Who's the greatest investor of all time?

Our colleague Greg Zuckerman says the title probably belongs to someone you might not have heard of.

Jim Simons.

Over the course of his decades long career,

Simons and his firm, Renaissance Technologies, produced returns that were out of this world.

66% a year. No one's ever come close. I'm not sure everyone, anyone will come close close so for all those reasons he became really a

groundbreaking individual both in the world of finance but elsewhere.

I mean there are household names out there like Warren Buffett and he's better than him

There's a strong argument that he's better than Buffett his returns are better than Buffett. His returns as annual returns are unmatched.

Simons was a mathematician and he took those skills and applied them to Wall Street,

becoming one of the first investors to use computers and computer algorithms to make

investment decisions, ushering in a new era of technology-driven trading on Wall Street.

And he and his firm made over a hundred billion dollars in the process.

Last week, Simons died at the age of 86.

I did a lot of math.

I made a lot of money, and I gave almost all a bit away.

That's the story of my life.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knutzen.

It's Thursday, May 16.

Coming up on the show,

how Jim Simons used math to make billions.

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