Jim Simons

Jim Simons is the son of a shoe factory owner in Massachusetts and received his B.S. degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958, and his Ph.D. degree, also in mathematics, from the University of California, Berkeley in 1961 at the age of 23. Between 1964 and 1968, he was on the research staff of the Communications Research Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Simons taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. In 1968, he was appointed chairman of the math department at Stony Brook University.

In 1978, he left academia to run an investment fund that traded in commodities and financial instruments on a discretionary basis.

For over two decades, Simons' Renaissance Technologies' hedge funds, which trade in markets around the world, have employed complex mathematical models to analyze and execute trades—many of them automated. Renaissance uses computer-based models to predict price changes in easily-traded financial instruments. These models are based on analyzing as much data as can be gathered, then looking for non-random movements to make predictions.

Renaissance employs many specialists with non-financial backgrounds, including mathematicians, physicists and statisticians.

"It's startling to see such a highly successful mathematician achieve success in another field," says Edward Witten, professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and considered by many of his peers to be the most accomplished theoretical physicist alive... (Gregory Zuckerman, "Heard on the Street", Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2005).

Highlights

1. Unique intersection of high end math and finance
2. Renaissance employs many specialists with non-financial backgrounds, including mathematicians, physicists and statisticians.

==UNIQUE INTERSECTION OF DIVERGENT AND HIGH END SKILLS==