James Simons Death: Rich and philanthropic billionaire passes away at the age of 86: Friday, 10th May, 2024 at the age of 86, mathematician and Cold War code-breaker James Simons, a billionaire investor, died. He laid the groundwork for Renaissance Technologies, a prominent and profitable hedge fund worldwide. According to the Simons Foundation, the cause of death was not revealed. Sixty years ago, Simons—who was more often known as Jim—made the transition from a profession in U.S. intelligence and mathematics education to one in investment. He gained fame as the “Quant King” due to his groundbreaking trading decisions that relied on computer signals.
During his career, Simons donated billions of dollars to Democratic candidates, education, and scientific and medical research; his estimated net worth by Forbes is $31 billion. He also rose to fame as a philanthropist.
“Great and wonderful people are rarely the same person, Churchill said. British prime minister Winston Churchill was “the exception that proves Churchill’s rule,” according to Clifford Asness, managing and founding principle of AQR Capital Management. Simons, a mathematician by training, had little trouble with massive data sets and could confidently use trends to guide his sales and purchases.
In 1978, he founded Renaissance in East Setauket, New York, which is 70 miles east of Wall Street. In a short amount of time, he laid the framework for quantitative trading, an innovative method of investing that has since been used by numerous businesses. As Simons put it at a 2007 New York conference, “we hire physicists, mathematicians, astronomers, and computer scientists, and they typically know nothing about finance.” “We haven’t hired out of Wall Street at all,” said the CEO.
On Wall Street, Simons was both respected and feared.Renaissance, run by Simons, became one of the world’s most prestigious hedge funds after its Medallion Fund generated returns of more than 60% per year on average for more than 30 years. His departure as chief executive officer was announced in 2010, and his resignation as chairman was announced in 2021. Simons avoided discussing the specifics of his company’s profit-making process. According to Wall Street Journal writer Gregory Zuckerman’s 2019 book “The Man Who Solved the Market,” he was described as someone who viewed the markets as a challenging puzzle that required solving.
Medallion is a trading method that uses coordinated buying and selling that keeps patterns hidden from other traders to generate big returns with little risk across many asset classes. Founded in 1994 by Simons and his wife Marilyn, the Simons Foundation offers grants and other forms of support to groups and individuals throughout the world that are doing groundbreaking work in mathematics and fundamental scientific research. He is survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.