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Comment by fsckboy | Hacker News Reader

since this story is a bust, while we're here, has Simons every said anything interesting somebody could point me to? I've listened to various interviews but he doesn't really say much or spark my imagination. With Musk, you can like him or not, but he talks about a lot of interesting stuff, let's you know what he thinks. What Simon's accomplished is phenomenal, but it's just a black box really.

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It's because James Simons is a serious and actually intelligent person with depth of knowledge, and thus, he is one that doesn't need to opine on random things. He also makes a lot of money in a very secretive way. I'm not sure why anyone expects him to expound in detail on how Renaissance Technologies does it. Simons also spends more money than some governments on very serious and advanced scientific research. I suppose he's rather busy with all his investments and philanthropy. Musk is busy selling himself and filling his unfillable ego.

You can see in Simons' TED interview with Chris Anderson how he gets rather annoyed with Chris at times, particularly when Chris mentions Simons' "amazing mind" at around 8:30. Simons seems, to me, to be a rather pragmatic and humble person who doesn't particularly enjoy flattery. Chris even throws out a quote by Musk at the very end of the interview, fishing for some similar platitude from Simons, but Simons deftly avoids giving out such an empty quote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5kIdtMJGc8

Most interestingly, you can tell Simons' like of science and mathematics and alludes to his interest when he mentions his investment into the origins of life towards the end.

There are two interesting talks or interviews I know of with Simons:

* Full-length Numberphile interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0

* His lecture on his life given at MIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVdTF4_QrTM

Simons actually attributes a lot of his success to luck.

Ah yes, the man whose businesses revolutionized rocketry and electric vehicles doesn't do serious and advanced scientific research

He bought those companies, he didn’t found Them. Anybody can buy a car company or a rocket company if they are rich enough. The only thing he invented was PayPal, and that was not original. And it wasn’t even his idea alone.

Ideas are useless. Execution is everything.

And we can like Elon or not (I'm definitely in the latter camp lately) but if it was as easy as you say, there would be tons of other companies making such breakthroughs.

Execution isn't theoretical research.

Yeah, people forget that during the 90s and 00s it was a well-known meme that we had the tech for electric cars, and oil companies had buried it

Love him or hate him, Elon didn't let his memes be dreams

Most cars were electric in the late 1800s

He hires serious researchers fairly well. It’s a skill. One that doesn’t give much room to play Tony Stark, though.

I don't think he has anything like the Chern-Simons forms to show for.

You're confusing the person who owns the car factory with the person who actually designed and built your car.

They both require skills, but the skillset most sought out in the former group is being really good at self-promoting.

Well, not sure how else to say it but there's 0 benefit in Simons saying _anything_ that might give insight into how Rentec operates. He's been secretive about it his entire life.

Imo, there is no "secret." There is just a bunch of smart people in a room, constantly turning out and testing ideas.

They were some of the first to apply linear regression and what we know as "machine learning" to equities. Edward Thorpe is another dude to look into.

Their trading really took off after hiring some IBM engineers (accounting for their ramp up time). Those engineers were working on speech detection. I think it really is just a matter of having an insanely smart set of people, working on a problem in a room together... with the capital to back it up. IMO, Jim Simons alone couldn't do it _but_ he is/was arguably one of the best mathematicians of our time. That certainly had to have helped.

I got a bit off track, but regarding your comment here:

>has Simons every said anything interesting

What are you looking for? Do you mean in regard to rentec or just in general? I've done a lot of research on them. I could take a stab at answering them. (for reference, I operate a small algotrading shop but have always been interested in the history of algo trading)

I meant in general. I'm a smart educated person and I like listening to smart educated people, doesn't matter what they're interested in, doesn't matter if I like them or agree with them. I find Bill Gates a huge disappointment, not claiming he's dumb, but he just doesn't say interesting things. His philanthropic work is a bore: it's all just too big and obvious, I might as well just look at a list of things the United Nations is up to. Not saying there's anything wrong with it, but him talking about it doesn't interest me.

Same with Simons. He's gotta be smart, but I guess he just doesn't talk.

I don’t know if we’re listening to the same people, but both Bill Gates and Jim Simons say very insightful things. You do need to know what they’re talking about or hinting at. What I’d do to chat with either of them.

please, point me to something from either of them. I'm honestly asking.

For one, the Numberphile interview with Simons another commenter linked to. You can tell a lot about what he thinks is important if you listen carefully.

For those in the NYC area, the Simons Foundation hosts open seminars on research topics across science and engineering. Simons regularly attends.

Ah, I see what you mean.

Yes, it will be hard to get much from Simons. I think he is a man that knows his strengths and weaknesses and I feel he keeps to his domain. He doesn't even talk much about that though, haha.

I collected some info on Rentec in my blog[0] because I wanted to find out more after reading Zuckerman's "The Man Who Solved the Market." I hope you find it useful.

[0]: https://sileret.com/blog/renaissance-technologies/

Maybe comes from all his time working in coding breaking and top secret shit for DOD. Yea, I've looked and read, but not a lot. lol. Also very little turn over or public info from people who worked at Renaissance

The markets guys jealousy guard their edge in the market. The less you say the better, less chance of slipping and letting everyone know the recipe to the secret sauce.

Musk seeks attention to help market his businesses.

lol you are comparing Musk to one of the greatest living minds of our generation?

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