What was Jim Simons’ IQ?
The 250 IQ figure attached to Jim Simons online traces to a single uncited comment; his documented record is a completed mathematics doctorate, a shared geometry prize and a theory still used in physics decades on.
No Jim Simons IQ test result has ever been published, and no dedicated IQ estimate for him exists on the sites that publish these figures. What is checkable is a Berkeley mathematics doctorate completed at 23, the 1976 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry and Chern–Simons theory — the record this site’s 150–165 estimate rests on, well below the 250 that circulates in one uncited comment.
Jim Simons’ estimated IQ
- A PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, completed in 1961 at 23 under the geometer Bertram Kostant, after a Massachusetts Institute of Technology degree finished in three years (the Mathematics Genealogy Project lists the formal Berkeley degree year as 1962).
- Appointed chair of Stony Brook University’s mathematics department in 1968, at 30, straight from research work on code-breaking problems connected to the National Security Agency at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
- The 1976 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, the American Mathematical Society’s top honor in the field, shared with William Thurston for the 1974 paper written with Shiing-Shen Chern that introduced what is now called Chern–Simons theory, still used in string theory and condensed-matter physics.
- Elected to the National Academy of Sciences on April 30, 2014, a peer-judged honor that arrived decades after he left full-time mathematics for finance, not a credential Renaissance Technologies’ returns bought him.
No IQ, SAT or ACT score has been published for Jim Simons, so this range is inferred from a completed doctorate, a shared prize and a named theory, not from any test. Degrees and prizes are judged by committees on finished work, not scored on a fixed scale, and Renaissance Technologies’ investment returns, sometimes folded into the case for a much higher number, measure a firm of hundreds, roughly a third of them doctorate holders, not one person’s ability; that evidence is left out of this range.
- Born
- April 25, 1938, Newton, Massachusetts
- Died
- May 10, 2024, New York City, aged 86
- Education
- B.S., mathematics, MIT (1958); Ph.D., mathematics, UC Berkeley (1961, aged 23)
- Known for
- Chern–Simons theory; founding Renaissance Technologies and the Medallion Fund
- Academic post
- Chair, Department of Mathematics, Stony Brook University, 1968–1978
- Major prize
- Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, 1976, shared with William Thurston
- Later honor
- Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, April 30, 2014
- Documented test record
- None found: no IQ, SAT or ACT score located
What an IQ of 150–165 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who Jim Simons was
James Harris Simons was born April 25, 1938, in Newton, Massachusetts, and raised in nearby Brookline. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958, finishing it in three years, then a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, completed in 1961 at 23 under the geometer Bertram Kostant (the Mathematics Genealogy Project lists the formal degree year as 1962). His dissertation, “On the Transitivity of Holonomy Systems,” gave a more conceptual proof of a result in the classification of holonomy groups on Riemannian manifolds, a corner of differential geometry he would return to a decade later.
After brief teaching stints at MIT and Harvard, Simons joined the Communications Research Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Princeton in 1964, researching code-breaking problems connected to the National Security Agency. He was dismissed in 1968 after publicly opposing the Vietnam War: he wrote a letter published in The New York Times in 1967 stating that he did not share the views of his division’s director, General Maxwell Taylor, then repeated the point to a Newsweek stringer. His division chief pointed out that a permanent researcher could not simply be let go; Simons was informed that his contract was, in fact, temporary. That same year, Stony Brook University, part of the State University of New York, made him chair of its mathematics department, a post he held from 1968 to 1978.
At Stony Brook, Simons worked with the geometer Shiing-Shen Chern, and in 1974 the two published “Characteristic Forms and Geometric Invariants,” introducing what became known as Chern–Simons invariants. Simons later called the collaboration “the high spot of my mathematical life.” The theory sat largely within pure geometry until physicists found it described phenomena in string theory, topological quantum field theory and condensed-matter physics, where Chern–Simons terms are now standard tools. In 1976 the American Mathematical Society awarded Simons its Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, shared that year with William Thurston, citing his “work on minimal varieties and characteristic forms.” Nearly four decades later, on April 30, 2014, Simons was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Simons left full-time mathematics in 1978 to found the currency-trading fund Monemetrics, renamed Renaissance Technologies in 1982 and based in East Setauket, New York. Its Medallion Fund, launched in 1988, posted a 66.1% average gross annual return, 39.1% net of fees, from 1988 to 2018, according to Gregory Zuckerman’s 2019 account “The Man Who Solved the Market”, a record built by a firm that grew to roughly 300 employees, about a third of them holding doctorates in mathematics, physics or computer science, which is a firm’s result rather than a test of any one person (see whether IQ predicts income). The Financial Times called him “the world’s smartest billionaire” in 2006, the year he was also named Financial Engineer of the Year. He announced his retirement from active management in October 2009, effective the following January, remaining non-executive chairman. With his wife, Marilyn Hawrys Simons, he co-founded the Simons Foundation in 1994 to fund basic science and mathematics research, adding autism research in 2003; Math for America followed in 2004 and the Flatiron Institute in 2016. Simons died May 10, 2024, in New York City, at 86.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
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Jim Simons: the documented record
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
- 1958Graduates from MIT with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, completed in three years.
