Policy Punchline

"Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history." Since 1988, Renaissance Technologies' flagship Medallion hedge fund founded by Simons has generated average annual returns of 66 percent, racking up trading profits of more than $100 billion. No one in the investment world comes close. Warren Buf­fett, George Soros, Peter Lynch, Steve Cohen, and Ray Dalio all fall short of Simons. How did Jim Simons achieve this feat? Was it that easy for a math researcher at Princeton turned professor at Stony Brook to eventually become a legendary quant investor? In recently published bestseller "The Man Who Solved the Market," WSJ special writer Gregory Zuckerman documented how Simons launched the quant investing revolution, his personal and academic struggles along the way, why it's hard to "beat the market" and even harder to gain insights on the secretive quant hedge fund world. In this interview with Mr. Zuckerman, we ask him how the rise of quant trading impacts the finance world, whether algori