Jim Simons and the Quant Revolution: The Man Who Solved the Market

"Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history." Since 1988, Renaissance Technologies' flagship Medallion hedge fund founded by Simons has generated average annual returns of 66 percent, racking up trading profits of more than $100 billion. No one in the investment world comes close. Warren Buf­fett, George Soros, Peter Lynch, Steve Cohen, and Ray Dalio all fall short of Simons. How did Jim Simons achieve this feat? Was it that easy for a math researcher at Princeton turned professor at Stony Brook to eventually become a legendary quant investor? In recently published bestseller "The Man Who Solved the Market," WSJ special writer Gregory Zuckerman documented how Simons launched the quant investing revolution, his personal and academic struggles along the way, why it's hard to "beat the market" and even harder to gain insights on the secretive quant hedge fund world. In this interview with Mr. Zuckerman, we ask him how the rise of quant trading impacts the finance world, whether algorithm-driven trading adds volatility to the markets, whether traditional value investing would eventually be rendered obsolete or inferior, the social impact of quant investing and the ultimate vision of traders like Simons. We also discuss Mr. Zuckerman's investigative writing process as he gained unparalleled access to Simons and the former and current employees of RenTech and other quant finance firms. At the end of the interview, Tiger and Princeton math major Michael Psenka goes in detail explaining the mechanism of quant trading and the meaning of complex terms such as "random walk," "Brownian motion," and "stochastic calculus..." Gregory Zuckerman is the author of "The Greatest Trade Ever" and "The Frackers," and is a Special Writer at the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal, Zuckerman writes about financial firms, personalities and trades, as well as hedge funds and other investing and business topics. He's a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Zuckerman also appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business and other networks and radio stations around the globe.