Many of you know Paul Wilmott as sort of Wall Street's main guru on all issues quantitative and the editor of a glossy magazine that bears his name. He has some surprising things to say about risk management in an interview with Wall Street & Technology that's has made its way online.

He says: "The trick is to not have models that are too sophisticated. Don't get too caught up in the details of the mathematics. One of the main culprits in all this has been the Masters in Financial Engineering courses. They're sold by universities to 22 year olds who have no experience in life and banking."

He says of these programs, "So there are swarms of these people out there, many tens of thousands of people have come out of these degree programs and are put in charge of derivatives, valuation and risk management and they've never seen the real world." Of course, he's also plugging his Certificate in Quantitative Finance course. But he's got a point. Ornate algorithms can never be the complete answer.

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