John Paulson

John Paulson is one of the most well-known hedge fund managers, having amassed his fortune from his investment in Goldman Sachs. In 2007, after real estate prices started to fall and the market collapsed, he again avoided financial ruin by shorting mortgage-backed securities for a profit that would eventually amount to over $4 billion. But that wasn’t enough for him, as Paulson shook the world again in 2009 by putting $2 billion into gold. He singlehandedly carried what was impossible with him throughout his career and is quoted as saying, “I’m always looking at areas where I’m not being given credit. I don’t just make money because it’s going up. I’m a contrarian.”

His Achievements and Accomplishments

While John Paulson earned relatively little from his hedge fund, John Paulson has quite a few accomplishments. Perhaps the most infamous is having successfully predicted the subprime mortgage collapse, earning him billions in profits. He was also featured in a documentary about flash crashes and high-frequency trading, stating, “We believe there is at least a 1 percent probability that we could close down the entire high-frequency trading market tomorrow.” After this, he reportedly called Goldman Sachs’ CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, and asked him to leave his firm: “All I wanted to know was whether Goldman’s legal department would send me a letter, which they did. If they had refused me, I wouldn’t have done it. We would have lost potentially a year or so, but we would’ve done something else. We were not going to let that happen.”

His Career Timeline

Graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Economics and Credit Theory & Corporate Finance. This was a pretty impressive feat as he transferred from Johns Hopkins University after only two years to a school whose graduates were notoriously successful CEOs and business leaders. Paulson graduated with honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the university’s top honor society. He then earned his M.B.A from Harvard Business School in 1974 and graduated with honors.

Paulson joined Goldman Sachs as a management trainee and worked to be a managing director by 1985. John Paulson was also named “Man of the Year” for Goldman in 1992. As part of Goldman’s joint ventures with Japanese banks to build facilities in Japan, he managed the Goldman Japan Securities Co. from 1988 to 1990.

John Paulson is one of the most well-known hedge fund managers, having amassed his fortune from his investment in Goldman Sachs. In 2007, after real estate prices started to fall and the market collapsed, he again avoided financial ruin by shorting mortgage-backed securities for a profit that would eventually amount to over $4 billion. But…