Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time. And yet no one at RenTec would consider themselves an “investor”, at least in any traditional sense of the word. It’d rather be more accurate to call them scientists — scientists who’ve discovered a system of math, computers and artificial intelligence that has evolved into the greatest money making machine the world has ever seen. And boy does it work: RenTec’s alchemic colossus has posted annual returns in the firm’s flagship Medallion Fund of 68% gross and 40% net over the past 34 years, while never once losing money. (For those keeping track at home, $1,000 invested in Medallion in 1988 would have compounded to $46.5B today… if you’d been allowed to keep it in.) Tune in for an incredible story of the small group of rebel mathematicians who didn’t just beat the market, but in the words of author Greg Zuckerman “solved it.”Sponsors:Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquiredStatsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaudeLinks:The Man Who Solved the MarketThe QuantsBloomberg’s 2016 RenTec profileQuartr's visualization of RenTec's returnsAll episode sourcesCarve Outs:Modern Treasury’s Transfer Conference RegistrationThe New LookCole Haan x Acquired!Class of Palm Beach (and the Mini Kelly inside the Birkin!!)More Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCNote: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
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I always used to misspell Renaissance as I was typing it out, R-E-N, and then I would sort of like not really know what came from there. But I learned a mnemonic to make sure I get it right.
Oh, I thought you were going to say you've typed it so many times now over the past month.
Well, there's that too. But you ready for this? You can't spell Renaissance without A-I. Oh. Touché, touché. All right, let's do it.
Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down. Say it straight. Another story on the way. Who got the truth?
Welcome to Season 14, Episode 3 of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. I'm David Rosenthal. And we are your hosts. They say, David, that as an investor, you can't beat the market or time the market, that you're better off indexing and dollar cost averaging rather than trying to be an active stock picker.
They say there's no persistence of returns for hedge funds, that this year's big winner can be next year's big loser, and that nobody gets huge outperformance without taking huge risk.
When I was in college, I actually took an economics class with Burton Malkiel, who, of course, you know, was involved in starting Vanguard and is a big proponent of all that. And that is what I learned, Ben.
Well, David, it turns out they were wrong. Today, listeners, we tell the story of the best-performing investment firm in history, Renaissance Technologies, or Rentech. Their 30-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. So why haven't you heard of them?
Or if you have, why don't you know much about them? Well, their eye-popping performance is matched only by their extreme secrecy, and they are unusual in almost every way. Their founder, Jim Simons, worked for the U.S. government in the Cold War as a codebreaker before starting Renaissance.
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