[HN Gopher] Jim Simons has died
___________________________________________________________________
Jim Simons has died
Author : fgblanch
Score : 1100 points
Date : 2024-05-10 15:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.simonsfoundation.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.simonsfoundation.org)
| seper8 wrote:
| https://youtu.be/QNznD9hMEh0?si=XrLiIDUV4WMfIz2V
|
| Interesting Numberphile interview with Jim, if you're not aware
| who he is
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Link seems to be broken. I can't see anything
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Same here, but it works in a private window.
| gnatman wrote:
| His interview on Numberphile is great- very smart guy:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0
| imranq wrote:
| "My algorithm has always been: You put smart people together, you
| give them a lot of freedom, create an atmosphere where everyone
| talks to everyone else. They're not hiding in the corner with
| their own little thing. They talk to everybody else. And you
| provide the best infrastructure. The best computers and so on
| that people can work with and make everyone partners"
| adversaryIdiot wrote:
| if only more companies fostered the idea of employee wellbeing
| mycologos wrote:
| A somewhat cynical take is that "smart people" is doing a lot
| of work here. If you get to restrict your hiring to people
| who have proven themselves to be world-class in something,
| they are probably much more likely to respond to freedom by
| pursuing something than by coasting (or worse).
| quartesixte wrote:
| Yeah an unpopular and maybe socially inconvenient thing to
| say at parties, but the more I manage operational teams,
| the more I find this true. Bureaucracy stoops down to the
| lowest common denominator of the group. Smart people
| capable of self-motivating and self-organizing don't need a
| lot of bureaucratic structure if given enough incentive and
| freedom.
|
| Being promised millions is a lot of incentive.
| richrichie wrote:
| Employee wellbeing is overrated.
|
| In fact, standard economic theory would say that it is better
| to pay people more instead doing anything else.
| jetrink wrote:
| > create an atmosphere where everyone talks to everyone else.
|
| The company is an interesting example of Conway's Law[1]. I
| learned from the recent Acquired episode on RenTech[2] that in
| contrast to how most other firms work, there is only a single
| model within RenTech that everyone contributes to. You don't
| have a bunch of small teams working in silos building
| specialized or competing models. As a result, every new
| development gets shared with the whole group.
|
| 1. [O]rganizations which design systems are constrained to
| produce designs which are copies of the communication
| structures of these organizations.
|
| 2. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/renaissance-technologies
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| The reality is that most extremely wealthy people are very far on
| the right tail of intelligence. People exist that can predict the
| market, they are just very rare.
| questinthrow wrote:
| While mister Simons might not be the best example, I sometimes
| feel that you can easily beat the market if you are well
| connected and have access to information that can move the
| markets before anyone else. For example how much know-how do
| you need to beat the market if you're a US senator? You know
| before anyone else what's going to happen regarding policy and
| can plan accordingly. There were rumours about this even
| regarding Simons' Medallion fund. About how all the talk about
| math and algorithms was just a red herring to divert from the
| fact that it was mostly insider knowledge that did the heavy
| lifting. Alas these rumours were never confirmed as far as I
| know.
| choilive wrote:
| "There are 3 ways to make a living in this business: be
| first, be smarter or cheat" - Margin Call
| paulpauper wrote:
| it would seem like RenTec is the first two
| infecto wrote:
| That kind of theory is the same as chemtrails are real.
|
| Insider trading exists but the amount of secrecy to make that
| theory a reality would be unobtainable.
| questinthrow wrote:
| There are US senators that make millions by using their
| spouses as intermediaries to buy and sell shares. Insider
| trading as a crime only exists for those that are not well
| connected enough
| infecto wrote:
| I am not denying small cash is being made like that. I am
| referring to the argument that the Medallion fund was a
| purely a play on insider trading.
| chollida1 wrote:
| Those senators just trade on their own behalf because its
| not illegal to.
|
| Why would they involve their spouse? If it was illegal
| for them to trade but their spouse made a trade it would
| be trivial for the SEC to trace it back to intel they
| learned.
| crynom wrote:
| It is illegal. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-
| congress/senate-bill/203...
|
| You are right that enforcement is weak, but that is not
| because it is legal. The notion that members of Congress
| can legally trade on knowledge derived from or used in
| the performance of their duties has not been true for
| over a decade at this point.
| cess11 wrote:
| Did he put a lot of money into politics or did he stay away
| from it?
| TeaBrain wrote:
| One can make any sort of outlandish claim, but there's little
| point in giving undue attention to entirely baseless
| speculation.
| instagib wrote:
| Whether it's a scam or not, I've seen a couple .onion sites
| for trading insider knowledge. You have to tell something to
| get in.
|
| Beating the S&P 500 is difficult and there are now zero fee
| funds to mimic it.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Big funds usually dont try to beat the market, they try to
| dampen volaility while tracking the S&P 500
| stanford_labrat wrote:
| even small funds, this was the investment thesis at the
| hedgefund that my dad worked for circa 2006-2008. they
| promised super dampened volatility but, as you might
| guess, they went belly up during the great recession.
|
| The cause? Someone, somewhere in their financial product
| chain was not being faithful about the volatility of the
| asset they were basing their whole model on so when the
| market went tits up they did to.
| paulpauper wrote:
| yeah. 'market neutrality' often means misplaced/unseen
| risk elsewhere
| paulpauper wrote:
| It is difficult but doable. most people would be better
| served to not try.
| paulpauper wrote:
| You have no clue, sorry. Insider trading cannot generate the
| consistency and returns as RenTec does. Even insider traders
| lose money if the market does not react as expected.
|
| There are tons of strategies out there that does not involve
| insider trading or fraud. One such example is simply shorting
| Bitcoin at the market open whilst going long QQQ. This has
| paid a lot , like today , in which Bitcoin is down 3% and QQQ
| down a tad. There are people running this strategy now which
| despite being public knowledge, is still profitable. Shorting
| bitcoin during market hours, in fact, realizes all of the
| downside of Bitcoin without the upside from shorting it.
|
| There are other strategies like this. now imagine you
| assemble the greatest minds in the world and tons of
| computing power to find many strategies and run them 24-7.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| I'm doubting. Simons might be an exception given that he got a
| PhD in maths at age 23. He was always smart, and I think he was
| bound to excel in whatever field he chose.
|
| But people don't need be extremely smart to get wealthy. Just
| executing well on a simple idea can make one extremely wealthy,
| and there's considerable luck involved. There's also the need
| to have persuasive skills, connections, charisma, and all that
| to convince people to follow their vision, aka Steve Jobs and
| Elon Musk.
| samatman wrote:
| Both of the people you mention are/were fairly obviously of
| high intelligence. A conservative lower bound would be the
| top 5%.
|
| As intelligent as Jim Simons? Almost certainly not.
| paulpauper wrote:
| It's like a snowball effect. If something does not 'take' no
| amount of IQ or connections will help.
| csours wrote:
| > People exist that can predict the market, they are just very
| rare.
|
| It's not hard to predict the market. It's hard to beat the
| market.
|
| I can very easily predict that Tesla will continue to lose
| share price (as one example). I cannot use that prediction to
| make money.
|
| As they say, "It's Priced In"
| paulpauper wrote:
| If by prediction you mean a statement in which there is
| nothing at stake, yes, anyone can do that
| paulpauper wrote:
| Not sure why this was downvoted. IQ almost certainly plays a
| large role. Why do these top quant firms so aggressively filter
| for IQ, like puzzles and test scores?
| tromp wrote:
| The news item is blocked by many ad-blockers, including my Brave
| browser. Using Firefox I see the text:
|
| Simons Foundation Co-Founder, Mathematician and Investor Jim
| Simons Dies at 86 By Thomas Sumner May 10, 2024 Simons Foundation
| co-founder and chair emeritus Jim Simons. (c) Beatrice de Gea
|
| It is with great sadness that the Simons Foundation announces the
| death of its co-founder and chair emeritus, James Harris Simons,
| on May 10, 2024, at the age of 86, in New York City.
|
| Jim (as he preferred to be called) was an award-winning
| mathematician, a legend in quantitative investing, and an
| inspired and generous philanthropist.
|
| Together with his wife, Simons Foundation chair Marilyn Simons,
| he gave billions of dollars to hundreds of philanthropic causes,
| particularly those supporting math and science research and
| education. In 1994, they established the Simons Foundation, which
| supports scientists and organizations worldwide in advancing the
| frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences.
