James Simons Net worth: 11.7 billion - Join this

James Simons Net worth: 11.7 billion -

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James Harris "Jim" Simons (born 1938) is an American hedge fund manager, mathematician, and philanthropist.

In 1982, Simons founded Renaissance Technologies, a private investment firm based in New York with over $15 billion under management. Simons retired at the end of 2009, as CEO, of what is one of the world's most successful hedge funds. Simons' net worth is estimated to be $10.6 billion.

Simons lives with his wife in Manhattan and Long Island, and is the father of three children; two of his children died young under tragic circumstances - a drowning and an auto accident.

Simons shuns the limelight and rarely gives interviews, citing Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm for explanation: "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies." On October 10, 2009, Simons announced he would retire on January 1, 2010 but remain at Renaissance as nonexecutive chairman.

The "Quant King" retired from his $20 billion hedge fund firm, Renaissance Technologies, in 2010, but he continues to play a role at the firm and benefit from its funds, particularly the secretive and consistently profitable Medallion. Not all of the firm's funds, however, had a good year in 2012 and two of its funds actually lost money. The MIT grad started his career as a theoretical mathematician and was a code breaker for the U.S. Department of Defense during the Vietnam War. He later was head of the math department at SUNY-Stony Brook. In 1982 he founded Renaissance, which is based in East Setauket, N.Y. The fund uses computer modeling to find inefficiencies in highly liquid securities. Simons has shown a preference for hiring PhDs over MBAs. He chairs Math for America and supports autism research.