In the interview you're about to listen to: I Had the privilege to speak with the author Gregory Zuckerman Who wrote the book The Man Who Solved the Market The story of Jim Simons Simons is considered by many people to be the best Trader who's ever lived which is obviously noteworthy itself, but the story of how he got there is even crazier. Throughout our conversation, you're going to get unique insights into Simons The man who launched the Quant Revolution and I'd also be willing to bet that it'll change how you look at your own trading I Hope you enjoy how are you doing today. Very excited to have this conversation doing well. Thanks and uh, nice to be here I Just finished this book.

This is the book right here so everyone can see it. This is the man who solved the market how Jim Simons launched the Quant Revolution I Read it. My jaw was on the ground. it was one of these books you pick it up I couldn't put it back down and it's just such a new, unique way to look at the market Market at least relative to what's pitched and I just want to let you know if you like, ask you if you knew these stats.

So in the period that Jim was I think from 1988 up until 2021. this is where I could find the metrics I don't even know if you knew this. So at that period, if you invested in the S&P 500, $1 would have turned into 40. If you invested with Warren Buffett that $1 would have turned into about 150.

So like a very very good return. If you put that dollar with Renaissance Tech techologies and specifically The Medallion fund, that $1 would have turned into 42,000 that when I read that I it blew my mind. He was aund a,x better than the spy and 250X better than Warren Buffett who we all consider a legend. absolutely crushing it across the board.

So like it. it, it just truly blew my mind. And obviously you documented his story and you had a lot of I guess access that a lot of other people in this world have been trying to get. but they don't But I mean with those num did you find that surprising at all going into it afterwards I guess like what's your first reactions to when I say numbers that are just that wild.

So I wasn't surprised because that's sort of why I started this project. He is the greatest this guy Jim Simons the greatest I don't know what you call him a Trader Speculator I just call him money maker. He's not really an investor, but he's the biggest Money Maker in Wall Street history and he was always sort of out there. I've been writing about Wall Street for for years.

I've been in the Wall Street Journal since 1996 and I always kind of wanted to tell his story and people always said don't waste your time he's too secretive I reached out to Jim he said I won't talk to you this is years ago and then I finally I'm like, you know what I just got to write this thing. So the numbers are the reason I wrote the story. They're crazy. They're improbable.

They don't make sense. Um, they've never had a down Year let alone maybe a month or two here or there. A down month and it, we're talking decades and decades. So yeah, he by far is the most productive.

Most success. Money Maker in Wall Street History astounding. You kind of just said there, uh, the difficulty of reaching out to him I'm chuckling to myself cuz I can't even just imagine reaching out to a billionaire like even that part like I know he's specifically difficult, but even that and like that's obviously going to be somewhat of a privilege of your position and your like body of work. But overall, like that in itself is why like oh, I try to reach out to the billionaire But could you share with the audience a little bit of that story? Because obviously as it was explained in your book, that itself was difficult and many many people told you like, don't even waste your time trying yeah, it's the hardest thing I ever did in my life.

um I remember when I finished the book I'm fast forwarding here I kind of pressed the button and went upstairs from my office. told my wife I'm done I am done I can't write another book again I can't think of this thing again. That was the hardest effing thing I ever did in my life. So yeah, so he it's a secretive firm.

they have these like 30 40 page Ndas. If anybody talks, you get fired. they've gone after people in. Court um I started doing the research and talking to Jim's Rivals other firms that do what they do.

uh it's not really high frequency but it's Quant trading quantitative trading and I would set up these meetings and then like the night before I'd get a text hey Greg I can't meet with you and I'm like, well we were supposed to meet. Why? why can't you talk oh Jim asked me not to talk to you I'm like Jim's your rival, he's your competitor. Why do you care what he thinks? No, no, it's Jim Simons I I I can't piss him off Greg it was like a like a Mafia da kind of thing. you don't want to piss off Jim Simons So people even the the competitors would talk to me and then people at the firm people want to talk to me there.

there's a guy there I've talked to for years just about markets and and what's going on Wall Street or whatever. We'd have lunch for once in a while and he wouldn't even return my emails when he heard that I I started this project. So I'm like what am I doing here and even like halfway through the the book as you'll see, I've got I got some really good stuff about the early history of the of Renaissance and even the medi medium years. I was literally losing sleep at night I'm like, well, why is someone going to pay 30 bucks for this book if I can't get people inside the firm today and and I need those people and why would those people talk to me These people make millions and millions.

not just salary, whatever bonus, but just investing in this fund. And why would they talk to me? They're gonna blow their chance to. they'll get they'll get fire. Potentially get fire.

