Summary
Gregory Zuckerman traces Jim Simons’s path from mathematics and code breaking to Renaissance Technologies. Using reporting with Simons and current and former staff, he examines a firm that made research, data and mathematical models central to investing. The account follows the people behind the methods as well as the business they built. It also looks beyond trading to the scientific funding and political activity made possible by their wealth, including the different paths taken by Simons and Robert Mercer. The book is a reported biography of an unusual organization and its wider effects, rather than an instruction manual for reproducing its investment models.
Why read it Our view
Useful for studying specialist hiring and the design of a research firm. Read its organizational history separately from any claim that past investment results can be repeated.
Written about
- Jim SimonsBiographyGregory Zuckerman’s reported account of Simons, Renaissance Technologies and the wider influence of its leaders. This is a book about him, not a reading recommendation.Source