John Paulson is an American financier who made a fortune by betting against the real estate bubble. He is currently the founder and president of Paulson & Co., a New York-based hedge fund firm. Before he started his firm, he worked for Goldman Sachs, where he was one of the top earners in 2006 with a salary of $54 million. He received $3.7 billion personally from his firm’s 2007 profits and has been called “the man who broke Wall Street” by Business Week magazine.
Paulson is famous for making approximately $15 billion by betting against subprime mortgages in 2007, as well as for being featured on the front cover of Time magazine with the headline “The Man Who Crashed The World”. He has also been called “the Oracle of New York” because of his success in betting against subprime mortgages before the housing market collapsed. In 2008, Forbes ranked him as one of America’s richest citizens, with a net worth estimated at $4 billion. As of March 2009, Forbes estimated his net worth at $10 billion, making him the 165th richest person in America and #34 in the world (Paulson himself was listed as #53). However, as of December 2009, he had dropped out of both lists due to losses since then on some investments; still, he will likely remain among the 100 richest Americans even if not among the top 50 or so.
John Paulson was educated at Harvard, where he gained a BA in Economics in 1985. He then went to the London School of Economics, where he gained an MSc in Economic Policy and Planning. He also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989. Paulson’s first job after graduating from Harvard was with Goldman Sachs as a bond salesman. He subsequently worked for the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions department and became a partner of the company in 1994. In 1999 he left Goldman Sachs to set up his hedge fund, Paulson & Co., through which he made his name by betting against subprime mortgages. Paulson is married to Jenny Lee; they have two children together – James and Laura. The family lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.