I'm literally reading the last chapter of "The Man Who Solved the Market" right now. RIP
Jim Simons has died
131–140 of 338 posts
Re: Jim Simons has died
#132Sadly 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…
When have high frequency traders and quants ever been finance bros? Wut?
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.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#134I 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...
I started reading the last chapter this afternoon.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 o…
If it makes you feel better, my CV isn't even good enough to get a FAANG interview..
Re: Jim Simons has died
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How come? Why do they have to take the profits out and can’t compound it? I know literally zero about this stuff!
When you scale up too much it creates market impact that affects returns. You basically become too much of the market.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#137RIP. A good guy and a good foundation.
Anyone knows the cause of death?
Re: Jim Simons has died
#138[flagged]
Re: Jim Simons has died
#139Will 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 conference…
Quanta Magazine is also funded by his foundation.
And lots of great work in quantitative biology, which is hard to get funded elsewhere.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#140Will 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 conference…
I believe Jim Simons is also one of the founders behind the National Museum of Mathematics in NYC.