From Institutional Investor, May 14:
Our Man in East SetauketTwenty-five years ago, a former II reporter spent the day with Jim Simons.
In the summer of 2000, I was a reporter for Institutional Investor covering hedge funds and other parts of the financial world. But I never heard of Jim Simons when a source suggested I write about the hedge fund manager.
Still, a secretive firm in a small Long Island town, with supposedly enormous returns, run by a former mathematician, was obviously intriguing. I called Simons and asked for an interview at his East Setauket headquarters. A Renaissance Technologies executive called me back and said Simons “respectfully” declined. Nevertheless, I decided to go ahead with the reporting and hoped that Simons would eventually relent. I had time. II features were often longer than 5,000 words and they took a while to investigate and write.
Simons had been written up in the annual Wall Street rich list published by the now defunct Financial World magazine, but he was virtually unknown in financial circles. Even most of the quantitative-oriented analysts and investors I called said they had never heard of Renaissance.
Those who were involved with Renaissance unfortunately knew better than to speak. I called around Bear Stearns, the firm’s leading prime broker, and got a lot of hang-ups. Simons had been the head of the math department at Stony Brook University, and Renaissance had close ties to the school. Stony Brook was initially enthusiastic about setting up an interview with the school’s president, but then I guess they checked with Simons. I left a voice mail with the mathematics journal that published Simons’ signature Chern-Simons paper, seeking a reprint, but never heard back.
Nevertheless, I started to make some progress....
....MUCH MORE
If interested see also May10's "Jim Simons, ‘Quant King’ at Renaissance Technologies, Dies at 86":Nobody lives forever but if anyone could have figured out a way it would have been Mr. Simons. There's brilliant, brilliant², and Simons....
