Jim's Early Life and Academic Curiosity

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This chapter delves into Jim Simons' upbringing in the Boston suburbs, highlighting his fascination with math from a young age, including encounters with Zeno's paradoxes. It discusses his exceptional academic journey, struggles in a graduate math seminar, and realization of his own intelligence compared to peers. The narrative sheds light on Jim's personality, his unique approach to science, and his contributions that would later become foundational in physics.

Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time. And yet no one at RenTec would consider themselves an “investor”, at least in any traditional sense of the word. It’d rather be more accurate to call them scientists — scientists who’ve discovered a system of math, computers and artificial intelligence that has evolved into the greatest money making machine the world has ever seen. And boy does it work: RenTec’s alchemic colossus has posted annual returns in the firm’s flagship Medallion Fund of 68% gross and 40% net over the past 34 years, while never once losing money. (For those keeping track at home, $1,000 invested in Medallion in 1988 would have compounded to $46.5B today… if you’d been allowed to keep it in.) Tune in for an incredible story of the small group of rebel mathematicians who didn’t just beat the market, but in the words of author Greg Zuckerman “solved it.”

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