|
| Jim was active in the work of the Simons Foundation until the end
| of his life, and his curiosity and lifelong passion for math and
| basic science were an inspiration to those around him. He was
| determined to make a meaningful difference in the level of
| support that mathematics and basic sciences received in the
| United States, notably by sponsoring projects that were important
| but unlikely to find funding elsewhere.
|
| Over its 30-year history, the Simons Foundation's work has led to
| breakthroughs in our understanding of autism, the origins of the
| universe, cellular biology and computational science. Jim and
| Marilyn's giving continues to support the next generation of
| mathematicians and scientists at schools and universities in New
| York City and around the world.
|
| Jim frequently said that he went through three phases in his
| professional life: mathematician, investor and philanthropist. He
| previously chaired the math department at Stony Brook University
| in New York, and his mathematical breakthroughs during that time
| are now instrumental to fields such as string theory, topology
| and condensed matter physics.
|
| In 1978, Jim founded what would become Renaissance Technologies,
| a hedge fund that pioneered quantitative trading and became one
| of the most profitable investment firms in history. He then
| turned his focus to making a difference in the world through the
| Simons Foundation, Simons Foundation International, Math for
| America and other philanthropic efforts.
|
| "Jim was an exceptional leader who did transformative work in
| mathematics and developed a world-leading investment company,"
| says Simons Foundation president David Spergel. "Together with
| Marilyn Simons, the current Simons Foundation board chair, Jim
| created an organization that has already had enormous impact in
| mathematics, basic science and our understanding of autism. The
| Simons Foundation, an in-perpetuity foundation, will carry their
| vision for philanthropy into the future."
|
| Jim Simons is survived by his wife, three children, five
| grandchildren, a great-grandchild, and countless colleagues,
| friends and family who fondly recall his genuine curiosity and
| quick wit.
|
| We know that many people have stories, messages and memories they
| would like to share about Jim. Please send them to
| observing@simonsfoundation.org.
|
| Information on memorial services and other events honoring Jim's
| life and legacy will be posted on the Simons Foundation website.
| i13e wrote:
| At least for me, even with adblock turned off it still doesn't
| appear. Thank you for reposting!
| elorant wrote:
| I highly recommend the book "The Man Who Solved the Market" by
| Gregory Zuckerman which explains how Simons build his infamous
| company.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Solved-Market-Revolution/dp/0...
| pibefision wrote:
| +1 for this book. It's a great way to understand what he did.
| topherPedersen wrote:
| I started reading the last chapter this afternoon.
| paulpauper wrote:
| infamous implies bad.
| elorant wrote:
| Well it's an algo trading company.
| kzzzznot wrote:
| Please explain why quantitative algo (not HFT) trading is
| "bad"?
| elorant wrote:
| Why do you make the distinction from HFT? At their heart
| they're both the same thing. You're using algorithms to
| trade and eventually manipulate markets. What kind of
| value are you adding to the whole system?
| kzzzznot wrote:
| The distinction in my mind is HFT is "worse" for market
| participants because of the front running of large orders
| between exchanges.
|
| I'd argue this cross exchange arbitrage does still
| provide some value by keeping prices of securities across
| exchanges/the world in sync, despite being quite unfair
| and taking value from those putting in large orders.
|
| Liquidity provided by algo market makers is also a
| service to market participants because they take risk to
| ensure there is always someone to buy or sell - this
| reduces volatility and risk for everyone.
|
| Algo trading is also required for keeping ETFs in line
| their benchmarks, which is an entirely separate subject
| you could fill a book with.
|
| So no, all algo trading is not the same thing, there are
| valid and productive uses of code rather than people
| shouting across a pit or running slips up and down roads
| to keep capital flowing through markets efficiently.
| tombert wrote:
| Sadly I've never been able to snag an interview with RenTech (and
| I've applied like a dozen times), but they're the ones that
| actually made me start taking finance a lot more seriously. Maybe
| if I ever finish my PhD they'll hire me.
|
| I had previously thought of HFT and Quant as a bunch of "finance
| bros", and kind of dismissed it as "not real CS" [1]. Reading
| about RenTech and Jim Simons made realize that there's actually a
| lot of really cool and interesting math and CS that goes into
| this stuff.
|
| Jim Simons being a respected mathematician who just decided to
| change trajectories has always fascinated me, and it's sad that
| he's gone.
|
| [1] I don't believe this anymore and I feel dumb for thinking it
| in the first place.
| filoleg wrote:
| His whole RenTech story was fascinating.
|
| Effectively an outsider in finance who gathered a bunch of
| other outsiders (aka big mathematicians), and decided to start
| a hedge fund that takes zero interest in the actual companies
| and trades solely on math. Which makes sense, since none of the
| main people involved in its creation had any corporate or
| finance experience, but tons of math experience and knowledge.
|
| This is oversimplifying it like crazy, but I recommend anyone
| to anyone with even a passing curiosity for this look up the
| details (or read "The Man Who Solved The Market", which is
| documenting the beginnings and growth of RenTech, as well as
| that of Simons; very enjoyable read).
| tombert wrote:
| Yep, not argument here at all, RenTech is a super fascinating
| outlier in finance.
|
| It's kind of inspiring. I don't know a ton about finance or
| trading algorithms, but I know a fair bit (I think) about
| math and CS, and because of RenTech I've formulating my own
| trading strategies (just paper trades). Thus far all I've
| been able to do is lose all my pretend money by trying to
| play options, but it's still fun to try.
|
| Will I be successful and make billions? Almost certainly not,
| but it's an excuse to play with different types of math that
| I don't play with very often, but RenTech proved that you
| _can_ beat the market by taking advantage mathematics.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| There are some interesting interviews around rentech. It
| starts to feel like they made a lot of money out of being
| extremely thorough, by doing a lot of reasonably simple (at
| least by the standards of math phds) things extremely well.
| 1024core wrote:
| IIRC his fund _averaged_ around 30% gains per year, every
| year, over 30 years. (I 'm going from memory here, too lazy
| to look it up). That is just such an unbelievable performance
| number.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Aren't there some shenanigans with those numbers around
| their larger funds not doing as well?
|
| It's easy to make a few high margin dollars, hard to make a
| lot of high margin dollars.
| makestuff wrote:
| They limited the fund size so employees frequently got
| distributions from the fund instead of just rolling over
| their investments. However, the distributions were still
| in the millions of dollars.
|
| They also got into some tax trouble with uncle sam and
| had to pay 7b in back taxes
| (https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-simons-robert-mercer-
| othe...)
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| depends on your definition of "few". Rentech made a "few"
| for very large "few".
| paulpauper wrote:
| lol . Only made tens of billion. What a failure.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I'd still wish to have details on this (I too heard of
| similar numbers for his fund before), because in my newb
| eyes .. such returns would mean they could absorb a huge
| chunk of the planet liquidity.
| tomp wrote:
| No, because such returns aren't scalable.
|
| According to industry rumors, RenTech is somewhere
| between $10-20bn AUM (assets under management, i.e. the
| capital used for trading), and the profit that they make,
| they can't reinvest, they have to take it out as profit.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| How come? Why do they have to take the profits out and
| can't compound it?
|
| I know literally zero about this stuff!
