When MIT mathematician Jim Simmons founded Renaissance Technologies in 1988, it was unfathomable that computers driven by algorithms might outperform top Wall Street fund managers. Today, after a more than thirty year average return of 66% per annum, the Renaissance model of applying machine learning techniques to invest in a manner that is automated, dispassionate and performed with minimal human intervention is widely accepted. Quantitative finance, as it is dubbed, has profoundly reshaped the financial industry.