# Have any mathmeticians ever become millionaires? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 14, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270 "2003-11-14T17:43:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2003, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/21 "2003-11-15T02:56:16Z")
How about $1.25 billion? If you haven’t already, read the book review in the post by **SpoilerVirgin** above. It briefly tells the story of LTCM, where three partners built a portfolio in that amount. And then proceeded to lose it. **SpoilerVirgin** mentioned one of the partners, but the other two, Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, are perhaps more famous. In addition to their LTCM ignominy, and their Nobel prize in Economics, they are also responsible for the Black-Scholes formula, a formula generally accepted as THE method of calculating the value of derivatives (like stock options). ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/22 "2003-11-15T06:42:19Z")
My friend of mine from high school’s father was a mathematics professor who started a software company. AFAIK he is worth many many millions now. I bet there are LOTS of stories like that. It may be that people who become wealthy through their mathematics skills just aren’t calling themselves mathematicians like they would if they were professor - they’re now some variant of engineers or CEO’s or analysts or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2003, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/23 "2003-11-15T06:43:44Z")
Well, My Dad, who has a PHD in Math(#1), is a millionaire. He made decent money at his day job(#2) but hit millionaire by investing. Math has very little to do with investing actually. Well, the math that is involved is certainly _not_ PHD level stuff. My Dad made/makes money by paying **ALOT** of attention to the market, companies and taxes. He does at least one or two hours of research a day but probably does more than that. That is just to keep his investments growing at a decent rate. He also goes to seminars from time to time and reads a bunch of investment publications. Slee #1. My Dad has a PHD in Math with a 4.0 GPA. His specialty was statistics #2. His day job was Nuclear Reactor Saftey Research ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/24 "2003-11-17T11:39:21Z")
The famous mathemetician **Ahmad Chalabi** was found guilty and convicted of [embezzling the Petra bank of over 150 million dollars.](http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s669316.htm) Looks like there is a good chance this man is a millionaire. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/25 "2003-11-17T14:36:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by World Eater \* > \*\*Damn you, I was just about to post this. > > I’m reading that book now, and Eckhardt is _the man_. \*\* I remember recommending this book to you a while back. Did you read volume 1 first? “Market Wizards” has to the best of the best while “The New Market Wizards” is a step or two down. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/26 "2003-11-17T18:15:01Z")
Well, how about those who could have made Money out of Math but [didn’t](http://www.hpl.hp.com/about/honors/HPfellows/lempel.html)? > [@](#): > > **Lempel** laughs at how he and **Ziv** never considered the potential remunerative aspects of their invention. “We got resolved to the idea that we were quite stupid for not making money off of it,” he says. “We did it as an intellectual exercise. We were anxious to publish and put it in the public domain.” Could (should?) have made **billions**! Dan Abarbanel ---
**Author:** ![LemonThrower](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@LemonThrower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LemonThrower)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/27 "2003-11-17T20:31:08Z")
LTCM is just the most famous of perhaps thousands of hedge funds. Not all hedge funds are based on mathematical algorithms, but many are. And LTCM did not end the popularity of hedge funds. Another mathematician that failed to get rich was the inventor of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet. He as an MBA professor at Harvard I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/28 "2016-06-17T23:48:10Z")
[James Harris “Jim” Simons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harris_Simons) (born 1938) is an American mathematician, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is a code breaker and studies pattern recognition.[4] Simons is the co-inventor, with Shiing-Shen Chern, of the Chern–Simons form - Chern and Simons (1974), and contributed to the development of string theory by providing a theoretical framework to combine geometry and topology with quantum field theory.[5] Simons was a professor of mathematics at Stony Brook University and was also the former chair of the Mathematics Department at Stony Brook. In 1982, Simons founded Renaissance Technologies, a private hedge fund investment company based in New York with over $25 billion under management. Simons retired at the end of 2009 as CEO of one of the world’s most successful hedge fund companies.[6] Simons’ net worth is estimated to be $14 billion.[1] ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/29 "2016-06-18T00:13:06Z")
There’s [Edward O. Thorp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_O._Thorp) who discovered the Counting method of winning at blackjack, who then made a bit of money at Los Vegas casinos before they all blackballed him for life. The wiki page seems to suggest that he made somewhere in the tens of thousands at this. No, not quite a millionaire, but . . . He then went into the stock market, using probability and statistics and analyzing whatever, where, according to Wiki, he “made a significant fortune”. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/30 "2016-06-18T00:25:38Z")
Ed Thorpe did not discover card counting, but he did publish some of the earliest rigorous studies of it. Here’s a [Numberphile interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVDqfUhXOY) with James Simons. He’s an interesting dude. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/31 "2016-06-18T01:09:00Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > [Isaac Newton](http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/newton.html), inventor of calculus and Newtonian mechanics, pulled in a few pounds from his work at the Royal mint: I don’t know exactly what £2000 in 1699 translate to in modern figures, but it’s quite a chunk of change. I was going to bring this up as well … pointing out that late 17th and early 18th Century England wasn’t as much a “money” economy like we see today. Much of the wealth was measured in prestige, appointments, titles, etc etc etc. **Sir** Issac Newton, **President** of the Royal Society … I think this qualifies him as rich. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/32 "2016-06-18T01:32:13Z")
