James Harris Simons

James Harris Simons is rightfully the smartest billionaire, since he earned his billions with the help of science.
An outstanding mathematician and scientific philanthropist proved to the whole world that mathematical models make it possible to predict any financial markets.

And the investment company Renaissance Technologies, founded by him, has been showing high returns for more than 20 years, outpacing outstanding market tycoons George Soros and Warren Buffet.

James Harris Simons is truly a brilliant person who was able to go down in history not only thanks to his place of honor on the Forbes list, but thanks to the active development of mathematics, physics, and medicine.

James Harris Simons is at the same time the most secretive head of a hedge fund, but still he could not hide some facts from his biography from the gaze of journalists. Harris was born in 1938 to Jewish parents in Newton, Massachusetts. His family traces its roots back to Tsarist Russia, but in the late 19th century, his entire family moved to the United States in search of a better life.

James was fortunate to be born into a wealthy family, as his father, Matthew Simons, owned a large shoe factory, the profits from which fully supported his comfortable life. Because his father had a good income, his mother looked after the children and was a housewife.

Education. Scientific career

James Harris Simons had a keen interest in the sciences from childhood, so his choice of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958 was entirely natural. After earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his PhD at the age of 24. Just imagine—at such a young age, he already earned a PhD.

Between 1961 and 1964, James Harris began an active teaching career, teaching mathematics at two of the most prestigious universities—Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In late 1964, James accepted a research position at the Institute for Defense Analyses, where he continued his successful work until 1968.

In 1968, James received an offer to head the mathematics department at Stony Brook University, an offer he couldn't refuse. During his tenure, the university's research intensified, quickly rising in rankings and becoming one of the top ten universities in the United States.

1976 was a landmark year for James Harris, who received the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry for his work on multidimensional surfaces. Thanks to his work, James was able to prove Bernstein's theorem and also improved the regularity properties of Wendell Fleming's result on Plateau's conjecture. These achievements have forever etched his name in the history of science.

Asset manager

Although scientific work allowed him to fully develop his intellectual potential, James Harris clearly understood that he wouldn't make a fortune from it. So in 1978, he left academia and founded his own investment firm, Renaissance Technologies. Renaissance Technologies began attracting scientists from around the world, particularly mathematicians, physicists, statisticians, and even astrologers.

The investment company itself has been gathering the best personnel from all over the world, since the forecasts are based on a huge amount of work with a large amount of statistical information, which contains certain patterns, which are used to develop mathematical models for forecasting and investment. Just imagine, the company employs over 60 world-class scientists.

James Harris Simons is a pioneer in the creation of software-based mechanical trading strategies. His average annual return is almost always around 30 percent, and his spinoff fund, RIEF, has over $100 billion under management.

Charity

James Harris is an active philanthropist, regularly participating in charitable causes. However, unlike other wealthy individuals, for whom philanthropy is little more than a publicity stunt, Harris invests in science.

Thus, it was his family foundation that donated more than $130 million to study the causes of autism and the possibility of its treatment, which became the largest investment in the world for research on this disease.

He also founded the Nick Simons Institute in Nepal, which helped raise healthcare in Nepal to a new level. Sadly, James Harris Simons was survived by the deaths of his two sons, in whose honor two major charitable foundations were established.

Simons' net worth is currently estimated at over $10.5 billion.