Most of us have daydreamed about making a billion dollars over the course of our working lives. George Soros managed it in just a single notorious day in 1992. The Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist is widely regarded as one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the world, and he’s got the bank statements to prove it. Business magazine Forbes estimates that Soros is worth more than $8 billion – and that’s after giving away more than $32 billion to worthy causes 😮

Soros was born in Budapest in 1930. After surviving the Nazi occupation of Hungary, he headed to the UK, studying philosophy at the London School of Economics under influential thinker Karl Popper – whose teachings, as we’ll see, shaped Soros’s approach to investing along with much of his broader worldview.

Like many a burned-out philosopher, Soros then embarked upon a career in investment banking, emigrating to the US in 1956. He subsequently spent time at several New York financial firms before launching his own hedge fund setup, Soros Fund Management, in 1969. The company’s flagship Quantum Fund became well known for its aggressive investment strategy and consistently high returns for its investors. Successful short-term speculations on global financial market movements made Soros himself a lot of money – and a formidable reputation 🧐

Soros began to step back from the day-to-day management of Quantum around the turn of the millennium, instead focusing his time and money on philanthropy. Inspired by Karl Popper’s belief in strong democracies as the best bulwark against totalitarianism, Soros had begun to establish the network now known as Open Society Foundations in the early 1980s. Today, this group’s billion-dollar annual budget funds grants to civil society groups all over the world, aimed at the promotion of tolerance, transparency, and free debate ✨