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Comment by unchocked | Hacker News Reader

A 66% annualized return over 30 years - from a completely opaque investment strategy. Extraordinary result for sure, how did he do it?

Run by Robert Mercer, the money man who associated with prominent money launderers.

Based on my priors, Occams Razor says Rentech is a laundromat, not a hedge fund.

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It's not run by Robert Mercer. He's no longer a co-CEO. And if that's your conclusion, you should probably reexamine your priors.

Right, it's run by his designated successor, whose wealth comes from Mercer's "trading strategy".

because they were on the same IBM speech/nlp team...

Strange that I had to scroll to the bottom of the page to see Mercer's name mentioned. I think is high time we stop idolizing companies that enable scum people like Mercer to make tons of money and to negatively influence the lives of millions.

Strange that I think that a sarcastic reply that goes a bit further in moral punishment would be indistinguishable from a real reply these days. Mercer was practically forced to resign due to the backlash that his democratic political views generated against RenTech, but you deem the company as beyond redemption. You speak as if commenters here are idolizing, while being black-and-white religious and faux-cult-collective yourself, prescribing what others, we, should or should not worship. Take that to the street corner. If you gather a large enough audience, I will tell you that you are the one negatively influencing the lives of others. By my and your definition, companies and institutions would then be forced to disable you, your business, and your platform. But first let's go after Mercer.

I can only call “idolizing” the act of speaking good of someone only because he has had “outsized financial returns”. Where’s the “hacker” spirit in that? Why is that important for the alleged audience of this website?

Cry me a river for poor Mercer who was “forced” to resign. Was that comment satire? Had Simmons not known who his CEO was before the “backlash”? Of course he did.

I didn’t get the corner part, must be an US thing. Apparently if you demand some intellectual decency you’re “religious” (?!?)

66% CAGR is impossible. That would mean every million dollars you invested turns into $4 Trillion.

Well, the thing is that they cap the size of the fund at $10B so it's not really a CAGR per se as the original capital isn't appreciating at that rate.

It's just they have $10B invested and then they distribute $6.6B per year and that's it (i.e., the fund doesn't become $16.6B next year).

Still take your point that it's an insane figure!

The strategy is capacity constrained, they’ve returned all outside investor capital and distribute profit to employees to keep capital within accessible levels. The $1mm wouldn’t be able to compound as you’ve described as much of the profits will be returns, not reinvested.

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