- 1961Completes a PhD in mathematics at UC Berkeley at 23, advised by Bertram Kostant (the Mathematics Genealogy Project lists the formal degree year as 1962).
- 1964–1968Researches code-breaking problems connected to the National Security Agency at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Princeton, while teaching part-time at MIT and Harvard.
- 1968Dismissed from the Institute for Defense Analyses after publicly opposing the Vietnam War; becomes chair of Stony Brook University’s mathematics department the same year.
- 1974Publishes “Characteristic Forms and Geometric Invariants” with Shiing-Shen Chern, introducing what becomes known as Chern–Simons theory.
- 1976Shares the American Mathematical Society’s Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry with William Thurston.
- 1978Leaves full-time mathematics to found the currency-trading fund Monemetrics, later renamed Renaissance Technologies.
- 1988Launches the Medallion Fund, which posts a 66.1% average gross annual return through 2018.
- 1994Co-founds the Simons Foundation with his wife, Marilyn Hawrys Simons.
- April 30, 2014Elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
- May 10, 2024Dies in New York City at 86.
Where the 250 figure came from
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Most profiles on this site start from a page that states a number: an estimator site, a ranked list, a quiz result shared as fact. Jim Simons’s does not. MyIQScores’ “Famous IQ Claims” page, The Genius Index and scientific.place’s celebrity IQ list were each checked directly, and none of the three lists him at all. For how the sites that do carry numbers tend to build them, see where celebrity IQ numbers come from.
The one number that does surface is “about 250 iq points,” posted as a comment on Hacker News on April 28, 2022. Its author cites no source, and nobody in the thread challenges or confirms it; the figure simply sits there, unexamined, in a discussion that was not really about him. Run against a standard IQ scale, 250 is ten standard deviations above the mean, and no published test has ever returned a score anywhere near it; see the ceiling effect on IQ tests for why scores stop climbing long before that point. A single uncited forum comment is a thinner foundation than the multi-site scatter behind most figures this site audits, not a sturdier one.
What is documented instead is an academic career that ended two decades before Renaissance Technologies existed. Simons completed a Berkeley mathematics doctorate at 23, chaired Stony Brook University’s mathematics department at 30, and in 1976 shared the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, the American Mathematical Society’s top honor in the field, with William Thurston, for the paper he had written two years earlier with Shiing-Shen Chern introducing what is now called Chern–Simons theory. The Financial Times’ 2006 line calling him “the world’s smartest billionaire” is real and often repeated, but it is a magazine’s epithet, not a score, and it arrived three decades after the mathematics that actually anchors this estimate. Renaissance’s hiring since has followed the same logic, a firm built heavily on doctorates, which is one reason quantitative funds now screen so hard on ability; see what IQ quant trading firms look for.
Placed among the business profiles here, the estimate sits above Warren Buffett (145–160), whose investing record rests on decades of judgment rather than a doctorate, and close to Demis Hassabis (145–160), one of the few other founders on this site with a completed PhD behind him. It sits above Larry Page (145–160) and level with Sergey Brin (150–165) — both of whom left Stanford’s doctoral program to start Google rather than finish it, the reverse of Simons, whose doctorate was already two decades behind him by the time Renaissance Technologies took its current name in 1982.
How we read a number →MyIQScores’ “Famous IQ Claims” page, The Genius Index and scientific.place’s celebrity IQ list were checked directly; none lists Jim Simons. No SAT, ACT or named IQ test result surfaced in any source checked, and no dedicated Reddit thread with a sourced figure was found.
Source of the only circulating figure found: “about 250 iq points,” given with no citation; no reply in the thread disputes or confirms it.
Death date and place (May 10, 2024, New York City, age 86); three-part career framing as mathematician, investor and philanthropist.
Timeline detail: MIT 1958, Berkeley PhD 1961, IDA dismissal 1968 and the 1967 New York Times letter, the Chern collaboration and 1974 paper, the 1976 Veblen Prize, Monemetrics 1978 and Renaissance 1982, Simons Foundation 1994, Flatiron Institute 2016; direct quote on the Chern collaboration as “the high spot of my mathematical life.”