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| When you scale up too much it creates market impact that
| affects returns. You basically become too much of the
| market.
| tomp wrote:
| The simplistic explanation is, if you're doing arbitrage
| - i.e. "fixing market mispricing", there's only so much
| arbitrage you can do before you fix the price...
|
| This is of course a completely theoretical proposition,
| because in reality you don't know what the "fair price"
| is. You don't even have probabilities, because those are
| also unobservable, you only see one version of "history".
|
| In practice, what happens is that if you trade "too
| much", "shit goes wrong". Both of these things require
| empirical estimation and are easy to get wrong.
|
| The most obvious is the market liquidity, which you can
| observe at e.g. BitStamp TradeView [1] - there's only so
| many orders at a given price, so the more you trade, the
| worse price you get (the average/marginal trade).
|
| No professional of course trades like that, especially
| not HFTs, but similar problems happen at every scale -
| you're competing with other traders, they might have
| better information, there's limited amount of stock in
| the market, the edge/alpha/expected profit you can earn
| decays over time as the price moves, if you trade too
| much you move the market and inform other participants
| who can then trade against you, ...
|
| [1] https://www.bitstamp.net/market/tradeview/
| paulpauper wrote:
| _I know literally zero about this stuff!_
|
| I guess you will not be getting a job there
|
| But in seriousness, when you become so big relative to
| the market, you become the market.
| tim333 wrote:
| All investment strategies are limited as to the amount of
| money they will take. They probably couldn't have ran
| much more without reducing perfomance.
| ljosifov wrote:
| You'd have to sacrifice the returns if you want bigger
| size. For every trade you do, there will be expected
| return (+ve) and then some costs to pay (-ve).
| Commissions and similar costs are only linear so not
| terrible. With increasing size, the market impact cost
| that's non-linear will soon overwhelm all other costs. So
| you keep adding alpha in your forecasts (via your
| research pipeline), that will be eaten away by the impact
| cost, as you scale up. If you keep it small (-ish - still
| gross pfolio will be billions) - then you will get to
| keep high returns.
| eru wrote:
| How do you 'absorb' liquidity? Are they like some kind of
| financial kitchen towel?
| chollida1 wrote:
| it was 62% per year for 33 years.
| tombert wrote:
| That is _insane_. Like, completely insane, shouldn 't-be-
| possible insane.
|
| I guess the theoretical limit to how much money you
| _could_ make in the market is "the sum of all
| volatility", but I wonder how realistically possible it
| would be to even dream of beating 62% yearly.
| chronic640201 wrote:
| Mathematics can only take you so far. At the end of the
| day, people run the exchanges. Not math.
|
| The returns of modern HFT market makers are even higher.
| With their unfair "business" advantages such as PFOF,
| privileged dark pool and block trade access, and military
| internet infrastructure.
|
| Think 60%+, per year, at least. Over 10-20 years, of
| course.
| tombert wrote:
| That doesn't surprise me; doesn't Citadel keep the entire
| bid-ask spread for every transaction they facilitate?
| Presumably between that and arbitrage opportunities that
| pop up from option contracts alone, I have no doubt that
| market makers clean up pretty well.
|
| They wouldn't hire me either!
| eru wrote:
| Citadel has plenty of competition, eg from Jane Street.
| The markets for market making are some of the most
| efficient markets on the planet.
| eru wrote:
| > The returns of modern HFT market makers are even
| higher.
|
| The returns of a child's lemonade stand are even
| higher...
|
| Market makers and lemonade stands are mostly about paying
| for labour (and ideas etc, but let's call that 'labour',
| too). Capital requirements are rather low. So taking all
| the profit and attributing it to capital returns tends to
| give you weird numbers.
| chronic640201 wrote:
| > So taking all the profit and attributing it to capital
| returns tends to give you weird numbers.
|
| Why does it matter? Returns are returns. Money in, money
| out.
|
| After all, people compare HYSA bank interest with
| TreasuryDirect bond returns with equity ETFs like VTI and
| QQQ. Each with vastly different capital mechanics.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Their returns worked out to something like an average of
| 39% per year after fees, which is the figure I've heard
| cited. This may be what they were thinking of.
| Renaissance was/is known for having higher fees than
| likely the entirety of their competition, which they can
| get away with since their returns still outstrip the rest
| after the higher fees.
| mgfist wrote:
| The fund is closed off to outsiders, so the fees are
| don't matter in the same way they do for most funds. In
| the podcast episode on Rentec done by Acquired, the hosts
| speculated that rentec kept the high fees as a way to
| ensure they have enough to handsomely pay less tenured
| employees who don't yet have much money in the fund.
| kzzzznot wrote:
| That's a great episode and covers a lot in depth. Would
| recommend Acquired in general - appeals to me as
| interested in tech, business and finance
| TeaBrain wrote:
| I'd heard that the Medallion fund was closed off, so I
| wasn't really sure of the reasoning behind that
| continuing fee structure, but that line of speculation
| does make some sense.
| tdullien wrote:
| Important to keep in mind that these returns ceased to be
| compounding quickly: they restarted from scratch 10bn each
| year to score 30%.
|
| Successful quant strategies tend to hit capacity limits...
| iamgopal wrote:
| Their success is limited by what other party ready to
| lose, most of the time, these all are zero sum games.
| eru wrote:
| Depends on how you look at it.
|
| Eg selling insurance can be seen as a zero sum game, but
| it's a genuinely useful product for people, even when the
| expected value for them is negative. It works, because
| utility is not strictly proportional to money.
|
| Similarly, market making delivers liquidity-on-demand for
| a fee.
| NhanH wrote:
| Insurance is positive-sum because the value-generating
| enterprise (the buyer) gets to continue generating value
| after the unexpected thing happen. The alternatives is
| that the value creation process just stop. It is only
| seemingly zero-sum for the point in time when the
| accident happens and one side has to pay for the other.
| _vaporwave_ wrote:
| "The Man Who Solved The Market" is fascinating because it
| spans almost the entire history quantitative finance (through
| the lens of RenTech) dating back to the 1970s.
|
| Simmons was one of the first to realize the advantage of
| collecting and analyzing vast sums of data to identify
| patterns in financial markets. They were digitizing magnetic
| tapes and collecting more data than they could even process
| given technical limitations of the time.
| benreesman wrote:
| I can second this book recommendation. Remarkable candor in
| such a secretive field.
| gcanko wrote:
| When I read "The Man Who Solved The Market", I blown away
| with the story of Robert Mercer who arguably paved the way
| for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. I wonder how
| different the world would be if Simmons didn't exist, the
| butterfly effect can sometimes have some massive unintended
| consequences.
| real0mar wrote:
| Does the book cover anything about how the fund actually
| works? It's understandable that they'd want to keep a tight
| lid on it, but I'm so curious
| paulpauper wrote:
| no. One can infer it involves analyzing data, but for
| obvious reasons the ingredients for possibly reconstructing
| it are omitted.
| mgfist wrote:
| The book covers some earlier aspects of the strategy. And I
| think the "spirit" of the strategies exists today, though
| tangibly very different and not actionable.
| richrichie wrote:
| I believe they were doing ML based trading. Their edge was
| data collection, cleaning and standardisation and the
| ability to trade a lot at very cheap borrowing cost. This
| was way before computers became a thing in trading or ML
| became a thing.
| chronic640201 wrote:
| > Does the book cover anything about how the fund actually
| works?
|
| Basically, no.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I remember the time that I went to a conference put on by Sun
| Microsystems in the early 2000s and asked a question about
| certain hardware being good for main memory databases which got
| me jumped on by a RenTech recruiter. Had I known what was about
| to happen to my current job at that time (mentioned in another
| comment in this thread) I would have taken more interest.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| RT must be one of the most selective companies in the world.
| Even to get an interview you'd better have a damn good CV
| (medals in math/cs/science Olympiads, degree from a top tier
| school etc.). And then after a few years of working there
| you're a (multi)millionaire. It's totally bonkers.
| tombert wrote:
| I don't really blame them for not picking me, clearly
| whatever they've been doing has been working. I'm not
| _entitled_ to a job from them, obviously. I don 't really
| know what a "top tier" university is, but I can say for sure
| that my undergrad (WGU) wouldn't count as that.
|
| The PhD I'm in is from a more prestigious university [1], and
| I guess FAANG experience isn't enough to snag an interview
| with them.
|
| [1] University of York, though I don't know if that counts as
| "top tier" either.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| If it makes you feel better, my CV isn't even good enough
| to get a FAANG interview..
