I had a conversation with a friend recently about Wall Street. We discussed some of the odder aspects of the Street, not so much about investing itself, but about having a career in finance.

I have a somewhat skewed and skeptical perspective on Wall Street. I started out as a lawyer (I loved law school but hated practicing); got a job as a trader under very random circumstances; eventually moved to research and then onto asset management.

But I spent a long time learning what this industry was about — reading everything I could get my hands on, critically analyzing what works and what doesn’t. Learning and studying was a crucial aspect of a job in this industry; Long before Malcolm Gladwell wrote about it, I had a colleague who used to say that it took 10 years to become an overnight sensation.

As a newbie, I critically read everything I could get my hands on. Over that period of study, there were quite a few things I learned about Wall Street that surprised me:

1) Deep thought: Surprisingly few people rolled up their sleeves and thought deeply about why things in market are the way the are. What causes markets to go up and down? Why do things blow up? Why do most investors under-perform markets? Lots of myths and urban legends, not nearly as much quantitative evidence.

If you get really deep about it and study the data, there are some rules to learn. To succeed in markets, one needs to become a philosopher-mathematician.