There's the risk reward doesn't make sense. why would they talk to Zuckerman uh about the book when when they jeopardize job and thank God I don't even know why I can speculate. There are people within the firm today who started talking to me and so yeah, I'm really appreciative, but you're bringing back some some bad memories too. I'm sorry for that, but in reality it makes sense because a lot of money is on the line Renaissance has I believe profited over a hundred billion Simons himself as of according to Forbes and maybe the right, maybe the wrong.

They're putting his estimated net worth over 30 million and I even read a stat billi excuse me, $30 billion and the average stat that? Uh I believe the average employee has over like 50 million in the company in one way or another most likely The Medallion fund but like it's a smaller group relative to like the major hedge funds that we think about. but they just crush it. They absolutely crush it. Every year, quarter over quarter, they're effectively a money printing machine and I guess I understand the secretive nature cuz like why risk that type of a deal? uh question to on that though is when you started talking to him and we're kind of making the joke of like The Godfather the mob Bops did he seem like that? like was he in a like what's his demeanor not only for not just having money but also being like that.

Well respected by other people who have serious money so he would have talked to me for a long time and then eventually we met to talk about talking and what I did was I don't share this too often but what I did was in that meeting I I showed him on my phone I'm like hey Jim do you recognize this picture It was a picture of a of a house of a home and he's like no I don't recognize that and I'm like this is your boyhood home in Newton Massachusetts and I did that partly to kind of send a message that that I'm serious and I'm not going away I went all the way up to Boston I tracked down his home I'm talking to people he grew up with I'm talking to family members I'm talking to everybody. so I'm not going away I'm GNA Write this book. You know better to work with me than not work with me because that's going to be accurate I Want to be as accurate as possible So Eventually he came around and we spent. We we met about 10 times for about two hours each and you ask, you know what he's like and what like what's like dealing with him.

The guy's a chain smoker. Still to this day you know you got, you're young and your audience I'm sure is. Young Back in the day you had some people who smoke but no, no one does it anymore on Wall Street and the business World Corporate America You see sitting with Jim Simons means sitting there with with smoke billowing into your face for two hours straight and you just deal with it. You just deal with it because it's Jim Simons who has a chance to sit down and talk to him.

But um, he's A. He's a fascinating guy. He he's one of the few quants maybe the only Quant ever met who does the math and can build the algorithms. and he's a worldclass mathematician.

Historically he goes down as even if he had never invested a dime in the market, he'd go down in history as being one of the in in the world of mathematics. But he's also a guy who have a drink with you. He drinks J Gonic and he's funny. He can manage people really well and that's one of the thing about my book I Realized after I wrote it.

it's as much a management kind of book as it is a trading book. And because you learn how to he he's great at dealing with personalities and and characters and motivating his employees and and hiring the right people. So he's got that other side too. So he's one of the few people that you can actually have a interesting conversation with.

Um in and he's from that that world, that Quant world. So yeah. listen I'm I'm I'm a skeptical, cynical kind of journalist like poke holes and people's uh, the personas. but but he's a fascinating guy and and I came to really appreciate.

He's also very philanthropic. He's trying to do all kinds of really interesting things. He subsidizes teachers Public School teachers in New York City Math and Science teachers. He's trying to find the the Um, some solutions and some treatments to autism.

He's a really interesting, fascinating guy. You brought up a lot of great things right there. I Think a lot of the times when you hear not only of quants, but of the best quants in the world, the general public. even if they know what that even means in Wall Street you very much almost start to picture A A Beautiful Mind type of a thing where you're just seeing like Puzzles and codebreaking and all that.

Which is funny because that's literally him to a certain point of he was a code breaker. He did do that and he is not just a normal mathematician the way we'd think of it in college or high school, like he is a top tier mathematician. So generally you would assume that the soft skills are non-existent. but I actually would almost put together an argument that that skill set made him more money his soft skills rather than his hard skills.

