5 ms·

Publication founded by mathematician Jim Simons who started a hedge fund that consistently beat the markets and made billions. The entire story: https://www.a

Publication founded by mathematician Jim Simons who started a hedge fund that consistently beat the markets and made billions. The entire story: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Solved-Market-Revolution/dp/073521798X https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Solved-Market-Revolution/dp/0... Lots of interesting information on the internet about him too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician)

polytely 4y ago
There is a Numberphile interview with him that I remember being pretty interesting https://youtu.be/QNznD9hMEh0 https://youtu.be/QNznD9hMEh0
guerby 4y ago
Echoing recent discussions on HN, from wikipedia: "An article published in The New York Times in 2015 said that Simons was involved in one of the biggest tax battles of the year, with Renaissance Technologies being "under review by the I.R.S. over a loophole that saved their fund an estimated $6.8 billion in taxes over roughly a decade."[46] In September 2021, it was announced that Simons and his colleagues would pay billions of dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties to resolve the dispute, one of the biggest in IRS history" (...) "In total, Simons has given over $2.7 billion to philanthropic cause"
- nojito 4y ago
  Even with accounting for that change RenTec’s returns don’t change all too much.
  - caminante 4y ago
    Do you know the denominator? I'm skeptical. RenTec's secret sauce has always been their tax attorneys, not their quants. Prior to this "retirement fund" issue, RenTec was notorious for tax avoidance schemes like claiming LT capital gains on basket options.
    - nojito 4y ago
      The fund is rumored to be around $10B and generates about 44% per year (not compounded). In any event, their secret sauce has always been teamwork and infrastructure. People fail to remember that Simons created a world class math department at stony brook from scratch. He knows how to put smart people together and have them work together.
- jcranberry 4y ago
  I believe that was because their most successful fund was the retirement fund for employees, or something along those lines. I heard they only lost this case because of a clerical error.
- jgalt212 4y ago
  Simons may be the biggest tax cheat in US History.
josu 4y ago
I am big fan of Jim Simon's work as well as Quanta, really interesting that both are connected.
mjreacher 4y ago
His foundation, the Simons Foundation, funds among a few other things, arXiv. I have wondered why other tech related billionaires do not sponsor more items in the scientific sphere like Simons does, because unlike funding a building at some rich university your money could actually be used for something useful and if something good comes out of it, having your name attached to it could mean a lot more than the name of some silly building (on top of the actual scientific progress it leads to).
- melling 4y ago
  I’ve often wondered why we, the public, don’t fund more items in the scientific sphere. Basic research, for example. At one point, there was a “Kickstarter” for science but I haven’t gotten an email from them for years.
  - magnio 4y ago
    I think that is the case, no? The majority of research is funded by the government, i.e. taxpayers' money, even more so for basic research. The better question is why we taxpayers have to pay publishers to access research funded by ourselves.
    - tgb 4y ago
      Good news! It’s been years since most government funding sources have required research they fund to be open access. The NSF has required this since 2016 and the NIH since 2008. The bad news is that journals charge incredible fees to researchers to make their articles open access and so your tax dollars go (via grants to researchers) to these publishers to fund this. Which would be fine if the prices were more reasonable but they just keep increasing.
  - etrain 4y ago
    There was a company called Petridish that did exactly this. They pivoted after six months and became Blue Apron: https://vator.tv/news/2017-09-05-when-blue-apron-was-young-the-early-years https://vator.tv/news/2017-09-05-when-blue-apron-was-young-t...
erk__ 4y ago
Numberphile have done a pretty good interview with him which is worth a watch. There is both a full length 1 hour interview [0] and a cut down interview running 18 minutes [1]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0 [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVDqfUhXOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVDqfUhXOY

polytely 4y ago

There is a Numberphile interview with him that I remember being pretty interesting https://youtu.be/QNznD9hMEh0 https://youtu.be/QNznD9hMEh0

guerby 4y ago

Echoing recent discussions on HN, from wikipedia: "An article published in The New York Times in 2015 said that Simons was involved in one of the biggest tax battles of the year, with Renaissance Technologies being "under review by the I.R.S. over a loophole that saved their fund an estimated $6.8 billion in taxes over roughly a decade."[46] In September 2021, it was announced that Simons and his colleagues would pay billions of dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties to resolve the dispute, one of the biggest in IRS history" (...) "In total, Simons has given over $2.7 billion to philanthropic cause"

nojito 4y ago
Even with accounting for that change RenTec’s returns don’t change all too much.
- caminante 4y ago
  Do you know the denominator? I'm skeptical. RenTec's secret sauce has always been their tax attorneys, not their quants. Prior to this "retirement fund" issue, RenTec was notorious for tax avoidance schemes like claiming LT capital gains on basket options.
  - nojito 4y ago
    The fund is rumored to be around $10B and generates about 44% per year (not compounded). In any event, their secret sauce has always been teamwork and infrastructure. People fail to remember that Simons created a world class math department at stony brook from scratch. He knows how to put smart people together and have them work together.
jcranberry 4y ago
I believe that was because their most successful fund was the retirement fund for employees, or something along those lines. I heard they only lost this case because of a clerical error.
jgalt212 4y ago
Simons may be the biggest tax cheat in US History.

josu 4y ago

I am big fan of Jim Simon's work as well as Quanta, really interesting that both are connected.

mjreacher 4y ago

His foundation, the Simons Foundation, funds among a few other things, arXiv. I have wondered why other tech related billionaires do not sponsor more items in the scientific sphere like Simons does, because unlike funding a building at some rich university your money could actually be used for something useful and if something good comes out of it, having your name attached to it could mean a lot more than the name of some silly building (on top of the actual scientific progress it leads to).

melling 4y ago
I’ve often wondered why we, the public, don’t fund more items in the scientific sphere. Basic research, for example. At one point, there was a “Kickstarter” for science but I haven’t gotten an email from them for years.
- magnio 4y ago
  I think that is the case, no? The majority of research is funded by the government, i.e. taxpayers' money, even more so for basic research. The better question is why we taxpayers have to pay publishers to access research funded by ourselves.
  - tgb 4y ago
    Good news! It’s been years since most government funding sources have required research they fund to be open access. The NSF has required this since 2016 and the NIH since 2008. The bad news is that journals charge incredible fees to researchers to make their articles open access and so your tax dollars go (via grants to researchers) to these publishers to fund this. Which would be fine if the prices were more reasonable but they just keep increasing.
- etrain 4y ago
  There was a company called Petridish that did exactly this. They pivoted after six months and became Blue Apron: https://vator.tv/news/2017-09-05-when-blue-apron-was-young-the-early-years https://vator.tv/news/2017-09-05-when-blue-apron-was-young-t...

erk__ 4y ago

Numberphile have done a pretty good interview with him which is worth a watch. There is both a full length 1 hour interview [0] and a cut down interview running 18 minutes [1]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0 [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVDqfUhXOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVDqfUhXOY