How Many 'Quants' Are There Worldwide?

Sure, this is anecdotal and not scientific - something quants would hate - but this is the first time we spotted something like this - that worldwide, there are only a very small number of people who trade the markets based on algorithms and other quantitative methods - about 10,000 quants exist worldwide (Source)

That seemed to us like a strikingly small number at first sight. But we tried digesting it this way - as you move into the automated world, the 'number of people' stat will always be a surprise. That is the whole point, actually.