His hard skills were important to kind of keep the gang together and be able to communicate back and forth. But I like in his book, you made it very clear his best skill was acquiring the best people in every little sub Niche that he needed and he just kept the team together. Is that a fair representation? Yeah, it's a really good observation. So someone close to him said to me his genius Jim Simon's genius is managing genius and hiring them and creating the incentives and all these other kinds of things that you wouldn't even think of but that are necessary.

And again, you know some people could criticize my book. Some people have bought the book and say yeah, I like the book but I was looking for the the Secret formula so these guys just to take a step back Medallion Fund This hedge fund is on average up 66% a year since the 80s, 66% a year on average. So yeah again some people are like well I want to learn the model I want to learn that the formula, the secret to this all but the secret is how he manages all these Geniuses and he always hired them. He creates a unique incentives he hires in a different way.

all these other kind of things which as you suggest are kind of the soft skills so he can do both. that and there are very few people I Don't think I've met many people in my career at all who could who could do both of them I like the whole secret nature part of it or like the almost like the Holy Gra cuz I myself when I read I was like oh man, like are we going to like learn what they're doing and it's interesting to me because right now when people talk about finance and trading, a lot of the times you and I have probably see it 10 times a day is like this person is 80% accurate, 90% hasn't lost in the past Court like kind of almost bombastic, highlevel accuracy things like that and it's near the end of the book of one of the workers was Qu. They're like yeah, we're right, about like 50.7 5% of the time they couldn't even say 51. That's less of an edge than a casino, but it almost rewired my brain of like oh oh okay, maybe accuracy isn't the thing you want to optimize for.

It's like when you're doing it it, it really shows risk management and you find an edge like whenever I start my morning shows I always joke like dingy ding ding ding the casino is open I'm like this is a fund that's produced a hundred billion dollars in profit and they literally treat it that way. where's our Edge and just do it over and over again with proper Bening And for those of you listening, if you want to look more into the math, I believe it's hidden Marov chains and then also the kernel method are like allegedly what the two it it might I'm saying allegedly cuz it might have developed since the book was written and I'm sure they're always iterating on their math, but the beauty of it was on a high level. You could explain what they're doing to a young kid. you could be like oh, there's more of a chance of this happening so we take that bet over and over and over again and that's a beauty.

It's like not I don't know it, just it really struck me as being different than what I was expecting going into the book. So a few observations. First off, you talked about um, beautiful mind and when I've like pitched this to Hollywood and stuff that's kind of beautiful mind crossed by Wall Street kind of thing is the way way I look at it. Uh, and so far no takers on the from Hollywood Um, they can't get their arms around it.

But um, yes. So the fascinating thing. One of the things that surprised me is their math. Listen, it's sophisticated sophisticated guys.

Don't get me wrong, these are people and we could talk about how they hire differently and their talent is different than everybody else's on. Wall Street I can get into that, but their math isn't quite as sophisticated as you might expect you would think it's And and we talked about hidden markup. They they change. They know all that, they understand it all.

They they use it to some extent, but not really. it's actually not quite as sophisticated. What they do is they look for patterns. That's their thing, short-term patterns and relationships among Investments.

They don't go long whatever gold or or oil or or Microsoft shares or whatever meta they. It's all about relationships and historical relationships and looking for times when when it it's Arbitrage to some extent it's that AR But it's on a much more sophisticated level. but they're looking for relationship of stocks of Investments groups of Investments and when they get out of whack and when they come back together and when they'll come back together they take advantage. So it's a whole different type of trading and and investing and and speculating that than most other people do.

And to I guess put the bow on that point before we get into the talent. One of the best examples in the book was when we think of companies of like oh, company XYZ is going up because of this, the other thing, and the workers there. It was truly patterns. And the famous example was how one of the higher-ups in the company used Chrysler as an example of like hey, we see patterns and Chrysler wasn't even trading at that point and it already been acquired and it shows just how agnostic of equity the math team was.

They're like, no, we just find patterns. It doesn't matter where it is, we find the pattern if it's statistically relevant, if it's a liquid enough market, we're going to play it. And I I mean that example of Chrysler It was just an absolutely perfect one. Uh, and obviously this is from a higher-up mathematician someone important to the company.

