People

Jim Simons

Jim Simons

Formal First Name
James (Jim)
Nick Name
The Numbers King or Quant King
Dates
4/25/1938 - present

Jim Simons is the Founder of Renaissance Technologies. He established the quantitative investment firm in 1982 and served as its Chairman and CEO until he retired in 2010. Today, he remains as a Non-Executive Chairman at Renaissance. Simons is also a notable mathematician whose most influential research involves the discovery and application of certain geometric measurements—called the Chern-Simons Invariants—which have wide use, particularly in theoretical physics. As of 2021, Forbes estimated Simons' net worth at $23.5 billion, making him the 23rd richest person in the United States.

Professional Experience


Academic History

Early Life

  • At the age of 14, Simons worked at a garden supply store as a floor sweeper.
  • He had an early and successful career in mathematics, winning multiple awards, and later was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
  • He was recruited by The Institute for Defense Analyses in 1964, where he played a key role to break codes during the Vietnam War.
  • He left IDA after four years and went on to teach mathematics at MIT and Harvard University.
  • He started delving into finance in 1978.


Jim Simons, the Numbers King

  • Algorithms made him a Wall Street billionaire. His new research center helps scientists mine data for the common good.
  • The most successful money maker in modern finance has one simple rule of thumb for investing: remove all emotion.
  • He revolutionized investing when he left academia in 1978, at the age of forty, to begin trading.
  • By 1988, he decided to solely use quantitative analysis to decide which trades to enter. 
  • He demonstrated 35% CAGR returns from 1990 to mid-2018.
  • He generated 71.8% from 1994 to 2014—the best investing record ever recorded.


Learning Lessons:

  • Dec 24, 2018 - during the largest market correction in 7 years, he considered a big short bet against stocks.  This was not part of his normal strategy that made him successful previously.  A colleague luckily talked him out of it.  This was wise advice as the markets had just bottomed.  Lesson = It's really hard to time the markets if even the best traders can't do it well.


CURRENT APPOINTMENTS


PREVIOUS APPOINTMENTS


HONORS

  • 2014 - National Academy of Sciences
  • 2013 - Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy
  • 2008 - American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 1976 - Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry