He was 86 years old.
Before taking Wall Street by storm, Simons had a career as an award-winning mathematician and codebreaker for the National Security Agency. His work in pattern recognition and topology would later help form the foundation of string theory in quantum mechanics.
Simons founded what would become Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund specializing in quantitative models, in 1978.
For more than four decades, Renaissance has been one of the most successful hedge funds in history, posting staggering pre-fee annualized returns of 66% over a 30-year period.
His fund’s largest current holdings include investments in Uber, Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, Tesla and Novo Nordisk.
In Gregory Zuckerman’s book “The man who solved the market“, Simons said he got into investing after growing tired of academia.
His strategy was unlike anything on Wall Street at the time. Simons used the same pattern recognition analysis that propelled his academic career to scour financial data for trends.
Simons’ algorithmic approach has generated enormous profits. He also used his immense wealth as a prolific philanthropist, founding the Simons Foundation with his wife, Marilyn, to promote science and mathematics, and donating billions to various causes.
Simons also founded Math for America, a nonprofit organization that supports STEM education in high schools, and has donated millions of dollars to major universities, including his alma maters, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley.
“Jim was an exceptional leader who did transformative work in mathematics and grew a world-leading investment firm,” David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation, said in a statement.
Simons is survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, his foundation said.
Correction: May 10, 2024 — An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the year Renaissance Technologies was founded. The company, which was originally called Monemetrics, was founded in 1978, not 1982. Simons also worked in the field of topology, not surveying.
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