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Jim Simons has died

simonsfoundation.org

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Re: Jim Simons has died

#101

Post by chollida1 »

1024core wrote: post #44
filoleg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

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.

it was 62% per year for 33 years.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#102

Post by keiferski »

mushufasa wrote: post #16

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

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.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#103

Post by tombert »

chollida1 wrote: post #101
1024core wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

it was 62% per year for 33 years.

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.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#104

Post by sergius »

tombert wrote: post #10

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 actua…

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 :-)

Re: Jim Simons has died

#105

Post by keiferski »

FredPret wrote: post #79
infecto wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And RT has been around for about twice as long as Google. Has a headcount of around ~300.

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.

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.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#106

Post by mehulashah »

dcgudeman wrote: post #87
mehulashah wrote: post #15

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.

"the machine"? What is "the machine", the economy?

I meant the financial-industrial complex that dictates our economy.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#108

Post by tim333 »

agumonkey wrote: post #90
1024core wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Jim Simons has died

#109

Post by djtango »

FredPret wrote: post #79
infecto wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And RT has been around for about twice as long as Google. Has a headcount of around ~300.

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.

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

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