So on that note, uh, could you tell us about the talent and the talent acquisition, the retention, anything you know of it when you were writing the book up to 2019, and maybe anything you've heard from then until now. Sure. So what this firm Renaissance does differently uh, is hiring and what I mean by that I'll explain it a few different ways. First is they don't hire for need most every other firm in the world, be it Wall, Street or otherwise.

Con: needs a program or needs a Trader needs something and then they go and hire that person Renaissance Just hires talent. super smart, accomplished people from the academic world only they don't hire Wall Street kind of people I Can get into that a little bit as well and they kind of say you know, come on over Um oh, you have no interest in hedge funds? That's fine. Don't look at it like a hedge fund, look at it like a challenge. an intellectual.

Challenge And these are people that like like that. kind of like games. They like these intellectual challenges that that's what inspired them and so juices them. So they they.

They hire these people and they say just come come spend some time with us, go go join the group and then these these usually academics. They get there and they don't know anything about markets. That's the taking a step back. That's the Paradox behind my whole book.

The people that solved the the the market as it were or created the most successful trading firm in history aren't people like, like like me like I grew up really interested in markets I would read Baron as a kid whatever I was like we like that and read read books when I was a kid I was trading I was calling a broker from a pay phone I'm I'm molder So I would go to a pay phone and and trade stocks and stuff. These guys at Renaissance don't give a crap about all that. They don't care about companies, some of them aren't even capitalist, some of they're socialist, some AR even. sure.

And yet they're the ones. That's the crazy thing. The people that have created the greatest investment firm in history don't even care about investing in In In Business per se. Jim is a unique guy.

He he did. He always was interested in in trading, investing in business and wanted to get rich. He really always wanted to get really really wealthy. We could discuss why.

Um, but the most people at Renaissance aren't like that. they're like academics. They ran a department, some science, some some Department of science at Stanford or wherever someone, some some top place or phds like I I get tours of Wall Street firms and they're like Greg In that corner are Phds. Oh Greg Over there s our pH group of PhD Really Phds Renaissance is mostly Phds.

It's hundreds of Phds. It's not. And they're not just phds. They're people that ran departments, math departments, physics departments.

what have you? So they'll They'll hire these people. and then they get over there and they see all these other smart people improving their the models. They have one model at the firm, one trading model. and they have different inputs and they find different data sources.

Anything you could think of, they've thought about and they've purchased. you know I don't care what it is, any weird data set they they they bought it years ago and they've been analyzing and they're looking for pattern that that lead to to to profits so they get over there and I hate to speak so quickly but I get animated and enthusiastic about this topic. um and they get over there and they feel like this kind of um, peer pressure they're like well geez, I don't know about trading or investing or markets but I I I look for patterns I'm good at looking for patterns and a lot of them are are scientists Etc and hidden patterns, things that aren't picked up and and I see ways to kind of improve even incrementally their model and and I don't want to be embarrassed what they do there and among the things that's very unique is it's it's very peer oriented and collegial and their presentations are like a few people presenting in in front of um a dozen other kind of people. and you don't want to be embarrassed that these are super smart people and you you you feel pressured to somehow improve the model just a little bit and they work really collegially.

There's no like silos on Wall Street most every firm is siloed. In other words I Got this group here and this group there and they compete with each other and if this one gets a better better bonus and it hurts this group and they're very competitive and it works for a lot of firms. At Renaissance everyone works together. There's one model, they all work to try to improve it and they're and very very open internally.

Everyone can see the model. It's crazy. they've got this. the greatest firm in history.

Greatest impressive. The model produces the best results and yet everyone can see the the returns, the details of the model. No other from Google used to be like that too where everyone could see the M but not any anymore. Renaissance is like that so they're very very secretive on the outside but not on on the outside but not on the inside.

On that note, the open air nature I cracked up in the book when at one point the secretaries had access to the model I Don't believe they do nowadays, but like even the fact at one point they're like literally 100% of the people can see everything going on. if you work for this company and like you said, that's the exact opposite and it's just another. Paradox within the Paradox of what you alluded to of the best team, the best Traders Or like the best Money Producers I Really like how you said that on Wall Street are people who are not Traders or investors or money producers. They're effectively a bunch of math nerds who come together and they absolutely crush it.

