The Man Who Solved the Market

How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

By: Gregory Zuckerman

Narrated by: Will Damron

Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best seller

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 23 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' revolution means for the rest of us.

Includes a PDF of Appendices 1 and 2 with charts

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Gregory Zuckerman (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"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)

"Zuckerman vividly tells the story of how Jim Simons and his team of scientists developed the most successful quantitative trading operation in history.... Immensely enjoyable." (Edward O. Thorp, author of A Man for All Markets)

good background book...but

on the surface, ts a book about a smart man that likes making and keeping money. The book does not explain or detail any secrets of Renaissance, it skirts the surface at that.

Overall i did enjoy the book but was very put off when the book left trad g and started to talk about Trump, and the elections, the books reads like its a crime to support Republicans. That was a putoff for me.

Interesting

It is interesting although I would rather it focused on the thing they created rather than the politics they bought with it

Best Book of 2020

I rarely gift books, but gifted this to a bunch of my friends as it is by far the best autobiography I have read in a long while.

Really enjoyed it

I really enjoyed listening to the story, I just wish to know more about the technical aspects though never disclosed by the owners.

Excellent book! Great read

Thoroughly fun, interesting story. The political angle at the end seemed forced, and for that I removed a star.

Other than that, 👍

Incredible

The career almost totally hidden of Reinassanse is incredible. How small and tiny favorable probabilities can became profit in their hands. It’s very interesting to learn from the career and history of Jim’s partners and his own.

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.

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.

Fascinating.

Throughly enjoyed this delving into the most successful and secretive hedge fund.... Until recently... Of all