YouSaid · the spoken record

Gregory Zuckerman

lines on the record: 124
first: 2019-10-30
most recent: 2019-10-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Right. And as you suggest, you will pay for those kind of returns. You pay almost any fee. They kept raising the fees, partly to discourage investors from sticking in the fund. And eventually they kicked out all the investors. And that's part of their secret too, that they capped it. They capped Medallion.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I probably take you, I don't know, a few months to collect all the books. But what if you wanted to create the library of Congress? It'd be pretty impossible. Some of that stuff you just can't get your hands on. And that's what Renaissance still has today. And it does help them.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's exactly right. And that was one of the early edges. And frankly, they were collecting data when no one cared about it. No one saw a need for it. This is pre-Bloomberg pre-everything else. They were going down to the Fed collecting obscure pieces of data, economic and other. They were going back in history. It was a several years later, but they were collecting stuff from like the late 1800s. They didn't really have a purpose for a lot of that data at the time. They had this instinct instinct that maybe it was because they were scientists that the more data, the better and any kind of data could be helpful and maybe not right now, but at some point down the road. And yet that gave them a complete advantage because then they could test, they could create models, they could do scenarios that others couldn't. And the way I liken it is to a little bit like if you wanted to create a library, how long would it take you? Okay, like your public library, your local library.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is, but he's a guy who made his $23 billion on the scientific approach, on not on testing ideas, on having a systematic approach to investing, not on these narratives and nervousness and reacting, all these behavioral mistakes that we all make. He was about to make too. So even an 80-year-old, the genius, the guy who solved the market, as I call it, he is apt to trade like everybody else. And the point being, it's not easy being a quant. You have to fight your instincts to some extent, even when you're a scientist and a mathematician.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And Jim Simons, and I write this story, I tell this anecdote in the book, he's on vacation on his huge ship somewhere, and he starts panicking about the market and he calls his wealth manager, the guy's managing his money. I mean, Jim Simmons is worth $23 billion, so he has quite the portfolio. And he's like, maybe we should be buying some insurance here. That's like me panicking. The market's down. Hey, should I be selling?”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Listen, he had unique approaches, what he thought were unique approaches. I get into them at one point, he consulted with this early economist named Alan Greenspan. And they had different ways they thought they had an edge. But no, they didn't have an edge. Not only that, but it tore them up inside. It made literally physically made him ill that he'd come into the office just unsure of himself. Some days up, some days down, they made a lot of money at one point. Then they gave back a lot of money. There were fallings out with different types of people. But it's not just early days. Even last year, end of last year, the market is imploding, as we recall. Down 20.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And as a writer, that's sort of why I did it to learn. I didn't know enough about this world and about Jim and each of these characters is potentially a book in their own, right? There were so many. I think that was one surprise. There were so many rich characters at the firm. It's not sort of Jim and, okay, you hear Bob Mercer and Peter Brown time after time I ran into fascinating, accomplished, quirky, colorful characters. And the other surprise is how hard it is to be a quant. So you think these guys are mathematicians, they're scientists. You would think that instinctively they would want to pursue a quantitative approach, the scientific method, that's where they come from. And yet from the beginning, from Simon's and his early colleagues, guys like Lenny Baum, Jim Axe, Ellen Burlakamp, others, you see that they're fighting their instinct. They're really their instinct is to kind of just trade like you and I do, just sort of look at the news and anticipate where.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. So I've read everything that's been written about Jim and his firm. I've watched every interview on YouTube. There are a few here and there. And I would say about 90% of what's in my book is fresh and new.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, and part of it is, and I've learned this something about mathematicians, little mistakes really bother them much more than they do me or people that come from a different perspective. So I think it would have just bothered him had there been significant errors in the book, be it in regard to his early life, other parts of his life. And I get that. You know, I would send small sections, we don't send large sections, but small sections to various top mathematicians, and they would get angry, Greg, this is all wrong. How can you write this? It's overstated. It's wrong. You got to change everything. And, you know, you're taking it back. Early on, I was taken aback. Eventually, I learned not to be. And then you drill into it. And I don't know, they're 5% was wrong, but that 5% really bothers them. So I got that. So I think if you're Jim Simons, this guy's writing a 350-page book about you and your life, if they were glaring dumb.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a lot of time and the topics arranged. They included his recent life, which is also quite interesting what he's trying to do in autism research, science, education, subsidizing teachers around the city of New York City, politics a little bit too. He's a big funder of democratic causes and candidates. So the topics ranged. He was generous with his time regarding some of those subjects, his early life and his mathematics, a guy like me needed help understanding. So I appreciate the help he gave me there. And in terms of the”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, it's a little blunt, but yeah, and Simon's realized that there's something to be said for working with me. But I do want to make it clear that he wouldn't share inside secrets, secret sauce as you describe it. So I don't want to suggest that he kind of opened the kimono. That was still difficult to the end. So it was, so we sat down together multiple times.