Uh, you were talking about how Mr Simons Uh, very much wanted to just create, generate like high high levels of wealth. Uh, can you touch on that a bit more of like what was his driving Factor Why Did he want to do it because from everything I've read, he's much more of like the kind of left leaning Democrat like hey, let like a lot of philanthropic efforts, let's spread out money. So another Paradox within the story of many paradoxes, Yeah, he's a unique guy. like if you were I can't speak for you if I was worth a billion or whatever I'd take it easy I'd go work I'd go sit in an Islanders buy an island, buy a sports team for sure.

Um, he's not like that and he is an academic. um a mathematician again. he's goes down one of the greatest geometers in history he led Sunni um Stony Brook's math department. He was was a code breaker and yet that whole time and and really cares about math and he's now.

he's gone back to math now he's retired from Renaissance He focuses mostly on math and yet he always wanted to get really, really rich. So, and he's not embarrassed by that like people in his world don't really admit to want. In the Ma world of mathematics, they don't really want to acknowledge they want to get wealthy and most of them, many of them don't. And and he was different.

Even so, he always had like one foot in that world firmly in that world. the world of Academia and Mathematics and one fur foot in the real world and just trying to get really wealthy and people in my book speculate kind of why maybe he want to have an impact on the world. Um, and maybe maybe it's an ego thing. It's not clear like he likes nice things.

he's got this huge yacht, but I don't think it dominates his his existence. I Think he want to have an influence on the world and today he kind of does. I mean fast forwarding. He's one of the biggest donors to democratic politicians.

He's trying to fund all kinds of interesting efforts to find um, the Genesis of Life How how the origins of Life autism as I said and education. He sponsors all kinds of things. so he's really unique guy in that regard. but right.

He was never even like embarrassed that he wanted to get really really wealthy. He was proud of that fact. Man, that's so interesting. So I believe in 2010 he kind of stepped down from Renaissance and then I think it was in 2020 2021 where he was no longer even the chairman.

Um, so at this point to your understanding I Don't know if you currently keep tabs on him, he he's back to math like dayto day. he's back in the world of academic level math or is he doing it personal or is he doing math for other financial institutions? Like what's he up to these days? So he does a lot of philanthropy. He's very, very involved in his foundation, hiring people directing the money where it's going to go different. I would I would say really impressive? Um incredible Um.

efforts. And he does math. He does math with academic colleague so kind of. There are all kinds of different challenges out there.

things that haven't been proven. Uh, geometry is his area. He goes down again as one of the greatest geometers. Um, so so he's kind of involved in that world and and in politics as well, those kind of things.

but he still keeps a tab on his firm. He's still the biggest shareholder and and Equity holder of his firm. so he makes a fortune each year from The Firm But he Peter Brown who I write about in my book. he runs things dayto day and he's interesting character in his own right.

One thing you touched on in your book that just it did not play out in real time yet was how there could be like a tax issue, a tax liability issue. and then couple years later we actually got the conclusion of it and had something to do with. Yeah, Renaissance was crushing it, but they took a tax advantage I believe of short-term profits somehow got marked as long-term so there was less of a tax burden. Uh, did you follow up on that lawsuit? Are you knowledgeable with it? Yeah.

So as you suggest they, um, push the envelope when it comes to Tax Strategies and you know one with I I like writing about gray characters I mean they're not all heroes or or or villains in life and you could really make the ARG that here you are Jim Simons You you do so much good and um, you believe in and try to help all these good causes well and you're helping you Say the the government should be should be moving in a certain direction. You're also hurting the government in that you are not paying the full taxes that you should. Your firm isn't So they were very aggressive and they thought it was legal and it turns out it wasn't So basically they were shifting that they you can read about in the book a little bit. but yeah they got caught for that and they had to pay pay billions in fines.

