The problem with this argument is that most IT people working for banks, in my experience, as extraordinarily ill-suited to the start-up life and work-style.
I wouldn't hire most of the IT people I worked with in financial services. Hell, I wouldn't hire myself based on my performance in that environment. So how would you tell the geniuses from the clunkers?
I have actually encountered the opposite. The guys I know who used to work at Goldman Sachs are really good. Maybe it depends on what bank they worked at?
Probably does. I won't name the bank I was at, but it was a big one, and I worked in a number of departments there, from risk reporting to prime brokerage, and all over the place, there was a lack of the kind of singular talent that, imho, is best suited to start-ups.
That said, if you want people with a high level of professionalism, banking IT is a good place to poach from. For my start-up, though, I look for genius, not professionalism.
The people I know in finance are really smart, but their skillset is very different from what you need in a startup (unless the startup happens to be finance-related). It'd be like getting a physics grad student to start a company with you: yeah, you can be sure that the guy is brilliant, but when it comes down to the details of satisfying customers and building product, he's probably not what you want.
I might live in opposite world, because the Goldman Sachs guys I know are actually very successful at their startups. So were the physics grad students! And, one of them was a physics grad student, who then worked at Goldman Sachs, then worked with me at a startup. He was amazing.
Regarding hirind "quants," I think it's a hit or miss. Quant's are good for throwing numbers through a spreadsheet all day (literally); however, the great ones see the big picture in what they're doing. Most don't.
You may want to look for more, "right-brain thinkers."