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Really?
|
| Google harasses anyone with a live linkedin profile.
|
| Getting to an onsite interview is a different matter
| though.
|
| I know 3 people at google, all senior, either SE or
| people managers.
|
| None had brilliant academic records.
|
| One took almost 10 years to finish his sociology adjacent
| undergrad.
|
| He's the most "successful" and has been there for almost
| 15 years, 10 in the states.
|
| The others have been there for like 5.
|
| Make of this info what you wish...
| 77pt77 wrote:
| I forgot to say, none were technically amazing, just
| good, one not even that but not awfull either.
|
| None had impressive intelligence either.
| tombert wrote:
| I worked at Apple as a college dropout, and got an offer
| from Google I didn't accept also as a dropout.
|
| Both of them only really cared more about work history
| and my ability to solve whiteboard problems. Pretty much
| all the interviews ended up "what's another clever way to
| use a hashmap?"
| therobots927 wrote:
| I've heard stories of professors getting letters in the
| mail from RenTech totally out of the blue. They pay so well
| that I'm surprised they even accept applications. Don't
| feel too bad about not passing their bar. What they've
| accomplished is essentially unheard of, and believed to be
| impossible by a lot of market theorists.
| belter wrote:
| That is what they said about Google....
| infecto wrote:
| And RT has been around for about twice as long as Google.
| Has a headcount of around ~300.
| belter wrote:
| We had leaks from even the NSA...But never from the RT
| fund.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| There are leaks.
| kolistivra wrote:
| Could you share some?
| vsnf wrote:
| From Wikipedia: "Employees: Classified (est.
| 30,000-40,000)"
|
| Obviously the number of people working on the super
| secret stuff is smaller, not to mentioned each project
| has a compartmentalized staff, but keeping secrets at
| this size is going to be a tough ask. They seem to do a
| pretty good job, but we know they're not infallible at
| it. I imagine RenTech at 1/100th the size would have a
| vastly easier time.
| infecto wrote:
| That and I believe RT has a low turnover rate.
| FredPret wrote:
| It's truly inspiring that they've been able to keep their
| headcount low over a long period of spectacular success.
|
| Most organizations would have choked themselves on tens
| of thousands of bad hires long ago.
| keiferski wrote:
| That's one thing I find interesting about hedge funds and
| (some, not all) finance organizations: their ability to
| make huge amounts of money with small staffs. IIRC
| RenTech's revenue per employee is something entirely
| absurd, in the millions.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| It's just leverage. You can leverage people, capital,
| technology. Many companies were built leveraging large
| numbers of people. Many companies leverage technology.
| Many companies leverage capital. Gotta lever up.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Yep, they don't have products they need to maintain. Just
| enough infra to figure out the next profitable trade.
| Once heir models stop being ahead the curve, they can be
| just scrapped.
| djtango wrote:
| Probably because it was run by mathematicians who I
| assume have no love for managing lots of people.
|
| Combine that with how most the company spend all their
| time thinking about making money and that's probably why
| the company never succumbed to bloat
| FredPret wrote:
| I think you're right.
|
| I also think they have sufficient career progression (in
| terms of problems solved and $$$ earned) that nobody
| feels the need to build a big team. Pure speculation
| though, I know nothing about RenTech except that the pay
| is... generous.
| mgfist wrote:
| The incentives at rentec favor low employee counts. The
| main fund is both limited to insiders and limited in
| total capital, so every new hire is judged by how much
| they can improve returns, if they cost more than they
| improve, than they're a pure net negative.
|
| This is different from most orgs who can grow revenue
| through expansion of some sort, in which case the
| incentive often favors adding new employees. Not to
| mention the tendency for people in tech to be evaluated
| by how many people are in their org, further
| incentivizing adding headcount to signify your
| importance.
| paulpauper wrote:
| I read you do not apply, rather you get recruited.
| mhh__ wrote:
| When have high frequency traders and quants ever been finance
| bros? Wut?
| tombert wrote:
| Again, I was wrong and I acknowledged that, but I guess I
| grouped HFT and Quants into the same camp as the characters
| from American Psycho.
|
| They're different groups, I respect them now and feel dumb
| for not respecting them before.
| kqr wrote:
| The very early quants (people who did rough mental options
| math in the Chicago pits in the 1970s) were finance bros by
| osmosis. You had to be.
|
| It changed at some point during the '80s, probably to no
| little degree thanks to Renaissance.
| rcpt wrote:
| The phone screen was hard and I didn't pass. It's not usual
| tech interviews they hit you with a lot of stats and math GRE
| style questions. Maybe the prep in finance is different
| infecto wrote:
| They don't really hire finance people so I suspect most/all
| of the interview processes are heavy on the match/stat side.
| em500 wrote:
| Quantitative finance interviews are pretty much all
| probability and stats questions.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Yeah there's a famous but outdated book called _A
| Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews_ by
| Xinfeng Zhou that gives you some idea of what questions
| they like to ask.
| amelius wrote:
| I have to confess that I still think that. Where would you
| recommend I start reading to find financial enlightenment?
| tombert wrote:
| I think Veritasium made a really good video talking about
| some of the differential equations governing option pricing
| [1] which I found really fascinating. Patrick Boyle's video
| about Jim Simons' history is really interesting too [2].
|
| Also just reading about Jim Simons' being an already-very-
| successful mathematician dropping everything to start a hedge
| fund and ending up extremely successful at the end of it was
| a bit of a wakeup call. Clearly this was an extremely smart
| dude (he was the chair of the math department at Stony
| Brook!), and so if this is interesting enough for someone
| like him, then it's probably something worth looking into.
|
| I read through a book on basic trading strategies and I
| thought it was pretty interesting [3], though I've gone in a
| pretty different direction from what they taught.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/A5w-dEgIU1M
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/xkbdZb0UPac
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Learning-Algorithmic-
| Trading-...
| sergius wrote:
| You should read these books:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43889703
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25733505
|
| And some of the myths you have may be dispelled :-)
| phyalow wrote:
| Both are excellent, I'll add these two too:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/186124
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/482347
| buggythebug wrote:
| Why would you think it was a bunch of "finance bros"? You can
| BS your way to the top in such things as Sales because raw
| intellect and mental ability is not required. The same can be
| said for many aspects of finance. But you can't just do HFT or
| Quant because you want to - you actually need skills. Same way
| I can't BS my way into designing a rocket - you either can or
| you can't.
| kwere wrote:
| Being able to BS yourself upward is a skill in itself.
| Management becomes "political" up the ladder
| matwood wrote:
| EQ is a thing just like IQ. A person can get by with just
| one if it's off the charts, but most people would do better
| expanding both.
| tombert wrote:
| Because I didn't know what they actually did, I assumed it
| was just another rebranding of the same seemingly-useless
| stuff that I associated with finance bros.
|
| I mentioned in the very comment that you're replying to that
| I was wrong.
| markgall wrote:
| Will be interesting to see how this affects math research. He has
| pumped unthinkable amounts of money into the field. The only
| first-class flights I've taken in my life were to get to Simons-
| funded conferences at super fancy hotels. (I found these
| conferences a bit ridiculous, but the luxury treatment did ensure
| that they could get together a lot of the biggest names in the
| field in one place.)
|
| Besides the conferences, there is the SCGP at Stony Brook, the
| Simons Center in Manhattan, whatever MSRI is called now, AMS-
| Simons travel grants, tons of money for the arXiv, the Magma
| license deal... and that's just the stuff that I've benefited
| from personally. I know there's more, Simons Collaboration grants
| and probably other things I've never heard of. He was very good
| to us all.
|
| We've always joked that Phds in geometry-adjacent fields have to
| have one of the highest average incomes of any degree, probably
| at least $1 million a year. Simons making $3 billion, the rest of
| us making 90k apiece.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| That money for the arXiv was a decade late. arXiv barely
| survived the 2000s.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Ah, good looking out. It was on my list for this year
| https://info.arxiv.org/about/donate.html but if it's useless
| I'll skip it. More for GiveWell it is.
| lupire wrote:
| Why would you change your donation plans based on an
| unsubstantiated snarky comment about an event 15 years ago?
| renewiltord wrote:
| I have a spreadsheet. I take action at the end of the
| year depending on whether I'm itemizing or not (which
| I'll know at the end). I'm not going to do too much
| research. I'll add to it if I have a positive experience.
| If something annoying barely approaches the space of a
| thing I blacklist. I have some retention of some things
| on it but others I might fail to blacklist. In this case,
| I remembered.
|
| I have a good base-case: GiveWell. So I'm content to dump
| everyone else on the slightest suspicion. I don't really
| care that much.
| infecto wrote:
| > That money for the arXiv was a decade late. arXiv barely
| survived the 2000s.
|
| I find this kind of comment quite distasteful on someones
| death. Was he actively trying to destroy arXiv?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'm not blaming Simons, I am blaming the people I worked
| for when I worked at arXiv who, again, took a decade to
| start looking for sustainable funding.
| infecto wrote:
| While this thread is by no means as formal of an event.
| Picture yourself at someones memorial service,
| before/during/after the service you bring up a topic that
| is orthogonal to the person's life and frames it about
| yourself instead of the person being memorialized. Its
| just a bit weird.
