Jim Simons loved cigarettes and math. He started out as an academic mathematician and a Cold War code breaker - but decided to use his skills to write computer programs to spot investment opportunities in the financial markets. 

Simons and his fierce nerds bought up all the data sets they could find - reports, books, magnetic tapes - and built machine learning algorithms to hunt for tiny market discrepancies they could exploit. The investment funds Simons started made extraordinary profits - so is this the end for human emotions in financial trading?

Jim Simons loved cigarettes and math. He started out as an academic mathematician and a Cold War code breaker - but decided to use his skills to write computer programs to spot investment opportunities in the financial markets.&nbsp;
Simons and his fierce nerds bought up all the data sets they could find - reports, books, magnetic tapes - and built machine learning algorithms to hunt for tiny market discrepancies they could exploit.&nbsp;The investment funds Simons started made extraordinary profits - so is this the end for human emotions in financial trading?

It’s the history of business. How did Hitler’s favorite car become synonymous with hippies? What got Thomas Edison tangled up with the electric chair? Did someone murder the guy who invented the movies? Former Planet Money hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith examine the surprising stories of businesses big and small and find out what you can learn from those who founded them.

It&rsquo;s the history of business. How did Hitler&rsquo;s favorite car become synonymous with hippies? What got Thomas Edison tangled up with the electric chair? Did someone murder the guy who invented the movies? Former Planet Money hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith examine the surprising stories of businesses big and small and find out what you can learn from those who founded them.

Business History

How Jim Simons Built a Machine That Beat the Market

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/671e380b-b9b6-4763-aff2-b3b400d42324/transcript

For more historical deep dives just like these, check out HISTORY This Week wherever you get your podcasts!

February 14, 1905. A stick of dynamite detonates under the Hudson River — and the ground above swallows a locomotive whole. It's the latest setback in an audacious plan to tunnel beneath the river and bring trains into Manhattan. The Pennsylvania Railroad is the largest corporation in the world, but the goopy riverbed keeps fighting back. How did they finally break through? And why are these 115-year-old tunnels still the most critical infrastructure in America?

Special thanks to our guests: Polly Desjarlais, content and research manager at the New York Transit Museum; Jill Jonnes, author of Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels; and Andy Sparberg, former LIRR manager, transit historian, and author of From a Nickel to a Token: The Journey from Board of Transportation to MTA.

For more historical deep&nbsp;dives just like these, check out <a href="http://historythisweekpodcast.com/">HISTORY This Week</a> wherever&nbsp;you get your podcasts!
February 14, 1905. A stick of dynamite detonates under the Hudson River &mdash; and the ground above swallows a locomotive whole. It's the latest setback in an audacious plan to tunnel beneath the river and bring trains into Manhattan. The Pennsylvania Railroad is the largest corporation in the world, but the goopy riverbed keeps fighting back. How did they finally break through? And why are these 115-year-old tunnels still the most critical infrastructure in America?
Special thanks to our guests: Polly Desjarlais, content and research manager at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytransitmuseum.org/">New York Transit Museum</a>; Jill Jonnes, author of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Gotham-Construction-Station-ItsTunnels/dp/0670031585">Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels</a>; and Andy Sparberg, former LIRR manager, transit historian, and author of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Token-Journey-Board-Transportation/dp/0823271803">From a Nickel to a Token: The Journey from Board of Transportation to MTA</a>.

The 115-Year-Old Train Tunnels Turned National Emergency (from HISTORY This Week)

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/b1a1efdb-44c9-4bd7-8564-b3f3002c4baa/transcript

Nolan Bushnell loved weed, hot tubs and games... especially games. He took computer games out of the laboratory and put them in bars. His arcade game Pong was a monster hit, so he set up Atari to build a home games console which became the must-have Christmas present of 1975. 

Atari was the name on every kid's lips... but then investors came onboard to help the company expand. Bushnell and his engineers were sidelined, and Atari embarked on a crazy plan to rush out a game based on Spielberg's movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was so bad... it sank Atari.

Nolan Bushnell loved weed, hot tubs and games... especially games. He took computer games out of the laboratory and put them in bars. His arcade game Pong was a monster hit, so he set up Atari to build a home games console which became the must-have Christmas present of 1975.&nbsp;
Atari was the name on every kid's lips... but then investors came onboard to help the company expand. Bushnell and his engineers were sidelined, and Atari embarked on a crazy plan to rush out a game based on Spielberg's movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was so bad... it sank Atari.

When E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Tanked Atari

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/eee3e744-f1a7-4fba-82fe-b3d901110586/transcript

William Shockley was an electronics genius - he even won a Nobel Prize - but he was an awful boss. Shockley was a cruel, paranoid micromanager. And this annoyed the staff of brilliant young engineers he'd assembled in a quiet town in Northern California. In fact, they quit and set up a company of their own inventing silicon chips.   

Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and the rest of "The Traitorous Eight" transformed computing, but also blazed a trail for the tech founders who would flock to Silicon Valley and change the world. Members of "The Traitorous Eight" set up Intel and AMD, while also funding businesses such as Google and Slack.  

William Shockley was an electronics genius - he even won a Nobel Prize - but he was an&nbsp;awful boss. Shockley was a cruel, paranoid micromanager. And this annoyed the staff of brilliant young engineers he'd assembled in a quiet town in Northern California. In fact, they quit and set up a company of their own inventing silicon chips.&nbsp; &nbsp;
Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and the rest of "The Traitorous Eight" transformed computing, but also blazed a trail for the tech founders who would flock to Silicon Valley and change the world. Members of "The Traitorous Eight" set up Intel and AMD, while also funding businesses such as Google and Slack.&nbsp;&nbsp;

How a Bad Boss Kickstarted Silicon Valley 

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/c729adc5-284a-42c9-9db1-b3d300e73152/transcript

How Jim Simons Built a Machine That Beat the Market

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