Quantitative finance : a high-tech industry

Jean-Pierre Aguilar is the CEO and founder of Capital Fund Management (CFM) which he created in 1991. He put the emphasis on scientific excellence and innovation in order to build up the company's credibility and give it a portfolio of international clients. Today, he is faced with the same problems as those in charge of R&D in industrial groups. He is forced to innovate constantly if he wants to maintain the company's profitability, and so prefers to recruit physicists or mathematicians, rather than financiers. Since he is unable to take out patents, he protects innovation by limiting the staff turn-over (and paying high salaries) and locating his company in Paris, away from his rivals. Is quantitative finance likely to drain its own market because of the increasing volume of operations which it handles, or will the unlimited creativity of its financiers indefinitely renew its business ?