| adammarples wrote:
| Now picture yourself a million miles from that, on a semi
| anonymous third-tier comment thread on a bulletin board
| ignoramous wrote:
| LARPing is likely Internet's favourite pass-time.
| prepend wrote:
| Life in general, really.
|
| Check out Finite and Infinite Games by Carse.
| yau8edq12i wrote:
| Memorial service? What are you on about? In all
| likelihood, nobody here had met the guy, and HN would
| hardly even be on his radar. Picture yourself at a coffee
| place discussing some celebrity's life event and maybe it
| won't be so weird anymore.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| I think you are underestimating the reach of HN. While I
| personally didn't know Jim, I know several people who
| did. And I know many people, me included, who benefited
| from his generosity and support of science.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| As an anecdote of one, I knew him.
| soperj wrote:
| That's a strange sentiment, it's not like he had to donate at
| all?
| 77pt77 wrote:
| How difficult is to run a glorified BBS over HTTP/HTML like
| that?
|
| Like seriously?
|
| It's not as difficult as the stuff being published there.
| prepend wrote:
| I've noticed this cycle for the past 30 years on the
| internet where a useful thing starts out really simply
| (host a BBS, or host a billion pdfs forever). It's not
| trivial, but it seems like it should be pretty low
| resource.
|
| Then people get hired and are into it and want to get paid
| (as people do). And costs go up. And slowly more people get
| added. And instead of looking for cheap ways to operate,
| they want to fund those people and give them 5% raises
| every year.
|
| So they look for funders to cover "the bare minimum."
|
| So rather than figuring out how to operate efficiently,
| they look for benefactors.
|
| I love arxiv and use it all the time. But why do they have
| employees? And what are their costs? And why not get it to
| the point of operating with volunteers.
|
| I suppose someone can do that and set it up. Until then,
| I'll just donate or applaud benefactors. And use scihub too
| I suppose. How much does that cost to run?
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| Quanta Magazine is also funded by his foundation.
| markgall wrote:
| Good point! Far and away the best popularization of recent
| results, at least in the eyes of a mathematician.
| max_ wrote:
| Even the Numberphile YouTube Channel.
|
| He was very serious about improving maths education and
| actually did alot.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Man. That Numberphile episode on Fermat's Last Theorem with
| Simon Singh had me on the edge of my seat like I was as a
| child when Darth Maul pulled out that double-bladed
| lightsaber during Phantom Menace. I'm not a math major
| either.
| alexwasserman wrote:
| I thought Numberphile is sponsored by Jane St. Another math
| focused quant firm.
| max_ wrote:
| They have many sponsors.
|
| Jim Discovered their channel, liked it and invited them
| to his New York Apartment for an interview. [1]
|
| From that time forward, all Numberphile videos have
| "Simons Foundation" at the end listed as a sponsor.
|
| [1]: Here is the video
| https://youtu.be/QNznD9hMEh0?si=SVnDx77dQNepMRJW
| nextos wrote:
| And lots of great work in quantitative biology, which is hard
| to get funded elsewhere.
| frinxor wrote:
| came here to mention this as well! fantastic ezine that i
| click everytime i see it linked here.
| mycologos wrote:
| Hopefully the Simons empire has enough people who will keep
| executing his vision and stave off bureaucratic rot.
|
| Making money is one thing, but circulating so much of it back
| through math and science is a great legacy.
| hinkley wrote:
| I wonder if he left any of the rest of his money to the
| foundation, or if it all stays with his family.
| paulpauper wrote:
| https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=288
|
| giving it away
| altruios wrote:
| sadly, the trend for these sorts of things is to sour after
| the original founder leaves...
|
| There is an esoteric concept that has some dynamics that
| explain this phenomenon somewhat. Not to get to into the
| weeds (the origins of this concept are esoteric religious
| ideas - I mean this secularly, as it relates to business
| entities) but the concept is an 'egregore'
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore#:~:text=An%20egregore.
| ...
|
| I don't see it on the Wikipedia page, but the theory that
| explains the degradation of a companies original mission
| statement can be summarized as this: "Within an
| organization(egregore) there exists three classes of
| individuals... the primary two of which are those that serve
| in the name of the egregore, and those that serve the
| egregore directly, the third (a smaller %) being those un-
| loyal to the current structure and would change the egregore
| to suit their needs. Of the main two: The dichotomy can be
| spilt along lines like developers/founders vs
| marketers/sales, where developers are interested in serving
| the mission statement and developing a good product, and
| marketers are interested in growth and survival, at the
| expense of everything else. So when the developers/founders
| leave, the vacuum that is created is filled either by those
| that would change the egregore, or corrupt the mission
| statement in the name of growth and profit."
|
| This is a simplistic model - with a fair bit of predictive
| and explanatory power. I have found it useful to describe
| that shift inside a corporation.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I find the tension between founders(idealists) /
| marketers(survivalists) pretty interesting. The Jobs-less
| apple era is one recent instance I assume.
| altruios wrote:
| Both are needed. But Currently there are no checks in
| place to prevent this 'mind-share' take-over, so to
| speak...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Simons has been out of day-to-day management for quite some
| time. He was succeeded by co-CEOs who were then themselves
| succeeded, IIRC. (These are my recollections from reading
| The Man Who Solved the Market). Apparently his management
| style was always pretty hands off and they operated
| multiple successful quant strategies that were led by
| others. Their Medallion fund returned 22% after (huge) fees
| in 2022 according to the WSJ. [1] That's the employee only
| fund that has blown the doors off for 30+ years. They do
| have a few other funds that manage much more $ and manage
| external money that have never performed at Medallion's
| level. In other words, it seems like succession will not be
| a major risk for them in the near term.
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-hedge-funds-are-top-
| perform...
| altruios wrote:
| It would imply good processes for keeping out those that
| would run it to the ground in the name of (short term)
| profits... That makes me hopeful...
|
| But every succession is a risk. Every merger is a risk...
| ask Boeing.
| martin-t wrote:
| This split exists not just in organizations but in society
| at large. Some people are builders and some are
| redistributors. Builders take pride in creating value and
| redistributors can provide useful service by making value
| available to more people. Very often engineers are not
| interested in marketing/selling their product and
| redistributors fill a useful niche.
|
| However, some fraction of redistributors are willing to
| enrich themselves at the expense of others. These should
| never be allowed to make decisions affecting others. A
| founder should always look for people from the first group
| by looking at their past behavior and make sure those
| succeed him.
| andbberger wrote:
| HHMI is going strong. didn't really kick until gear until
| after Hughes died, but still
| jhbadger wrote:
| That's because the HHMI as planned by Hughes was kind of
| a scam. It took legal decisions against his family to
| establish HHMI as a serious biomedical funding agency.
| free_energy_min wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this, super interesting!
| pfd1986 wrote:
| Interesting concept. Would love to learn more if you can
| think of a reference
| pfd1986 wrote:
| Edit: Claude for the rescue
|
| "Here are some additional sources that discuss the
| concept of an egregore and how it can be applied to
| understanding group dynamics and the evolution of
| organizations:
|
| "The Anatomy of the Body of God" by Frater Achad (Charles
| Stansfeld Jones) - A detailed exposition on the occult
| concept of egregores from a ceremonial magic perspective.
|
| "Web of Debt" by Ellen Hodgson Brown - This book
| discusses egregores in the context of economic systems
| and the power of collective beliefs shaping institutions.
|
| "The Egregore Effect" by Jack Willis - Explores egregores
| as self-reinforcing memetic constructs that shape group
| behavior.
|
| "The Cult of Information" by Theodore Roszak - While not
| directly about egregores, it discusses how ideologies and
| worldviews can take on a life of their own within
| organizations.
|
| "The Organizational Hologram" by David Bohm - Applies
| concepts from quantum physics to understanding the
| undivided wholeness of organizations
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Thank you for not dragging us into the weeds of
| esotericism.
|
| What is the source for the quotation in your post?
| qq66 wrote:
| The thing is that he genuinely loved math. I don't think
| there's really anyone in his orbit who loves math as much.
| His family is his family and his colleagues love money.
|
| We'll see in the coming months and years whether he was able
| to create a structure that continues his legacy but usually
| the answer to that question is no.
