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...
Jim Simons has died
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Re: Jim Simons has died
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
That money for the arXiv was a decade late. arXiv barely survived the 2000s.
> 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?
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.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#43One of the most impactful men of our generation.
He will be remember for lifetimes
Re: Jim Simons has died
#44Sadly 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…
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.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#45Will 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…
That money for the arXiv was a decade late. arXiv barely survived the 2000s.
That's a strange sentiment, it's not like he had to donate at all?
Re: Jim Simons has died
#46The 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.
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…
One can make any sort of outlandish claim, but there's little point in giving undue attention to entirely baseless speculation.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
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
Re: Jim Simons has died
#48The 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.
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…
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.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#49The 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.
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.
Re: Jim Simons has died
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
Big funds usually dont try to beat the market, they try to dampen volaility while tracking the S&P 500