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Comment by soniman | Hacker News Reader

Does any billionaire get better press than Simons? Meanwhile, there was a senate hearing and report about his tax fraud. Rentech was basically an unregulated market maker. How often does the senate hold a hearing on a billionaires massive tax fraud? And yet not a squeak about it in the press.

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/he...

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"Not a squeak?" Do a basic Google search. It was widely reported in the financial press at the time, especially by Bloomberg.

And as far as billionaires go, I don't even think Simons gets enough press to really make a distinction on whether or not it's overly positive. Someone else mentioned Gates, which is I think apt. He has cultivated a savior mythos in the press in which he eradicates diseases using his fortune.

Even if you include everything the Simons Foundation does for disease and health research, it's just a drop in the bucket compared to how much positive spin lots of other billionaires get. Off the top of my head, I think even David E. Shaw gets more spotlight than Simons through DESRES and his whole "spurned academic turned superstar" schtick.

Are you kidding? Saint Simons is a GENIUS. That's why Medallion fund made 60%+ CAGR for 30 years. Of course, that figure simply captures the return from all of the best cherrypicked strategies. If that figure were real, Simons would own California. And his name is synonymous with AUTISM RESEARCH.

All I've ever heard about Shaw is that he runs a modestly successful hedge fund.

Renaissance is a notoriously secretive company.

Regarding the senate hearings, they were in 2014. Only the banks involved have paid any sort of penalty. In 2016 Simons and Robert Mercer each donated over 25 million to the Democrats and Republicans respectively. So that's not a huge surprise.

The joke I heard attributed to Simons is that only the NSA has a better non-compete than RenTech.

Bill Gates? Haven't read an even slightly negative article about him in more than a decade.

B/c for the past decade he’s been eradicating malaria and being a legit hero. Not a whole lot to complain about Gates during that time frame.

So basically yes, other billionaires have indeed generated plenty of positive coverage while doing legitimate good in the process.

Jim Simons is not yet a household name yet like other billionaires, such as most of the ones who've donated at least half-their-wealth.

And hanging out with convicted pedophiles...

there was the association with Jeffrey Epstein recently, which I think was overdone. The journalists seemed to be on a fishing expedition.

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