Jim Simons

Bloomberg: Simons at Renaissance Cracks Code, Doubling Assets (Update1)

``There are just a few individuals who have truly changed how we view the markets,'' says Theodore Aronson, principal of Aronson + Johnson + Ortiz LP, a quantitative money management firm in Philadelphia with $29.3 billion in assets. ``John Maynard Keynes is one of the few. Warren Buffett is one of the few. So is Jim Simons.''
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With his myriad positions in different markets, Simons likens his approach to the extensive farming he once practiced in Colorado, using center pivot irrigation to grow wheat on thousands of acres.

``Every little stalk of wheat was not doing so great, but most of them were, so you're working on statistics,'' Simons says.

By contrast, he says, the traditional focused investing practiced by Warren Buffett is akin to intensive farming, in which each individual plant really counts. ``It's two completely different ends of the spectrum,'' Simons says.
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Scientific exploration underpins all of Simons's work. ``What motivates me?'' he says. ``I'm ambitious and I like to do things well. I love to create something that really works. We have lots and lots and lots of strategies, and each new one gives me a lot of pleasure, to see something new that works.''
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Former employees say observers may gain as much insight into Renaissance's performance by scrutinizing a more obvious factor: Simons has succeeded in building a pretty good business model. First, it's a firm run by and for scientists.

``I've always said Renaissance's secret is that it didn't hire MBAs,'' says Berlekamp, who blames the herdlike mentality among business school graduates for poor investor returns.

Programming and modeling are treated as the heart of the firm's advantage -- not an expense. ``If you needed a lot of computer power, the decision was based on whether you needed it, not the budget,'' says Peter Weinberger, former chief technology officer at Renaissance and now a software engineer at Google Inc.

Decisions are made quickly and feedback is constant. ``One of the things about Renaissance is that there's a feeling of urgency,'' says Frey, who left to teach applied mathematics and statistics at Stony Brook in 2004.

``We always believed that there was a wolf at the door, that somebody would get there before we did.''