| caddemon wrote:
| His foundation also donates a lot to neuroscience research,
| particularly for Autism. I think there was a family reason
| for that, so probably at least some of his scientific
| philanthropy will continue for awhile. But yeah it's
| extremely hard to create a structure that would perpetuate
| without the remaining people at the top truly buying into
| and understanding the mission.
| ironSkillet wrote:
| I have heard that he had at least one child with autism,
| hence his desire to fund efforts to better fund autism
| and the brain.
| jdonaldson wrote:
| It's hard watching venerable institutions rot into "just
| avoid administerial short term blame" death loops. You have
| to have skin in the game, not just hire a temporary manager
| for it.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| subtweet @apple
| paulpauper wrote:
| I think it's doable. Institutions under top leadership can
| thrive long after its founders die. This is true of almost
| every Fortune 500 company. I am sure there is enough
| redundancy to continue the foundation's goal. Carnegie
| foundation or Ford foundation, or Apple computers after
| jobs died .
| epolanski wrote:
| I don't understand the relationship with Steve Jobs.
| Nobody's arguing that Renaissance, his investment fund,
| will do well without him.
|
| We're talking about the philanthropy that Simmons led in
| mathematics and science through his foundation.
|
| Now, whether this support will continue depends on the
| will of Jim as well as his family.
| eigenvalue wrote:
| I'd argue that Ford and Carnegie foundations are not good
| examples here, having veered very far from the
| intention/goals of the original donors into directions
| that are arguably diametrically opposed. Essentially they
| were hijacked from within by hired "professional
| managers" who pursued their own agendas. Maybe in the
| future we can set up AIs to make the decisions on our
| behalf after we're gone, because humans are extremely
| unreliable over longer time frames!
| ghaff wrote:
| It's also not unheard of to structure a foundation to
| just run their assets down over time exactly on the
| theory that, given enough time, who know how the money
| will be distributed.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Olin_Foundation
| bmitc wrote:
| For what it's worth, the foundation was actually kickstarted
| by his wife.
| m463 wrote:
| I used to think this kind of thing was because someone
| didn't care.
|
| But I also think someone is at high level, a partner might
| be the only one who can look at things from above, seeing
| the big big picture.
|
| Of course it could be the person doesn't care, but it could
| also be the person is busy, etc
| bmitc wrote:
| I actually think they both cared. My comment was more to
| point out that she is still alive and is a computer
| scientist, so the foundation still has founding
| leadership.
| wslh wrote:
| It is not about enough people, it is about THE PERSON. Every
| people is different and there are people who are more
| different and outliers.
| eru wrote:
| > Hopefully the Simons empire has enough people who will keep
| executing his vision and stave off bureaucratic rot.
|
| I think that fear is why the Gates foundation (or was it the
| one by Buffett or both?) have to spend down their endowment
| within a few years of the founder's death and then close
| shop.
| squirrel6 wrote:
| Not to mention Math for America, which is one of the best
| funded organizations of its kind...
| markgall wrote:
| Another important one! I think they pump a lot of money into
| the MoMath as well. It's just hard to come up with every way
| the math world depends on Simons money.
| hinkley wrote:
| His wife also helps run the foundation doesn't she? Looks like
| she's ~73 so hopefully has a few years left.
| hinkley wrote:
| Geeze, phrasing. I meant "a few years of actively supporting
| the foundation", not "let's start a death clock."
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| 73 is less than a decade into retirement age; hopefully she
| has much more than a few! Looks like 14.5 years life
| expectancy
| eru wrote:
| > Looks like 14.5 years life expectancy
|
| And I assume that's for normal people of her age and
| gender? She's probably far from normal.
| infinet wrote:
| Been a mathematician, he also funds physics. See Simons
| Observatory that studies Cosmic Microwave Background.
| abhgh wrote:
| I wasn't aware of this till a friend told me: the Simons
| foundation partly also funds the Perimeter institute [1].
|
| [1] https://perimeterinstitute.ca/news/new-simons-foundation-
| sup...
| hx2a wrote:
| I believe Jim Simons is also one of the founders behind the
| National Museum of Mathematics in NYC.
|
| https://momath.org/
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > found these conferences a bit ridiculous
|
| Was it the content/aims of the conferences, or just that they
| were so ostentatiously luxurious?
| spr-alex wrote:
| this was posted down into the comments already but geometry has
| nothing to do with
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/business/renaissance-irs-...
|
| the simons foundation will have influence on machine learning
| and medicine for many decades to come though and will hopefully
| be a force of positivity in these fields
| lupire wrote:
| Simons was a geometer.
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/1970273?origin=crossref
| ev7 wrote:
| And the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at
| Berkeley!
| jasondigitized wrote:
| He was worth an ungodly amount of money. His foundation or
| whatever vehicle he chose will surely be around for a long
| time.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| This is what Elon musk could have been. Instead of that he
| became a 13 yr old guy.
| mciancia wrote:
| Right, because spacex, starlink, tesla and neuralink don't
| exist. All he does is shitposting
| xiaodai wrote:
| Magma. Only in the us. Sydney where it's developed have to pay
| for it
| mehulashah wrote:
| This person made a lot of money, so it's easy to say that he's
| part of the machine. But, the man had principles. And he stood by
| them. Grateful for him showing us the way.
| dcgudeman wrote:
| "the machine"? What is "the machine", the economy?
| mehulashah wrote:
| I meant the financial-industrial complex that dictates our
| economy.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| Other principles that he famously stood for against the
| machine was opposing the Vietnam war when he was a
| cryptographer for the US government machine.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| He wasn't really dictating anything. He was just in the
| casino playing a better game of poker (I don't mean that in
| a bad way).
| yau8edq12i wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician)#
| Pol...
|
| > Since 1990, Renaissance Technologies has contributed
| $59,081,152 to federal campaigns and since 2001, and has
| spent $3,730,000 on lobbying as of 2016.
|
| Let's not kid ourselves, people at this level of wealth
| and power can very much make their voice heard by the
| people who make policy. He's definitely not the only one
| in this position, but to frame him as a "better casino
| player" who is "not really dictating anything" is naive
| at best.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Simon's business partner, Mercer, bet big on Trump in
| 2016:
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-
| reclusive-...
|
| I am under the impression this might have been a bad look
| for RenTech hence Mercer leaving the firm.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| That's just rich people being rich. Rentech had people
| donating to both sides based on their personal ideology.
| The "financial industrial complex" generally refers to
| large financial institutions systematically driving
| regulation and/or PE controlling a large chunk of
| economic activity.
|
| Rentech is a bunch of gamblers gambling and spending
| their money no different to any other rich people.
| jjallen wrote:
| He took money out of the machine and donated it to good causes.
| Arguably he was anti machine
| mushufasa wrote:
| Last month an amazing biographical podcast came out describing
| his personal journey to starting rentech, and the factors that
| make the business so competitive.
|
| Certainly worth a listen
| https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/renaissance-technologies
| Schiendelman wrote:
| This is by far my favorite podcast series, I'd recommend the
| ones on Costco, Amazon, and Nvidia as well.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Acquired is amazing. They recently did one on Microsoft which
| is great too.
| crakenzak wrote:
| Their Novo Nordisk one is really great too!
| keiferski wrote:
| Came here to recommend this. This podcast is a good overview
| for RenTech and their other episodes are good for other
| companies. Especially the Nintendo series.
|
| They also did an interview with Charlie Munger right before he
| died. They have good...timing, for sure.
| javiramos wrote:
| The podcast seems like a death sentence. They did one on
| Charlie Munger and he died a few weeks after. Jim Simons also
| died a few weeks after his episode aired.
| bcherny wrote:
| I listen to Acquired religiously, but felt this particular
| episode was pretty weak. They went through Zuckerman's The Man
| Who Solved the Market [0] chapter by chapter, butchering a few
| parts because the hosts don't know quant finance well (though
| they seem to know VC and product very well).
|
| I'd recommend just reading the book instead. I'd also recommend
| Derman's My Life as a Quant [1] for a broader take at other
| firms around the same time that Renaissance was taking off.
|
| [0] https://a.co/d/6x7ALkr
|
| [1] https://a.co/d/5vWBOce
| mgfist wrote:
| It's tough because of how little material is out there.
|
| I will say, I thought their hypothesis on why the fees are so
| high was very astute. Can't know if it's true or not, but it
| feels very compelling.
