East Setauket Man Among 400 Richest People In America

EAST SETAUKET, NY — An East Setauket man was one of six Long Islanders to make the annual Forbes 400 list, an honor reserved for the wealthiest billionaires in the United States.

Jim Simons was ranked No. 21 overall with a $21.6 billion net worth. Simons, 81, founded Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative trading hedge fund firm that manages $68 billion, in 1982 according to Forbes. While he retired in 2010, he still plays a role in the company and financially benefits from its funds.

He is married, has three children, earned his bachelor of arts and science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, according to Forbes. He also used to chair the math department at Stony Brook University and was a code-breaker for the United States during the Vietnam War.

Simons also has a strong sense of charity, as he's given $2.7 billion to philanthropic causes, Forbes reports. His foundation is the primary funder of Math For America. He also supports autism research.

His net worth has increased by $7.6 billion since March 2015.