[throwawaymath]

That's not what sets Renaissance apart. Please don't add to the baseless speculation that gets tossed around about RenTech so often. Are you aware of just how many trading firms have access to phenomenally clean data?

It drives me nuts when I see words like "undoubtedly" thrown around so confidently this way. A new book comes out about Simons and Renaissance, it enters the financial zeitgeist for a little while, and now everyone is apparently an expert on the firm's differentiating competency.

For what it's worth, what you're saying is contradicted by Nick Patterson. He did not say that Renaissance had access to clean data no one else did. What he said is that in the early days, they spent almost all their time cleaning the data. In any case, that's table stakes these days. All successful quant firms spend time sourcing exceptional data and ensuring it's as polished as possible.

[throwlaplace]

>It drives me nuts when I see words like "undoubtedly" thrown around so confidently this way

I see this very often on Reddit and here; someone reads a story and then behaves like they're suddenly a prophet whose job it is to inform the rest of us. On Reddit (because the threads are much bigger) I see this kind of repetition promulgation in the same thread. Here it's typically across threads (as you've noticed). I'll never understand what people get out seeming like an authority figure in a completely anonymous forum.