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Renaissance Technologies

28 statements across 4 episodes · 11 bullish · 1 bearish · 4 people on the record · first statement Aug 16, 2022 by David Rosenthal · said 188 times in 6 episodes since 2022 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by David Rosenthal (109), Ben Gilbert (76), Charlie Munger (2), Andrew Marks (1)

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2024 178 mentions in 2 episodes 89 per episode
2023 3 mentions in 1 episode
2022 5 mentions in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Renaissance Technologies, oldest first

Aug 16, 2022 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Medallion Fund averaged 66.1% annual return from 1988 to 2018
“So, supposedly, the Core Medallion Fund, which is now all private capital of Rentech employees and Simons himself, like there's no outside investors, averaged a 66.1% annual return from 1988 to 2018.”
David Rosenthal Aug 16, 2022 ▶ 33:06 Amazon.com · Acquired
Oct 30, 2023 bearish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Munger claims quant firms achieve high returns through increasingly massive leverage
“And the way they get their returns year after year is taking the leverage, the midday leverage up higher and higher and higher and higher. So they're making smaller and smaller profits on more and more volume, which gives them this big peak leverage risk, whic…”
Charlie Munger Oct 30, 2023 ▶ 8:00 Charlie Munger (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rosenthal: Renaissance Restructures Its Entire Trading Model on a Two-Year Cycle
“Two years is kind of what I heard. That the model is fully restructured every two years. It's not like on a date every two years. It's being restructured every day, but collectively it's about a two-year cycle.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:26:43 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Renaissance Technologies employees almost never leave to start new competing hedge funds
“People don't leave period, and people especially don't leave and start their own firms.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:22:12 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 bullish
Assertion Supported
Medallion generated higher 30-year returns than Berkshire Hathaway or George Soros
“Their thirty-year track record managing billions of dollars has better returns than anyone you have ever heard of, including Berkshire Hathaway, Bridgewater, George Soros, Peter Lynch, or anyone else.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:43 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Renaissance Technologies employees have their 401(k) retirement accounts invested in Medallion
“If you work there, your four oh one K is the medallion fund.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:08:49 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Partly supported
A venture investment in Franklin Dictionaries once comprised half of Simons' net worth
“The Franklin Electronic Dictionaries? Yeah, that was one of their biggest investments. That one investment is half of Jim's net worth.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 50:43 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
No other major quant fund operates with a single unified model
“No other at scale investment firm period, and especially quant firm operates this way today with just one model.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:27:43 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 neutral
Assertion Supported
AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton was Renaissance CEO Peter Brown's academic advisor
“Peter Brown's academic advisor was Jeffrey Hinton.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:38:57 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Renaissance Technologies has under 400 employees, with half in research
“There are less than 400 employees that work at Rentech, only half of which work in research and engineering, and the other half are either back office or institutional sales for the open funds.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:03:20 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Renaissance Database Grows by Over 40 Terabytes Daily
“Yeah, it says right on their website they have 50,000 computer cores with a 150 gigabits per second of global connectivity and a research database that grows by more than 40 terabytes a day.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:20:11 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
Medallion never lost money and never returned under 30% gross post-1990
“From 1990 onward, they never lose money, and on a gross basis, they never even do less than 30%.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:15:36 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 neutral
Assertion Supported
Renaissance Technologies' Medallion Fund excludes all outside investors
“To add to everything else that I just said, Rentech's flagship medallion fund doesn't take any outside investors. The partners of the firm have become so wealthy from the billions that the fund has generated that the only investors they allow in are themselves…”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:53 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Jim Simons personally paid $670 million in Renaissance's IRS tax settlement
“Over time, eventually in 2021, the IRS said, no, you made all those trades. That was not a completely separate entity. And so you guys owed 6.8 billion dollars in taxes that you didn't pay. You're going to need to pay that with interest, with penalties. And by…”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:17:06 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
An estimated $150 billion to $200 billion has been distributed from Medallion
“I would estimate probably a 152 hundred billion dollars that have come out of Medallion over the last 35 years.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:12:22 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Returns from a Bogota tile business provided seed capital for Renaissance Technologies
“Not just is this the start of his entrepreneurial career, the seeds of this financially are what go on to start Rentech.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 16:43 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
Medallion generated 136% gross returns in 2007 and 152% in 2008
“2007 medallion does a 136% gross. 2008 medallion does a 152% gross.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:50:27 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Renaissance raised Medallion carry to 44% before expelling all outside investors
“Okay, so, in 2001, they raised the carrier to 36%. 2002, they raised it to 44%. And then, in 2003, they actually say, hey, we can't incentivize you out of the fund, outside investors. We are gonna kick you out. So, starting in 2003, everybody who's an outside …”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:42:17 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Simons made as much from First Round as Morgan made from Renaissance
“I think Jim made as much money from his investments in first round as Howard did from his LP stake in Rentech.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 56:56 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 neutral
Opinion
Gilbert: Renaissance Technologies operates as a casino house, not an investment firm
“Renaissance Technologies is actually not in the investment business. They are in the gambling business, and in particular, they're the house.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:46:55 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Medallion Fund achieved a 7.5 Sharpe ratio in 2004
“And I believe, if I have my research right, in 2004, they actually achieved a Sharpe ratio of 7.5.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:39:35 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Supported
Jim Simons' 1964 academic paper outlined Renaissance Technologies 20 years early
“So they come together and they publish a paper called Probabilistic Models for and Prediction of Stock Market Behavior. And everything that they suggest in this paper really is Rentech. Just 20 years before Rentech.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 21:05 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Medallion Achieved 12.5x Leverage via Basket Options
“Competitors generally had about seven dollars of financial instruments for every dollar of cash. By contrast, Medallion's option strategy allowed it to have 12 dollars and 50 cents worth of financial instruments for every dollar of cash.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:14:43 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Supported
Gilbert: Renaissance manages $60B-$70B in institutional funds plus $10B-$15B in Medallion
“The institutional funds have gotten big. They peaked at over a hundred billion, but they're currently between 60 and seventy billion that they manage on top of the 10 or 15 that's in the medallion fund.”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:04:05 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gilbert: Medallion executes 150,000 to 300,000 trades daily across multi-day holdings
“They hold thousands of long and short positions at any given time, and their holding period ranges from one to two days or one to two weeks. They make between a 150,300 thousand trades a day, but much of that activity entailed buying or selling in small chunks…”
Ben Gilbert Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 2:44:28 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 bullish
Assertion Supported
Medallion delivered 68% gross returns and $60 billion in carry over 34 years
“So during the entire lifetime so far of Medallion, from 1988 To twenty-twenty-two, that's 34 years. The total net annual return number is 40%. Four zero over 34 years after fees. It's 68% before fees. Which equates to total lifetime carry dollars for the whole…”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:56:06 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 18, 2024 bullish
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Medallion gained 149% gross and 76% net in 2020
“So, from at least the data that we were able to find on Medallion's performance over the past few years, twenty-twenty, they were up a 149% gross and 76% net.”
David Rosenthal Mar 18, 2024 ▶ 1:54:05 Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Jim Simons personally declined Michael Lewis's pitch for an authorized biography
“Jim Simon's son had a kid in my oldest child's class in high school, and I tried, I approached, I said, look, I can't do it unless you want me to do it. There's no point. And he said like, Dad, just like, no, no, no.”
Michael Lewis Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 1:44:41 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
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