Renaissance Technologies

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2024

⏱️ 190 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.”

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‍Note: 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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I always used to misspell Renaissance as I was typing it out at R E 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.
0:10.5	Oh, I thought you're going to say you've typed it so many times now over the
0:14.2	past month. Well there's that too, but you ready for this? You can't spell
0:18.5	Renaissance without AI. Oh, ho!het, tushet.
0:25.0	All right, let's do it.
0:28.0	Who got the truth?
0:30.0	Is it you, is it you, is it you, is it you, who got the truth now?
0:35.0	Is it you, is it you, is it you, is it you?
0:39.0	Sit me down, say it straight, another story on the way who got the truth.
0:45.2	Welcome to season 14 episode 3 of acquired, the podcast about great companies and
0:50.4	the stories and playbooks behind them.
0:52.4	I'm Ben Gilbert.
0:53.0	I'm David Rosenthal.
0:55.0	And we are your hosts.
0:56.0	They say David that as an investor,
0:59.0	you can't beat the market.
1:01.0	Or time the market.
1:02.0	That you're better off indexing and dollar cost averaging rather than trying
1:06.8	to be an active stock picker.
1:09.1	They say there's no persistence of returns for hedge funds that this year's big winner can be next year's big losers. of When I was in college I actually took an economics class with Burton Malkil who of course
1:24.9	you know was involved in starting Vanguard and is a big proponent of all that and that is what I learned
1:30.0	Ben.
	...

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