The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution | Gregory Zuckerman

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

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

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

About the Author

Gregory Zuckerman is the author of The Greatest Trade Ever and The Frackers, and is a Special Writer at the Wall Street Journal. At the Journal, Zuckerman writes about financial firms, personalities and trades, as well as hedge funds and other investing and business topics. He's a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Zuckerman also appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business and other networks and radio stations around the globe.