So yeah I'm not make making these guys out to necessarily Heroes They're good people and they're bad people and they're sort of great people. but they're all interesting people. I Personally thought you were actually really balanced with it cuz you actually pointed out various times where he seemed to do one thing whether it's making math for America and supporting it not only financially but just with his platform. And then he was talking about how I need to give money to these mathematicians.

especially in New York so they stay there but then yet some of the best math. Minds He would recruit out of that world to work for his company. So like it is many many paradoxes and that's probably the title of this talk is just the Paradox of Jim Simons With that, did you ever present that directly to them? Were you ever like hey, I see you doing this but then you're also doing this like how does that add up in your mind or did you never really have the opportunity to like show them his almost like conflicting actions I did I did I said I pointed out to Jim I'm like on the one hand, you are subsidizing School teachers um Public School teachers in New York City I think maybe New York State Um so that they don't go and leave to to work at places like hedge funds like your own. and meanwhile you're hiring mathematicians and scientists from schools all over the the country.

and and um, as is often the case when I point out these paradoxes or hypocrisies from the in the people I write about they don't see it, they just doesn't register. He didn't really put two and two together I He does see it that way I mean I'm sure on some level they did, but he didn't want to really comment on her own up to it I that should be the worst thing he does, right? So there there are much worse things in life. and I do think he's a good person. um who is very charitable and um, hasn't really set out to hurt people? What have you? But yeah, there's a lot of a lot of gray there.

Yeah? I I Guess as you alluded to, as with so many people, so many aspects of life with Renaissance Rentech Medallion All of that the hyper levels of success If you had to bet, will that continue into the future? because we're now seeing the birth of well they were there. but like they're also getting bigger and I'm talking about um, Aqr two Sigma Deaw Citad out there are now many other major Quant players. Are they going to take away from the pie of Renaissance or is Renaissance still just operating in like the same sport but maybe just a different league and still kind of doing their own thing? It's great question. So I'm a cynical, skeptical journalist.

um I kept waiting for them to blow it and frankly you know here I am writing this book. Part of me is like Jesus what if they blow up while I'm writing this book that would not be good for for the book I wasn't like like rooting for them but I was a little concerned. um and yet they keep killing it. Now you could argue that's not quite.

They're not quite as success successful as they used to be. So last year I think they were up about 20 in The Medallion fund and the market was down 20. Is that my do I recall that accurately? Something like that. Yeah, like we would all love to be up 20 last year when the market was down 20.

That said, they usually do much better than 20. Again, I'm up 66. They're up 66% a year on average. That's before the fees they charge themselves.

So let's say 40 something percent. uh, on average something like 37. Anyway, they're a little bit. they're not doing quite as well as they used to.

and and frankly, people internally who I still talk to they don't know. They think they wonder if maybe they're losing their Edge a little bit. they're not sure. The crazy thing is, they're so secretive and they're so apart from everybody else on Wall Street they're Outlaw in Long Island physically they're part, but they also don't hire people from Wall Street people don't leave and go to work on Wall Street I Can explain sort of like why that helps them there their own ecosystem so they don't really know how they compare with with others.

If others are catching up or not, they worry, they look over their shoulder, they are concerned and and in some way is inevitable. But um, they have continued to do much better than everybody else. so part of their advantage has gone away. So of their advantages always was data.

and they were early in the in collecting data and we're talking about in the 80s they were going down to the Fed and taking down data pricing um Histories on things like gold and other Commodities and trying to clean the data before people were doing that. There was this thing called um data cleaning which wasn't a concept back then which they were the first to do. They were the first in like everything. Um AI I mean they were doing machine learning uh before anybody decades go now.

everyone's caught up. but they were the the Pioneers in in quanti in in the Quant world for sure. but um in a AI machine learning other kinds of things and ALG predictive algorithms Etc So one that some of those advantages have gone away, they they were acquiring data that no one cared about. But now everyone wants data.

Everyone collects data. Everyone cleans data. So yeah, their data goes back hundreds of years, centuries. what have you? But other people can get that kind of stuff.

So I don't think they have the same kind of Advantage When it comes to that, they still have a talent. Advantage I Would argue, but there's a lot of smart Phds out there trying to compete with them. They what I think remains is their is is the organization and how they hire better and they work together better than everybody else. The kind of the points I made earlier, they're much more collegial, they're more open, they're transparent.

Um, there other kind of advantages they still have, but not as many as they used to in the process of creating this book. and just all the extensive research that you had to go through to even make it and write it. Did it change your own outlook on actively trading or investing like at all. Did you actually switch up your own style or was it more like I guess different? You're like nope.

I'm still G to do mine and this is just a cool story that I follow. Well I can't do much I work at the Wall Street Journal So I'm limited in terms of my trading. The journal limits us. Uh, but but it it changed my view on on on life in some ways because I became a believer in having a systematic approach to decision-making So if you look at all the the great companies out there, there's some systematic approach as opposed to just sort of using your intuition and winging it and you using your judgment and you know it's true of other important jobs in life.