Berkeley PhD at 23; the Institute for Defense Analyses dismissal narrative, including the exchange with his division chief and the 1967 New York Times letter, quoted directly.
Confirms the 1976 prize was shared between Simons, “for his work on minimal varieties and characteristic forms,” and William Thurston.
Doctoral advisor Bertram Kostant; dissertation “On the Transitivity of Holonomy Systems”; lists the formal Berkeley degree year as 1962.
Confirms the National Academy of Sciences election date and that Simons was a research professor and former chair of Stony Brook’s mathematics department.
Medallion Fund’s 66.1% average gross and 39.1% net annual return, 1988–2018; roughly a third of Renaissance’s approximately 300 employees hold doctorates; the Financial Times’ 2006 “world’s smartest billionaire” line; Financial Engineer of the Year, 2006; retirement announcement, October 2009. Wikidata Q560847 is the same person.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Jim Simons, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
Searches for “Jim Simons IQ” do not converge on an estimator site the way many profiles here do. The only number that surfaces is “about 250 iq points,” from an April 28, 2022 Hacker News comment with no source given. A separate, non-numeric claim circulates far more widely: the Financial Times called him “the world’s smartest billionaire” in 2006, a line likely behind much of the guesswork.
Jim Simons does not appear on MyIQScores’ “Famous IQ Claims” page, has no profile at The Genius Index, and is absent from scientific.place’s celebrity IQ list — all three were checked directly. No dedicated Reddit thread with a sourced figure turned up either. The one number attached to his name anywhere in general search results is the Hacker News comment’s “about 250,” which nobody in that thread cites a source for, disputes, or confirms; it sits unexamined in a discussion that was not really about him. Renaissance Technologies’ record is not a test result: it is a firm’s returns, built by hundreds of employees, roughly a third of them with doctorates.
A single unsourced comment sitting 85 points above this site’s upper bound of 165. That gap is what a guessed number looks like next to a documented one: 250 is ten standard deviations above the mean on a standard IQ scale, a level no published test has ever returned a score for, while the documented record — a completed doctorate, a shared prize, a named theory — supports a considerably lower and far better evidenced range.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
Jim Simons — frequently asked
What is Jim Simons’s IQ?
Jim Simons’s IQ is unknown: no IQ test result was ever published for him. This site’s estimate, based on his completed Berkeley doctorate, a shared Oswald Veblen Prize and Chern–Simons theory rather than any test, is 150–165. The one number search engines surface, 250, traces to a single uncited 2022 internet comment.
Did Jim Simons take an IQ test?
No Jim Simons IQ test result has ever been published, and no named test he sat turned up in any source checked for this page. His public record is entirely academic and professional — a doctorate, a shared prize, a hedge fund’s returns — with no personal test score mentioned anywhere in it.
Is there a real Jim Simons IQ figure on Reddit?
No dedicated Reddit thread with a sourced Jim Simons IQ figure was found. The only uncited number in general circulation is “about 250,” posted as a Hacker News comment in April 2022 with no source given and never confirmed by anyone in that thread.
What is the Jim Simons IQ estimate on this site based on?
It rests on his completed record, not the 250 figure that circulates online: a Berkeley mathematics doctorate finished at 23, the 1976 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry shared with William Thurston, and Chern–Simons theory, the 1974 paper that still anchors work in string theory and topological physics.
Is Jim Simons a genius?
The documented record supports it more directly than most: a completed mathematics doctorate at 23, a department chairmanship at 30, a shared Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, and a named theory still used in physics decades later. No IQ score confirms or rules out the label; this site’s estimate of his IQ level is 150–165.
How does Jim Simons’s estimated IQ compare with Warren Buffett’s?
This site’s estimate for Simons, 150–165, sits above Warren Buffett’s 145–160. Both built fortunes through investing, but Simons’s range rests on a completed mathematics doctorate and a peer-judged geometry prize, evidence Buffett’s record of business judgment does not offer.
What did Jim Simons study, and how does it connect to Renaissance Technologies?
Simons studied differential geometry, earning a Berkeley PhD in 1961 and co-developing Chern–Simons theory in 1974 with Shiing-Shen Chern. He left mathematics in 1978 to found what became Renaissance Technologies, redirecting the same statistical and mathematical rigor at financial markets through its Medallion Fund.
How does my IQ compare with Jim Simons?
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
Where does this estimate come from?
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other business & tech profiles, starting with Steve Jobs.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
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