though, that is only true in the reality-based community. The Governor Caribou Barbie wing of the Republican Party maintains that global warming is just a run of bad weather caused by Al Gore ...