James Simons Flashcards
Where is Renaissance Technologies headquartered?
East Setauket, New York
Who are James Simons’ co-CEOs?
Robert Mercer
Peter Brown
What is Renaissance most famous product?
the Medalion Fund
Who is James Simons?
An award winning mathematician and former Cold War code breaker.
What do you call hedge funds that use quantitative trading?
Quant hedge funds
When was the medallion fund established?
1988
What is the medallion fund based on?
Leonard Baum’s mathematical models and pioneering algebraist James Ax’s improvements to those models
What is the medallion fund’s record?
35 percent annualized return over a 20 year span, with a 71% annual return from 1994 to 2014.
When did Simons retire from Renaissance?
2009
Where did Robert Mercer and Peter Brown come from?
IBM
Where was James Simons the chair of the department of mathematics?
Stony Brook University
What prize did Simons win in 1976?
Oswald Veblen Prize of the American Mathematical Society
What is the Oswald Veben Prize?
The highest honor in geometry
Which of Simons’s projects helps define esoteric aspects of modern physics including how invisible fields like that of gravity interact with matter to produce everything from superstrings to black holes?
Chern-Simons theory
What scale is Renaissance’s database?
Petabyte
Renassance uses computer-based models to predict___
price changes in easily traded financial instrumetns.
The models that renaissance uses are based on analyzing as much data as can be gathered, ___
then looking for non-random movements to make predictions.
What is Renaissance’s latest fund?
the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF)
It is a widely held belief within Renaissance that the ______ is to blame for poor investor returns.
herdlike mentality among business school graduates
The firm is famous for these three things involving employees
non-existent personnel turnover
stringent intellectual property obligations including iron clad non-compete and non-disclosure agreements
ability to recruit and retain top scientific talent
What was Simons’ first business venture called and when did he start it?
Monometrics
1978
Who was James Simons first recruit?
Leonard Baum, a cryptoanalyst from IDA who was the co-author of the Baum-Welch algorithm
Where did Simons find pioneering algebraist James Ax?
Cornell University
What was the medallion fund’s predecessor called?
Axcom Ltd., run by James Ax
Which fund is second to medallion in returns?
Soros’ Quantum Fund
What four major traders is Simons better than?
George Soros
Mark Kingdon
Bruce Kovner
Monroe Trout
Where and when was James Simon born?
1938 in Newton, Massachusetts
What schools did James Simons attend?
UC Berkley
MIT
How much is James Simons worth?
16 Billion
Who is the Chern in the Chern-Simons form?
Shiing-Shen Chern
How many children did James Simon have?
5, two of them were killed, one drowned and one in a car crash.
What did James Simons’ father do?
He owned a shoe factory.
Where did James Simons grow up?
In Brookline, Mass
When did Simons found Math for America?
January 2004
What contribution did James Simons make to Stonybrook University in 2006?
25 million dollars, the largest donation ever to a state university of new york school
but then in 2008 he gave 60 million to fund the simons center for geometry and physics
How much has Simons donated to Hilary’s super Pac?
7 million
What about James Simons yacht?
It’s a motor yacht named “Archimedes” built at the dutch yacht builder Royal Van Lent and delivered to him in 2008
James Simon founded _______ in _______.
Renaissance Technologies LLC
1982
