James Simons – Net Worth, Money and More
Net worth- $12.5 billion
Occupation- mathematician, CEO and philanthropist
James Simons is the highest paid hedge fund manager; the fund’s returns are so spectacular that James Simons has become one of the richest people on the planet. He is also the founder and chief executive officer of Renaissance Technologies, which is one of most emerging companies. As well as he also own positions as trustee for Brookhaven National Laboratory, mathematician at Berkeley University and member of the board at MIT corporation.
Profile:
James was born on 1st January’1938. He was born to a Jewish family and was the only child of his parents; Mathew Simons and Marcia Kantor. He was not born with a silver spoon, as his father owned a shoe factory. He graduated and achieved his Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Massachusetts institute of technology in 1958 also he also did further studies and completed Ph.D. in philosophy and mathematics from university of California, Berkeley in 1961 (i.e., at the age of 23) from here he emerged as a promising mathematician in academics.
Career:
After completing his Ph.D., he soon settled into the life of research and teaching, he was on the research staff of the Communications Research Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Also he spent number of years teaching at Harvard and MIT. Considering his background as a code breaker and an expert in pattern recognition some also consider him as one of the pioneers of financial signal processing. He got fame when he worked as cryptanalyst for the Department of Defense, to break the military codes during Vietnam War. In 1976, Simons won the American Mathematical Society’s Oswald Veblen prize in geometry, for the achievement in explaining a recasting on area minimizing multi-dimensional surfaces and characteristics forms. Later on he emerged in the field of physics for his research and application of certain geometric measurements known as Chern Simon’s theory. This theory was published and taken into account in 1974. After this he was appointed as chairman of math department at stony Brook.
In 1978, he left academics and ventured into the business world, in 1982 he established Renaissance Technologies and started his own hedge fund management firm that traded in Commodities and Financial instrumentation on discretionary basis. He used his mathematical prowess to new trading techniques and expanded his hedge fund to be the largest, managing more than $35 billion, including his famed $6 billion Medallion fund. This famous mathematics lover’s office has been decorated with the paintings of famous mathematicians teachers like Archimedes and Socrates. Simons is known as a very secretive man as he usually avoids press and strictly prohibits his employees to discuss there working methods and trading strategies outside the Renaissance world.
On October 10, 2009, Simons announced he would retire on January 1, 2010 but remain at Renaissance as nonexecutive chairman.
Philanthropy:
James Simons is a well-known philanthropist as donate a considerable amount of money for education, research and medical sectors and thus is tagged as “Quant king”.
James runs a numbers of charitable trust, he and his second wife; Marilyn Hawrys Simons co-founded the Paul Simons Foundation, a charitable trust that supports all fields of mathematics and medical science. Marilyn severs as the foundation’s president while James serves as the secretary and treasurer. Also in the loving memory of his son Paul (child with first wife) he established a 130 acre Avalon Park for nature perseverance in Stony Brook. Another son Nick was drowned at the age of 24, he had worked with Nepal, so have Simons had become one of the large donors to Nepalese healthcare through Nick Simons Institute.
Jim Simons also founded Math for America which is non-profitable organization with the aim to enhance and improve the math education policies and basic science ability in public schools. He donated approx. $50 million to this foundation. On February 27, 2008, then Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a $60 million donation by the Simons Foundation to found the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook, this was proved as the largest gift to a public university in New York state history.
He’s also been a big donor in the research field of autism, a disease which afflicts his younger daughter, and also manages Simons Foundation, a charitable organization devoted to scientific research.
Wealth:
James had net worth of estimated of around $12.5 billion and he was ranked as 88th richest person in the world by Forbes and 27th richest person in America.
Simons owns a large motor yacht and a beautiful mansion located in new york, USA. He named his yacht as ‘Archimedes’, it was built by Dutch yacht builder Royal Van Lent and dispatched to James in 2006.
East Setauket home: this mansion is about 6 acre, here he lives with his wife and his daughter. His other two children stay in California and handles James business.
Awards and recognitions:
• 2006: tagged as “the world smartest billionaire” by Financial Times
• 2008: CSHL Double Helix Medal Honoree Co-recipient with his wife, Marilyn
• 2011: included in 50 most influential person by Bloomberg Markets Magazine.
• 2013: Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy- Co-recipient with his wife, Marilyn
Quotes:
• “The best way to conduct research on a larger scale is to make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing… The sooner the better – start talking to other people about what you’re doing. Because that’s what will stimulate things the fastest.”
• “Why don’t we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they’d also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where.”
