Economic riddle of the Wall Street brain drain

NOWADAYS, if you're a smart college graduate, Silicon Valley and its tech-startup scene is the hot place to be. But 10 years ago, it seemed like everyone with a brain and big ambitions wanted to go to Wall Street. The worlds of investment banking and trading were a golden ladder to the good life.

The numbers tell the tale. Via TheNew York Times and the Princeton University's Office of Career Services, here's a chart of where Princeton graduates went during the decade of the 00s: Other Ivy League schools saw smaller, but still substantial, flows to Wall Street.

Why did so many smart kids go into finance - and why do so many still do so? One fairly obvious reason is that finance pays a lot of money. Maybe that's bo…