George Soros was born in Hungary in the year 1930. Growing up during the rise of European fascism, his family was often targeted in anti-Semitic pogroms taking place throughout the Hungarian countryside. His father had the perspicacity to see what was coming and decided to uproot his family and move them away from their homeland. This would prove to be a propitious decision, as Soros’ extended relatives were carted away to Nazi death camps, some never being seen again.
This brush with extreme nationalism had a formative effect on the young Soros’ intellectual development. It instilled in him a deep desire to divine the causes of governments impinging on the rights of citizens and curtailing fundamental freedoms. This would become a driving force throughout his life, providing the impetus for much of his philanthropic work in his later years.
Soros decided in his teens that he would like to pursue a career in philosophy. He enrolled to and was accepted at Oxford University, where he studied under famed philosophy professor Karl Popper. Popper was perhaps most famous for his seminal work “The Open Society and Its Enemies”. This book would have a major effect on Soros’ philosophical development. He later named his flagship philanthropic vehicle after the book’s title, the Open Society Foundations. Learn more about George at Biography.
After studying for approximately six years, Soros graduated with a master’s degree in philosophy. However, upon graduation he found it difficult to land suitable employment that used his academic credentials in a meaningful way. He drifted about the English countryside, working a series of menial jobs including door to door salesman and clerical work. After this relative low point in his life, he decided to apply to a number of Wall Street firms at the behest of a college friend.
Soros was amazed by how quickly he was hired, having few credentials that would make him a suitable candidate for working at a major Wall Street trading firm. Ironically, during this period, most of his coworkers would describe Soros as being detached from his work duties and not the best of employees. It seemed to everyone that he was still clinging to the idea of living the life of the mind. Soros was far more interested in expanding on his own philosophical treatises than attending to the mundane work required by his string of Wall Street trading jobs.
Nevertheless, by the year 1972, George Soros was at the helm of his own hedge fund. This was the first iteration of what would become one of the most successful hedge funds in history of the markets. Soros Fund Management would ultimately end up returning over 25 percent per annum over a 40 year period. This track record would propel George Soros to the apex of the trading industry. Visit projectsyndicate.com to know more about George.