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Jim Simons, legendary founder of Renaissance Technologies, dies at 86

Jim Simons attends the IAS Einstein Gala Honoring Jim Simons at Pier 60 at Chelsea Piers on March 14, 2019 in New York City.
Sylvain Gaboury/Getty Images

  • Billionaire hedge fund manager Jim Simons has died.
  • The legendary investor was 86.
  • Simons founded Renaissance Technologies and was an NSA codebreaker, prolific mathematician and philanthropist.

Jim Simons, the legendary billionaire hedge fund manager who founded the wildly successful Renaissance Technologies, died on Friday, according to the foundation he founded.

He was 86 years old.

According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Simons was a titan of investing and the 49th richest person in the world with a net worth of $31.8 billion.

Before taking Wall Street by storm, Simons had a career as an award-winning MIT mathematician and NSA codebreaker during the Cold War. His work on pattern recognition and topography would later help form the basis of string theory in quantum mechanics.

Simons founded Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund specializing in quantitative models, in 1982.

Over three decades, Renaissance has become one of the most successful hedge funds in history, boasting an incredible 66% annual return.

Simons used his vast fortune as a philanthropist, establishing the Simons Foundation to promote science and mathematics and donating billions of dollars to his causes.

He also founded Math for America, a nonprofit organization that supports high school mathematics teachers, and has donated millions to leading universities, including his alma mater, MIT and the University of California, Berkeley.

“Jim was an extraordinary leader who did transformative work in mathematics and built a world-leading investment firm,” David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation, said in a statement.

Simons is survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, his foundation said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.