George Soros

A famous investor and hedge fund speculator. Born in Hungary in an Esperanto-speaking home, he fled to England and later the United States to escape Nazism. In 1970, he founded Soros Fund Management, which returned an average of 42.5% per year for the next 10 years. In 1992, he short sold more than $10 billion worth of British pounds, which forced the Bank of England to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and to devalue the pound. He is a noted critic of unfettered free enterprise and believes that reflexivity can change the fundamentals of an economy. See also: Black Wednesday.