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, and that's a lot of my approach in my day to day writing at the Wall Street Journal. I call it the haircut approach. I'm going to give you a haircut. You can sit still or you can move around, but I'm going to give you a haircut. And it's not to say that it's a threat in any way. It's being.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fascinating life even before he got to Renaissance. If he had never started Renaissance, he had never even invested, he'd still be ample subsidy, ample opportunity to write a book. There'd be reason to write about him. So I think when he started hearing from these 70 and 80-year-old academics from Princeton and other kinds of places who he worked with back in the 70s and in the 60s even, he got the message I wasn't going away. And I think you realized, well, better to talk to Zuckerman than not share any perspective in a book about him and his firm.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we hadn't and still have a complicated relationship. He didn't want the book to be written. He's still, as of a few months ago, asked, do I really have to write this book? Part of it is the guy makes a billion and a half dollars hardly going into the office and doesn't want to rock the boat. These are hardworking individuals, scientists he's hired or helped hire or have joined subsequently, and he doesn't want to get them angry. He said generally a pretty good guy and here they are working slaving away. And if the guy making a billion and a half dollars is telling secrets, they wouldn't be thrilled with him. So he didn't really want this book being told. But at some point, he got the message that I wasn't going away. And he realized I was doing serious research. So I was talking to academics. He worked with back in the day. He's got this really rich.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it leaked out. So here and there. So that's my job as a writer. You get a little snippet, they drop a little crumb here and there. It's my job to kind of put it together into something of a loafer, at least a half a loafer for the readers. So they give me enough to give me encouragement. Yes, they weren't laying out all the algorithms for me. Not that I would understand them anymore. Anyway, when I finally saw, and then I finally got Simons to speak.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I got a good sense. For the story, I got some people who work there to open up to me. Why they spoke to me as a writer, you never 100% sure. I believe.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. So when I learned about the early story of Renaissance, and it's quite fascinating, I said, you know what, how do I not write this book? It was a bit of a leap. So I had the early part, but then what do I do about the middle and the later parts where people, there weren't as many people who had retired, who were academics? Might speak to me. These are more recent types of individuals. Some still there. I had to work. Somehow get them to talk.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I went out to California and I spoke to some former colleagues of Simon's who worked with Jim back in the day, back in the 80s and 90s. Right, and their story was just too fascinating not to do the book and too compelling. I mean, these are interesting characters. As a writer, you look for just colorful, color, colorful, intriguing individuals, characters you could write about. And you couldn't do better than these people. They were temperamental. They were high strung. They were fasting. They were smart. They'd accomplished all kinds of things in academia. And then they took on this challenge of trying to conquer the markets. And there was all kinds of intrigue that I wasn't really aware of behind the scenes. Anger, fights, disputes, screaming matches, things that, you know, when you think of a quant and, you know, mathematicians, maybe just I did. I didn't really think they”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can give you all kinds of conversations where I was whining and complaining, and just frustrated and concerned that I wouldn't be able to pull this thing off. And at one point, the accounting department from Penguin, they were like, what?”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't waste your time. Simon says it's going to work with you. I'm not going to work with you because Jim asked me not to. I literally had my advance and not insignificant advance from my publisher. My desk in my basement, in my home in Suburban, New Jersey, and I wouldn't cash it because I wanted the ability to hand it back.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had meetings set up with senior people in the industry, in the quant world, billionaires who you wouldn't think would care what Gene Simons would think. These arrivals of”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, so Jim Simons and his colleagues at the firm have everyone sign 40-page non-disclosures, non-competes, and they're serious about them. I was warned early on don't waste your time, Greg, both by people internally, people that used to work there. Simons himself said he wouldn't talk to me. It got worse than that. Simons started telling people I wanted to talk to, not to talk to me, not to cooperate with me.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“White whale, and yet he's also got this mystique about him, partly because they're such a secret firm. Others have tried. That was part of the allure as well that others had reached out to him. He didn't want to work with them. I myself had tried. He didn't want to cooperate. For whatever reason that created and added a level of mistaken allure for me. So I took the challenge on.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I've always wanted to. He's sort of, if you're a financial journalist and I focus on the buy side to a large extent, there's no one more impressive.”
2019-10-30 · Masters in Business · Gregory Zuckerman on the Quant Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source