Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing.

Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching.

Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson work for Ritholz Wealth Management.

All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben or any podcast guests are solely their own opinions

and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholz wealth management.

This podcast is for informational purposes only. not and the securities discussed in this podcast. We're sitting here with Greg Zuckerman, author of the man who saw the market how Jim Simons

launched the Quant Revolution.

As someone who writes, I'm really interested in the thought process behind writing it.

Was there a singular moment where you had an

aha moment where the light went off and you said, I kind of can wrap my head around this,

or was it more of a slow burn to kind of understand what exactly was going on there and what they were doing

at Renaissance technologies.

So there was a moment.

So early on I was sort of for months, I wasn't sure I could pull this thing off and I was going to tell my publisher, you know, it's just impossible.

The guy won't talk to me.

Nobody within the firm is telling me that people that used to work there is saying,

Greg, don't waste your time.

But then I went out to California and I met Ellen Burlicamp and his former colleague

Sandor Strauss and they worked with Simons early on and not only were they sharing really

interesting information?

It was a great story.

And I was like, you know what, how do I not do this book?

...