31 Unexpected Life Lessons From the Man Who Solved the Market
Insights from the Cold War code-breaker who built Wall Street’s most profitable (and secretive) hedge-funds
Now with thinning grey hair, a tweed jacket and a Merit cigarette in fingers, Jim Simons is the man who solved the markets.
Jim Simons was a mathematics prodigy co-developing the Chern–Simons theory, he turned NSA code-breaker during the Cold War, and then built one of Wall Street’s greatest and most-secretive hedge-funds; Renaissance Technologies.
Since 1988, Renaissance Technologies has returned a compound annual growth rate of 66% (with a Sharpe Ratio of around 6.5%). That’s astronomical. For comparison, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, annual returns were around 16% over the same period.
Today, Jim Simons is worth over $23 billion, making him the 21st-richest man in the United States. He uses his incredible wealth to help cure autism and discover the origins of the universe.
Since his story was captured in one of 2019’s most-popular business books, The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, it has sparked much debate. It reveals many unexpected life lessons, including:
- Why collaboration was…