| bcherny wrote:
| The wealth transfer hypothesis I didn't really get, but
| their other hypothesis that it's a way to nudge non-
| employees out of the fund is probably right.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Really sad. I looked up to him. Trying to achieve brilliance in a
| field and then gathering a brilliant team and making money and
| then giving back is a great way to live.
| chrispeel wrote:
| Archive link for original article: https://archive.ph/zIx9b
|
| Simons also funded Quanta magazine:
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/about/
|
| His Wikipedia page is interesting:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician)
| SSLy wrote:
| thank you, the page renders empty for me.
| justinclift wrote:
| Yeah, it's effectively a placeholder for me. No content
| whatsoever.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| What was the cause of death?
| chronic640201 wrote:
| Old age
|
| But probably smoking
| georgehaake wrote:
| Pretty good run for an adult life-long heavy smoker.
| mfiguiere wrote:
| Acquired Podcast did a 3 hours episode on the history of
| Renaissance Technologies last month.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KjW4BqNFy0
| gregjw wrote:
| A true legend. RIP.
| shashanoid wrote:
| Oh my god, may he rest in peace. I enjoyed listening to him
| djoshea wrote:
| The Simons Foundation has had an enormous, transformative impact
| on neuroscience as well. It's widely considered among the most
| incisive, forward-looking sources of funding in the field,
| pushing for fundamental advances to solve "tomorrow's problems."
| https://www.simonsfoundation.org/collaborations/#global-brai...
| tremarley wrote:
| One of the most impactful men of our generation.
|
| He will be remember for lifetimes
| CliffStoll wrote:
| I'm personally grateful to Jim Simons -- and his foundation --
| for supporting and extending mathematical research in Berkeley,
| and throughout the world.
|
| Jim Simons did fundamental research in topology; his work in
| mathematics, cryptography, and topological quantum field theory.
|
| Beyond this, he pressed for higher quality public education in
| math and encouraging training and presige for math teachers.
| lvkv wrote:
| As an alum of Stony Brook, I'm grateful for all Jim Simons did
| for the university. Aside from having been the chairman of the
| math department, he's the reason we have the Simons Center for
| Geometry and Physics, as well as the "Renaissance" School of
| Medicine. Not to mention his recent gift of $500 million--the
| largest unrestricted donation to a public university in American
| history. I'm sure there's much, much more that he's done that I'm
| not even aware of.
| blackhaj7 wrote:
| Anyone got a link to the rentec money machine source code? I
| fancy an early retirement.
|
| Jokes aside, really sad to hear this. The guy did a lot of good
| with the money from what I understand
| Smaug123 wrote:
| (If the source were available to you, then it would be
| available to all the other funds, and so it would instantly
| stop making money.)
| paulpauper wrote:
| It is not just one source. probably constant revision
| 22SAS wrote:
| I work at a trading firm. RIP to the GOAT, the god of
| quants.Reading about him and RenTec, back in high school, was one
| of the first things that got me attracted to the field.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| RenTech is a CIA front company
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Sounds like bull... I'll take three!
| helsinki wrote:
| ?
| max_ wrote:
| He was writing his memoir.
|
| I really hope he finnished it, I was looking forward to reading
| it.
| rybosworld wrote:
| I might be naive but it seems unfortunate that so many bright
| minds end up using their talents to catch trillions of pennies in
| the financial markets.
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| What you said might be true, but he's like THE outlier of this
| trope though.
| creer wrote:
| He did a few other things also. RenTech didn't even require all
| his time.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Your comment just made me wonder if the catching of those
| trillions of pennies makes the markets more efficient.
|
| (Not an economist, and I don't pretend to know.)
| rybosworld wrote:
| I think the efforts do make the markets more efficient, and
| it would be hard to argue the opposite.
|
| I'm just wondering out loud if that's a meaningful use of
| such a large percentage of top talent. I'm not faulting
| anyone who chooses to go that way. There's a lot of money to
| be made. To me, it seems unfortunate that we don't better
| incentive pursuit of science/engineering.
|
| This paper breaks down how many people from top schools (MIT,
| Yale, Harvard) get jobs in finance. It's between 20-30% of
| the graduating class every year.
|
| https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%2520Files/16-067_3d306ef.
| ..
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I bet it's partially that the money is good, and partially
| that the puzzles are enticing.
| smabie wrote:
| Trading is just like, a lot of fun you know?
|
| Atleast that's my primary motivation for it.
| paulpauper wrote:
| dumb comment. he did more than that. consider his catching
| pennies helped others who chose other vocations.
| mlsu wrote:
| Don't think about the money. Money flows in one direction, but
| corporate decisions, organization of resources, manufacturing
| activity -- real physical flows, energy flows, mass flows --
| move opposite. What "finance" really is is improving allocation
| of those real resources, and then skimming a little bit off of
| the improvement. Fundamentally, money is a signal for the
| expenditure of energy. The flow of money, the signal, can be
| analyzed and applied optimally to improve the expenditure of
| energy.
|
| If the world's production capacity is a giant muscle, finance
| is like the brain. Spending 20 watts of brainpower to move a
| 100 watt muscle in the right way can be hugely effective, far
| more effective than a 1000 watt muscle with 5 watts of brain.
|
| This is really what finance does. They improve the movement of
| the muscle.
| nybsjytm wrote:
| Sometimes people act like guys like Bill Gates or Elon Musk are
| coming from deep personal scientific knowledge and
| accomplishment, but they're absolutely nothing compared to
| Simons. His contributions to geometry in the 60s and 70s, from
| minimal surfaces to Berger's classification of special holonomy
| to Chern-Simons theory, were fundamental and are still well-
| remembered. His name would be known even if he'd never gone into
| finance or philanthropy.
| lupire wrote:
| Bill Gates did graduate study in math and computer science as a
| first-year undergraduate at Harvard College, and published the
| fastest pancake-sort algorithm (held the record for 30 years),
| before dropping not to start Microsoft. And of course he
| invented Microsoft's early technology, which advanced the state
| of the art. He was highly likely to be a great computer
| scientist if he chose to stay in school.
| nybsjytm wrote:
| I can read both the Gates-Papadimitriou paper and Simons'
| work, and it doesn't compare. Maybe Gates could have been a
| great scientist, who knows, but no matter how many advanced
| classes he took, he never was. It doesn't even matter if he
| got good grades in them.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Bill gates did math 55. legit smart guy
| nybsjytm wrote:
| You don't need to be a smart guy to take math 55, nor is
| 'being a smart guy' what I'm even talking about.
| paulpauper wrote:
| maybe you should have written what you meant to talk about
| nybsjytm wrote:
| Friend, there's a world of difference between being a
| smart guy who completed a hard math class and being one
| of the world's best researchers in differential geometry.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Bill Gates had the aptitude to be a leading researcher at
| probably anything if he set out to do it. He was already
| doing coding whilst working on math courses, so his
| attention was divided. Simons focused 100% on math until
| doing trading.
| nybsjytm wrote:
| > Bill Gates had the aptitude to be a leading researcher
| at probably anything if he set out to do it. He was
| already doing coding whilst working on math courses, so
| his attention was divided. Simons focused 100% on math
| until doing trading.
|
| Ok, I guess you're right. A smart guy who completes a
| hard math class and is even also doing coding can
| probably do anything he wants.
| jeffhwang wrote:
| I was classmates with several people who did well in Math 55,
| and knew some people who were teaching fellows for it. Very
| smart folks but they themselves would not have compared
| themselves to Simons as mathematicians, esp. at age 18.
| Tistel wrote:
| There is a nice book that goes into detail of his life called:
| "The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant
| Revolution"
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| @dang may we have a black banner? thank you.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Heads up: website breaks on Fennec with uBlock Origin turned on
| (and all filters enabled). Website unbreaks when uBlock Origin is
| turned off. Looks like a new way to punish uBlock.
| rglover wrote:
| Sorry to hear this. RIP.
|
| "Be guided by beauty. I really mean that. Pretty much everything
| I've done has had an aesthetic component, at least to me. Now you
| might think 'well, building a company that's trading bonds,
| what's so aesthetic about that?' But, what's aesthetic about it
| is doing it right. Getting the right kind of people, and
| approaching the problem, and doing it right [...] it's a
| beautiful thing to do something right."
|
| - Jim Simons
| xucian wrote:
| man's a genius, enjoyed each of his interviews. rip
| 77pt77 wrote:
| This beauty talk really needs to think.
|
| With the current status of research it's clear humans have a
| very problematic relation with what most people think the term
| means.
|
| A new word should really be crafted to disambiguate.