Let's say you're a pilot. They they insu this thing a number of years ago, but it's really helped in terms of a checklist. So yeah, I'm a veteran pilot, but I still before I take off I've got to have this. Do go through this checklist and other maybe surgeons as well.

I think maybe as well and that's a systematic approach. um, others kind of tried to embrace that too and and I'm a Storyteller but I have become more of a believer in having a systematic approach as opposed to kind of stories and hearing in and using your intuition and um, relying on anecdotes and having some sort of systematic approach to to life and and to Trading I think is really valuable. and frankly it it scares me that some of the bigger decisions in life you know by the fed by by presidents Prime Ministers Etc are made by people, just sort of kind of still winging it. And one of the lessons from the Jim Simons and Renaissance experiences the importance: I don't care who you are as an investor or somebody else and just sort of having sort of a checklist and having some systematic approach that you could rely on.

It doesn't always work, but it seems to do much better than just sort of trying to figure it out along the way way and using your judgment and intuition and interviewing CEOs and deciding a lot of traditional investors will kind of meet with management and they seem like they're good manager. they I really trust them I've got I've been doing this for a long time. the journal they get fooled all the time, even the most um, sophisticated investors. and I've written about Made Off and and and others so that's one of the conclusions I've come to from from the research on on this book.

I think that's super insightful to wrap this up. A bit of a fun question for you if you will. If you could wave a magic wand right now and get the same level of Axis or maybe even more and do a similar almost biography on someone uh, who would it be like Warren Buffett Ray doio Ken Griffin like who is there something in your mind that you're like if the stars aligned and you can land it, you would love to do another story or did this experience take so much out of you? you're like I just don't have that type of like arduous push in me anymore. No.

I'm on to the next. I'm actually U starting a new book about some of the greatest invest M SL trades in history and telling the story of how they evolved. Um, one of those characters is Stan Dren Miller and he's he worked with George Sores for a long time. He R has been running his own uh, Enterprise firm in funds and um, he's more of a fundamental investor.

and yet he's He's a technician too. He loves technical analysis. that's always kind of been something that he used to complement his fundamental research. And he's historically one one of the greats too.

And I like to learn from all these guys And a lot of those guys. um, as opposed to Renaissance which tries to get it right 50.7% of the time. Like you said, those guys look for for a fat pitch and I'm and I've written a book about John Paulson and the trade he did it's called the greatest Trade ever is that book. and he did the greatest trade ever And that's like a fat pitch.

So there two ways. There's not just one way making money on Wall Street. You could do the more quantitative kind of approach, but you could also do, um, the approach of guys like like Dr Miller and John Paulson and some others which look for a fat pitch in George Soros And then you try. you take a big big ass swing on that one when when you got lined up and that's one of their big arguments.

You can go months, days, weeks, years, maybe without a huge, but when you see that one opportunity, you better effing hit that out of the park. So that's another approach to investing which I find interesting. No. I absolutely love that.

and I'm when as soon as that book comes out, you definitely at least have one of, uh, one sale to me. Very excited for that. Uh, this has been a great conversation. So for the audience members that are interested in whether your pieces for the Wall Street Journal or your new books, what's the best way to see what you're up to and to follow you? Um, I'm very active on Twitter and on LinkedIn uh I think I'm like G Zuckerman you can find me uh and on LinkedIn and I Love hearing you know constructive criticism from from readers.

you know a lot of my best sources are people like yeah I read your article or I read the book and I liked it but you forgot XYZ and then I'm open to you know, improving and and learning so I' love to hear from people and um, be be constructive critic ISM or or any other kind of criticism or or even compliments I'll take that's absolutely awesome folks for everyone listening. I'll put all those links in the description below so it's just one click away. But for me and on behalf of the audience, seriously, we appreciate your time. This book is awesome.

If you're listening to this folks, I Promise you you're going to love this book. It blew my mind. It'll definitely restructure the way you look at the markets, but uh, the fact that you dedicated your time and willing to speak with us? That's absolutely awesome. So best of luck and we truly appreciate it so thank you! See you later! It was a lot of fun, Nice to nice be in touch and nice to be in touch with your audience as well.