TED
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23:08 · 2.9M views · Sep 25, 2015
A TED interview in which Chris Anderson talks with Jim Simons about his life: code-breaking, math, founding Renaissance Technologies, and his philanthropy in math education and origins-of-life research.
HN cites it as a view of Simons as a humble, pragmatic person, with the caveat that the host's questions are weak.
3 comments from Hacker News
that interview is really great. i have watched it a few times. i think it makes it clear why simons has been so successful. he doesn't seem to really second guess, just does things, delegates well, and despite being obviously brilliant, he seems to have a very practical and humble mindset. the TED interview ( this video ) is also good, despite the host's frequent vapid questions. in that interview, simons elaborates on his funding of origins of life studies and efforts.
It's because James Simons is a serious and actually intelligent person with depth of knowledge, and thus, he is one that doesn't need to opine on random things. He also makes a lot of money in a very secretive way. I'm not sure why anyone expects him to expound in detail on how Renaissance Technologies does it. Simons also spends more money than some governments on very serious and advanced scientific research. I suppose he's rather busy with all his investments and philanthropy. Musk is busy selling himself and filling his unfillable ego. You can see in Simons' TED interview with Chris Anderson how he gets rather annoyed with Chris at times, particularly when Chris mentions Simons' "amazing mind" at around 8:30. Simons seems, to me, to be a rather pragmatic and humble person who doesn't particularly enjoy flattery. Chris even throws out a quote by Musk at the very end of the interview, fishing for some similar platitude from Simons, but Simons deftly avoids giving out such an empty quote. this video Most interestingly, you can tell Simons' like of science and mathematics and alludes to his interest when he mentions his investment into the origins of life towards the end. There are two interesting talks or interviews I know of with Simons: * Full-length Numberphile interview: [LINK] * His lecture on his life given at MIT: [LINK] Simons actually attributes a lot of his success to luck.
I also just started watching this TED video about Simons, in which, interestingly, near the start, he says he was fired by General Maxwell Taylor, when he was at the Institute for Defence Analysis, for writing an article opposing Taylor's views on the Vietnam War. Taylor was in favor of it, and Simons was against it, because he thought it was a "stupid war" (for the US to be engaged in, I guess). this video [LINK] The Criticisms section of the Wikipedia article about Taylor is interesting.