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| I have a feeling that when academics or high status people
| talk about beauty they actually mean "surprising depth",
| because I find that both terms as used by these people
| subconsciously encode a notion that hard work is required,
| something not fully appreciated by most humans.. (although
| Simons does tip his hat to that with his "be guided by".)
| Anyways high status and academics tend to forget, due to
| early quality education, that appreciation of the sort of
| beauty that they refer to is not costfree.
| pm90 wrote:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-simons-robert-mercer-othe...
| misiti3780 wrote:
| RIP. He did a lot of great things w/ his life. Per the books
| about him, he was a life long smoker. Lucky he got to 86!
|
| https://twitter.com/quant_arb/status/1631052354408665091?lan...
| MP_1729 wrote:
| Simmons is one of the greatest people and a true inspiration as a
| mathematician, even though my career drifted from academia. He
| and Andrew Wiles are the reason why I always say I am a
| mathematician, even though I work elsewhere.
|
| RIP
| topherPedersen wrote:
| I'm literally reading the last chapter of "The Man Who Solved the
| Market" right now. RIP
| aborsy wrote:
| RIP. A good guy and a good foundation.
|
| Anyone knows the cause of death?
| georgehill wrote:
| He was a legend. RIP.
|
| Maybe a black bar on top of HN?
| goy wrote:
| One of the greatest. RIP
| benreesman wrote:
| What a loss. I hope I join the community in wishing the best for
| his loved ones.
|
| But also what a life. He could have quit 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years
| ago and been in the history books. What's now called Chern-Simons
| is a monumental result in topology that IIRC dates to the
| mid-60s.
|
| Then he _empirically disproved_ the strong-form EMH, a result in
| economics of which I'm unaware of any peer in its conclusiveness.
|
| Then he built SUNY Stoneybrook into possibly the best lab for
| topology and differential geometry in the world.
|
| Geometer, topologist, cryptographer, outspoken and fearless
| critic of needless war, trader, teacher, monument.
|
| Legend. May he rest.
| benreesman wrote:
| @dang I think this merits a black bar.
| anonu wrote:
| > Then he empirically disproved the strong-form EMH
|
| Not clear as we do not really know exactly how RenTech works.
| It is believed that there are substantial tax loopholes that
| were taken advantage of - which would go a long way (not all
| the way) to explaining the incredible performance of his fund.
| benreesman wrote:
| Every serious finance company knows how to optimize taxes.
|
| Simons was returning 25-50% on 8BN AUM at Medallion every
| year with one or two exceptions every year for 30 years.
|
| Even the hedge funds we let openly operate with black edge in
| plain sight can rarely do that for 3-5 years.
|
| It's obviously debatable unless they open the books, but it's
| pretty much common knowledge which funds are bending the
| rules (flagrantly violating securities law), and I'm unaware
| that Medallion was anything other than just there first.
| richrichie wrote:
| Rentec gets a lot of leverage and gets ridiculous pricing on
| option trades from the banking desks because of the flow they
| bring.
| philshem wrote:
| Here's a New Yorker profile from 2017
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/jim-simons-the...
| therobots927 wrote:
| I was lucky enough to see him speak at the Simons' Center for
| Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook as an undergrad, even though
| I had no idea what he was talking about (he was explaining the
| math behind the sculpture he had contracted for the university).
| He's always been an inspiration to me and I would strongly
| recommend (as other commenters already have) the book "The Man
| who Solved the Market" which gives the history of Renaissance
| Technologies. Whether it's his career in Math/Physics, or career
| in the stock market, he was at the top of the game. His
| contributions to the university in combination with his
| Philanthropic efforts to improve Math education are likely his
| greatest contributions to humanity. It's highly likely that my
| tuition was paid for by someone who worked for him at the Hedge
| Fund, or maybe even Simons himself. Rest In Peace Jim. :'(
| hellooodarkness wrote:
| This is a huge loss for both the scientific community and the
| quant investing community!
| bmitc wrote:
| While I'm not one to fawn after billionaires, I found his life
| story and personality really fascinating. He really seemed to
| maintain a humble approach, and in the Numberphile interview,
| which is excellent, he really emphasized the notion of luck in
| success. He donated a ton of money in very targeted ways that
| have been extremely successful. I think because of his humble
| approach, lack of self-promotion, etc., he's a bit unknown
| outside certain circles, but his impact in certain areas has been
| big.
|
| While I wish that our country didn't have to rely on billionaires
| spearheading initiatives, which often goes the wrong way, Simons
| was absolutely an example of one of the good ones.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0
| seliopou wrote:
| I went to a Simons Foundation lecture in like 2014. The topic and
| speaker escapes me now, but at the reception beforehand there
| there was an old man smoking. At the time I indulged myself so I
| asked the guy that invited me if I could smoke there too. He
| said, "only Jim can smoke in here." And that's the first time I
| had any idea who Jim Simons was.
| richrichie wrote:
| Jim never gave a fuck and smoked even in investor meetings.
| abhgh wrote:
| This is sad news indeed. The Simons Institute [1] in the UC
| Berkeley campus has had a positive impact in my life in terms of
| the _many_ high quality talks (both in terms of content and
| recording quality) that they continue to put up on YouTube [2],
| while making it free to attend in online or in person (you have
| to register online). My wife and I have attended quite a few of
| them in person, and for people like us who are interested in
| learning but have no direct line into academia, this was one of
| the few avenues where we could learn what various researchers and
| research groups were working on, and interact with them. I had
| heard of the Medallion fund before I was aware of the Simons
| Institute but I never put the two together till a comment, either
| here or on reddit, mentioned Jim Simons as the connection.
|
| [1] https://simons.berkeley.edu/homepage
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/@SimonsInstituteTOC
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| Tragic news; he was my personal inspiration for getting into
| algotrading and founding https://grizzlybulls.com. The ultimate
| counter-example to the Efficient Market Hypothesis. RIP
| rossant wrote:
| So sad. He seamed like an extraordinary man.
| wwarner wrote:
| A great scientist. Rest peacefully Prof Simons. He probably
| deserved the Nobel for Chern-Simons theory.
| EMCymatics wrote:
| RIP.
|
| He was a real cool guy.
| LifeIsBio wrote:
| Just to add to the list of this Jim Simons did and funded, he
| also established the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative
| (SFARI).
|
| "SFARI's mission is to improve the understanding, diagnosis and
| treatment of autism spectrum disorders by funding innovative
| research of the highest quality and relevance."
|
| SFARI in turn funds a lot of foundational neurological and rare
| disease research, since autism is such a common phenotype.
| nunez wrote:
| This is really sad. Simons definitely had some views I don't
| agree with, but he was one of the good ones overall.
|
| Specifically, I hope the Simons Foundation continues to fund Math
| for America. My wife participated in this program, and it helped
| her become an excellent educator while also _significantly_
| helping her financially.
| kolistivra wrote:
| what views of his do you disagree with?
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Good riddance. I don't think he did a single positive thing for
| the world (and I'm counting his foundation in this assessment).
| zeptonix wrote:
| Ran a bunch of stop losses (momentum ignition) while conning
| everyone into thinking it was all about being a math genius,
| but what do I know
| sciencesama wrote:
| Medallion fund
| sciencesama wrote:
| Need a tracker for medallion fund
| sirobg wrote:
| Did he share some book recommendations?
| javiramos wrote:
| If you are interested in learning about the history of Rentech
| and Jim Simon's life I highly recommend this podcast:
| https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/renaissance-technologies
| doubloon wrote:
| RIP
| thuum7 wrote:
| RIP, I regularly read quanta magazine. It seems he has supported
| science a lot.
| chirau wrote:
| you'd think Jim would get a black bar on this site.
|
| What actually is the criteria? Or it just depends on how @dang is
| feeling.
|
| Jim is a hero in science, data, computing and finance. What else
| did he need to do?
| richrichie wrote:
| I would not be surprised if RenTec had developed GPT way before
| OpenAI and kept mum about it.
| sagasu007 wrote:
| I hope there will be people who really like mathematics to
| inherit his legacy and continue on. The world cannot develop
| without mathematics
| Wistar wrote:
| My favorite Simons interview.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0
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