The Other Face of Jim Simons

The world’s most successful hedge fund investor has a sideline as a venture capitalist. His aim: to benefit everyone.

Renaissance Technologies Corp. has made billions of dollars for investors in its hedge funds over the years by honing sophisticated short-term trading strategies that mostly sprang from the protean mathematical mind of founder James Simons (see box, page 33). But for the famously reclusive Simons, now 66, outperforming better-known hedge fund stars like George Soros and Bruce Kovner time and again has still left a psychic void.

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