Jim Simons was a mathematician who worked at the frontiers between mathematics and physics, and went on to become a wealthy investor, using his skills developed as a pure mathematician to become a very successful financier. (This is a reasonably common career path, though you wouldn’t know it from the propaganda put out by business schools!)
He appears here this morning because Ian Leslie’s newsletter reminded me a of great quote by Simons; it’s not a bad guiding principle for a cryptanalyst or cipher challenge team:
“Getting the right kind of people, and approaching the problem, and doing it right … it’s a beautiful thing to do something right.”