What do you mean by a millionaire. I retired with a retirement account of $960,000 and I own a house with a valuation of $800,000. Some other savings of nearly $700,000. Add it up. Perleman did not collect his prize. He felt that having a million would make him attractive to kidnappers, etc., but could not buy enough protection, so he passed it up. That’s Russia under Putin. But no one now doubts that his solution is correct. I knew a grad student that I helped a bit with this thesis about 25 years ago. He got a PhD and started a software company and is now a multi-millionaire. And I know a founder of Sun Microsystems who got out early with a hundred million. Then there is Sergey Brin, who was really a mathematician although was a student in Stanford CS. Many billions now. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/33 "2016-06-18T01:41:31Z")
Just this year Andrew Wiles won the 600000 Euro Abel Prize for his proof of Fermat’s Theorem. If he wasn’t already a millionaire he may well be now. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/34 "2016-06-18T04:09:41Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > What do you mean by a millionaire. I retired with a retirement account of $960,000 and I own a house with a valuation of $800,000. Some other savings of nearly $700,000. Add it up … [snip] Are you a mathematician? I’m worth half that as a simple carpenter … the question is has anyone amassed such wealth as a mathematician, say a couple PhD’s. Not as easy as it looks … Kinda like how many Astronomers own their home? ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/35 "2016-06-18T07:48:49Z")
> [@NE\_Texan](#): > > **(Tongue firmly in cheek.)** well its perfectly true of course, its the motive for saying it at question. Well lets hope many senior maths teachers and professors have equity to the total of more than a million dollars… But I guess the OP meant above ordinary rich, Rolls Royce and holiday mansions on the ranch , grand cruiser tied up at the jetty and that sort of thing rich. A possible career for a mathematician to get rich, above trading (even trading analyst is repetive application of very basic maths … like +, -, average, top 10%, that sort of basic… ) or the teaching/professor paths, is actuary. These work at insurance companies to set the premiums, so that they don’t enter into contracts that mean an overall loss… I guess its kind of basic maths, but its er, the understanding of the various ways of measuring risk. Others give business advice, which is probably just the same sort of math dressed up - like a get rich quick scheme is dressed up… ( managers may be qualified in their field such as a business law or chemical engineering or something,BUT they do understand basic maths and the need to control risk. . the more objectively and deterministically - the opposite of guess work - the better… ) ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/36 "2016-06-18T09:32:14Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > [Isaac Newton](http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/newton.html), inventor of calculus and Newtonian mechanics, pulled in a few pounds from his work at the Royal mint: I don’t know exactly what £2000 in 1699 translate to in modern figures, but it’s quite a chunk of change. Not as much as you might think. According to [this website](http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/results.asp#mid) £2000 in 1670 would have been worth £156,180. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/37 "2016-06-18T09:48:42Z")
One interesting case is the reclusive, Joan Ginther who has won multi-million dollar lottery prizes at least 4 times and many lesser prizes. That seems unlikely until you learn that she also has a Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford. She won’t tell anyone how she is doing it but it is extremely likely she is just exploiting some flaw in the designs of some Texas lottery games. > **['Lucky' Woman Who Won Lottery Four Times Outed As Stanford University...](https://www.businessinsider.com/4-time-lottery-winner-not-exactly-lucky-2011-8)** That isn’t unheard of. Other savvy people have figured out how to beat other lotteries and casino games. This man learned how to exploit a bug in a popular Las Vegas video poker game for instance to win as much as he wanted. > **[Finding a Video Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich—Then Vegas Made Them Pay](https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cheating-video-poker/)** > > Michael Friberg John Kane was on a hell of a winning streak. On July 3, 2009, he walked alone into the high-limit room at the Silverton Casino in Las Vegas and sat down at a video poker machine called the Game King. Six minutes later the purple light... MIT is notorious for producing students that can beat supposed games of chance. The group that beat casinos at blackjack through elaborate card counting is well-known but there was another group that discovered that a Massachusetts lottery game actually offered positive odds under certain conditions. When that happened, it was only a matter of finding a way to buy enough tickets to ensure a large payout. > **[MIT students scammed Massachusetts State Lottery for $8 million: report](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mit-students-scammed-massachusetts-state-lottery-8-million-report-article-1.1128482)** > > Ten years after a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students and a professor famously took Las Vegas casinos to the cleaners ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/38 "2016-06-18T11:08:54Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Are you a mathematician? I’m worth half that as a simple carpenter … the question is has anyone amassed such wealth as a mathematician, say a couple PhD’s. Not as easy as it looks … > > Kinda like how many Astronomers own their home? Your last line mystifies me. Meaning? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/39 "2016-06-18T13:43:46Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Your last line mystifies me. > > Meaning? There’s very few jobs available for astronomers, better today but when I was in school there was about one job per year come available … one was kinda stuck teaching high school math with a degree majoring in astronomy. Figure a researcher gets a night on one of the Keck instruments … he’s going to bring his own people, grad students, interns and such. Not much need for a full time astronomer on staff at the observatory. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270/40 "2016-06-18T13:51:33Z")
Mathematical skill is of no value at all in playing the stock market. Being able to convince others that you have mathematical skill, however, is of great value. You can’t predict it any better than anyone else can, but you can gain enough influence over it to nudge it slightly in a way that favors you. EDIT: Of course the major observatories have full-time astronomers on staff. Who do you think shows the visiting researchers how to use the equipment? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-mathmeticians-ever-become-millionaires/213270.md?page=3)