, Columnist
The Nerd Vs. Bro Wars
The nerds have taken from the bros in both technology and finance. The challenge now is to avoid the sexism of the bros.
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Back in September, Marc Andreessen tweeted: "Silicon Valley is nerd culture, and we are the bro's natural enemy."
Is that true? Anyone who grew up in the 1980s remembers how bros -- or jocks, as we called them then -- disdained and marginalized nerds in high school. In his book "My Life as a Quant," physicist-turned-financier Emanuel Derman recounted how the traders at Goldman Sachs viewed the quants as laughable and subservient gnomes confined to dark basements for meager pay.