The Man Who Solved the Market

How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

By: Gregory Zuckerman

Narrated by: Will Damron

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

The perfect gift for the avid reader on your list: the unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm--and made $23 billion doing it.

Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor--Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros--can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars.

Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that's sweeping the world.

As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump's victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit.

The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It's also a story of what Simons's revolution means for the rest of us.

*Includes a PDF of Appendices 1 and 2 with charts

Critic reviews

“Captivating.” —New York Times

“A compelling read.” —The Economist

“Reads like a delicious page-turning novel.” —Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg

“One of the most important stories of our time.” —Financial Times

“Zuckerman brings the reader so close to the firm’s inner workings that you can almost catch a whiff of the billionaire’s Merit cigarette.” —Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg

“A gripping biography of investment game changer Jim Simons… readers looking to understand how the economy got where it is should eat this up.” —Publishers Weekly

"Worthwhile reading for budding plutocrats and numerate investors alike." —Kirkus

“Immensely enjoyable.” —Edward O. Thorp, author of A Man for All Markets

“An extremely well-written and engaging book . . . a must read, and a fun one at that.” —Mohamed A. El-Erian, author of The Only Game in Town

“Leave it to the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Zuckerman to lay open the golden mysteries of quantitative investing. With this fine, humane, and eye-opening book, he’s well and truly broken the code.” —James Grant, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer

"Page-turning tale…bravura storytelling." —Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success

Bob Mercer, national treasure

One should buy this book just to learn how great a man Robert Mercer is, let alone for the detailed history of the firm and it’s performance within wider industry. The author does an impressive job gathering detail about a group that actively tries to avoid giving out any information at all.

Wow

Makes you want to go back to school and become a scientist. What an amazing story.

fantastic except for bizarre trump tangent

chapters 14 and 15 I believe they were. totally bizarre and starts focusing on donald trump. I am not even a trump supporter but I found this totally inappropriate and unrelated. other than that the book is fascinating and has some good technical discussion while combining just enough “human element” to be entertaining and easy to digest.

Oh, that was what was changing the market

This book puts faces with the general talk about quant traders. Although this book is a legacy book for main character, it does provide an interesting story. My only request is more info on the specific math and insights the fund used and uncovered. If he wants a legacy, share his findings and contribute the knowledge as a true scientist would. Dalio did his own legacy book but he shared more specifics and sought to share his findings with society.

Great story until the obvious political bias set in

Great story until the obvious political bias set in later in Chapter 15-16. Don't go looking for substance in their methodology, but it was fun to hear the story of how they built this firm and legacy.