That sounds as if you can jump into a field without spending 10-20 years of learning and do cutting-edge research. I'm not sure whether someone who has done quant finance can make meaningful contributions to the actual science. So if your role ends up spending money and doing top-level management, why not just fund companies that do and stay in finance?
[edit] To add one prominent example - it's doable, as Jeff Hawkins demonstrated. Founded Palm, made money, then created his own brain research lab. As far as I understand, the neurological community has not embraced his ideas with open arms, but they are at least intrigued by his universal computational model of the brain. So that's a pretty big accomplishment.
[edit] To add one prominent example - it's doable, as Jeff Hawkins demonstrated. Founded Palm, made money, then created his own brain research lab. As far as I understand, the neurological community has not embraced his ideas with open arms, but they are at least intrigued by his universal computational model of the brain. So that's a pretty big accomplishment.