Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
Categories: Technology
Listen to the last episode:
Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time. And yet no one at RenTec would consider themselves an “investor”, at least in any traditional sense of the word. It’d rather be more accurate to call them scientists — scientists who’ve discovered a system of math, computers and artificial intelligence that has evolved into the greatest money making machine the world has ever seen. And boy does it work: RenTec’s alchemic colossus has posted annual returns in the firm’s flagship Medallion Fund of 68% gross and 40% net over the past 34 years, while never once losing money. (For those keeping track at home, $1,000 invested in Medallion in 1988 would have compounded to $46.5B today… if you’d been allowed to keep it in.) Tune in for an incredible story of the small group of rebel mathematicians who didn’t just beat the market, but in the words of author Greg Zuckerman “solved it.”
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Many thanks to our fantastic Season 14 partners:
Links:
- The Man Who Solved the Market
- The Quants
- Bloomberg’s 2016 RenTec profile
- Quartr's visualization of RenTec's returns
- All episode sources
Carve Outs:
- Modern Treasury’s Transfer Conference Registration
- The New Look
- Cole Haan x Acquired!
- Class of Palm Beach (and the Mini Kelly inside the Birkin!!)
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Note: references to Fortune in ServiceNow sponsor sections are from Fortune ©2023. Used under license.
Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
Previous episodes
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311 - Renaissance Technologies Sun, 17 Mar 2024
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310 - Hermès Mon, 19 Feb 2024
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309 - Novo Nordisk (Ozempic) Sun, 21 Jan 2024
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308 - Holiday Special 2023 Sun, 17 Dec 2023
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307 - Visa Sun, 26 Nov 2023
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306 - Charlie Munger Sun, 29 Oct 2023
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305 - NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Sun, 15 Oct 2023
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304 - Nvidia Part III: The Dawn of the AI Era (2022-2023) Tue, 05 Sep 2023
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303 - Costco Sun, 20 Aug 2023
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302 - Nike Mon, 24 Jul 2023
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301 - Porsche (with Doug DeMuro) Mon, 26 Jun 2023
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300 - Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Mon, 12 Jun 2023
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299 - Lockheed Martin Mon, 29 May 2023
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298 - Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Wed, 17 May 2023
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297 - Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins on The Art of Business in Gaming Tue, 25 Apr 2023
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296 - Short: The Death of Sega Mon, 17 Apr 2023
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295 - Nintendo: The Console Wars Tue, 11 Apr 2023
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294 - Interview: Hamilton Helmer & Chenyi Shi on How to Build an AWS-Like Second Business Mon, 03 Apr 2023
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293 - Sessions: David Senra (Founders Podcast) Wed, 29 Mar 2023
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292 - Nintendo's Origins Wed, 15 Mar 2023
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291 - LVMH Tue, 21 Feb 2023
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290 - The NFL Wed, 25 Jan 2023
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289 - Holiday Special 2022 Sun, 18 Dec 2022
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288 - Stratechery (with Ben Thompson) Mon, 05 Dec 2022
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287 - Enron Mon, 28 Nov 2022
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286 - Qualcomm Mon, 14 Nov 2022
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285 - Benchmark Part II: The Dinner Mon, 17 Oct 2022
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284 - ACQ Sessions: Jason Calacanis Tue, 04 Oct 2022
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283 - Benchmark Part I Tue, 27 Sep 2022
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282 - Amazon Web Services Mon, 05 Sep 2022
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281 - Howard Marks & Andrew Marks: Something of Value Mon, 29 Aug 2022
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280 - Amazon.com Tue, 16 Aug 2022
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279 - From NFL to Startup COO to Congressman Regulating Crypto (with Rep. Anthony Gonzalez) Mon, 01 Aug 2022
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278 - Walmart Mon, 18 Jul 2022
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277 - The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories Sun, 19 Jun 2022
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276 - American Dynamism (with Katherine Boyle) Sun, 05 Jun 2022
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275 - Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) Thu, 19 May 2022
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274 - Arena Show Part II: Brooks Running (with CEO Jim Weber) Sun, 15 May 2022
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273 - Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity Thu, 12 May 2022
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272 - Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022) Wed, 20 Apr 2022
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271 - Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi) Tue, 05 Apr 2022
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270 - Nvidia Part I: The GPU Company (1993-2006) Sun, 27 Mar 2022
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269 - Altimeter (with Brad Gerstner) Mon, 14 Mar 2022
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268 - SONY Mon, 07 Mar 2022
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267 - Super Pumped (with Brian Koppelman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) Mon, 21 Feb 2022
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266 - The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave) Mon, 14 Feb 2022
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265 - Peloton Thu, 10 Feb 2022
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264 - Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version) Sun, 23 Jan 2022
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231 - CAA (with Michael Ovitz) Tue, 21 Dec 2021
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230 - FTX (with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele) Tue, 14 Dec 2021