Long Island’s richest man, by Thomas Maier

James Simons has expressed concern about the nation’s educational system and admitted that he finds it hard to hire anyone born in the United States for his hedge fund business — which earned him, according to one estimate, a whopping $1.5 billion last year alone. “I can’t find Americans,” said Simons in a rare public appearance in February 2005. “That is, the majority of the people that I’ve hired in the last seven or eight years, high-quality research people, are not U.S. people. They’re not born in America, and they weren’t educated in America.”

Simons’ financial empire is based primarily on using math skills and computerized statistical models to select investments. By employing math and science experts — rather than traditional Wall Street traders — Simons’ firm, Renaissance Technologies Corp., and its flagship Medallion fund have created remarkable returns for its roughly 500 investors, with an average 34 percent annual return since 1988, according to Forbes magazine.

Of Simons, Leo Guthart said, “He’s not driven to make money as much as he’s driven to analyze and solve puzzles.”

“In 1961 I was the first person in the United States to receive his PhD under the auspices of the National Defense Education Act,” Simons told a Congressional panel last year. “Shaken by the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, and concerned by a shortage of scientists and mathematicians teaching at our universities, Congress responded by enacting this program. It was an outstanding success. I may have been the first, but a great many followed, and in less than a decade, whatever shortage may have existed was surely eliminated … The challenge we face today is just as real and perhaps even more urgent — to see that our nation is properly equipped to economically compete in the 21st century.”

Math for America