Are there any billionaire (or 9 figure millionaire) hedge fund managers from a non-traditional background?
So for example. They didn't do the whole Ivy League to BB to HF and work their way up or lateraled.
Like managers that worked in a completely unrelated field and then got into hedge funds and investing. I know it's not unheard of in the Venture Capital field but I'm not sure about the Hedge Fund world.
I think David Tepper started from commercial banking.
But he was at Goldman Sachs for a decade or so.
Michael Burry
Went from medical resident to hedge fund manager
Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies. Mathematician who didn't go into finance/HF until he was in his late 30s, early 40s.
Also David Shaw of DE Shaw, who went a similar route. The most common examples you're looking for are probably with quant funds.
Successful hedge fund managers have taken all kinds of routes to get to where they are today. There isn't just one route. But the most interesting thing to note here is that whichever route they took, the experiences and skills they gained in those routes defined their investment strategies.
Gordon Gekko
Not bad for a Citi college boy.
Icahn, dalio and Bobby fucking axelrod
would give banana if i could, hilarious lol
Bobby Axelrod the GOAT
Soros, Dalio, PTJ, Bacon, Englander....
Shrkeli
Alan Fournier
Wesley Edens - co-founder of Fortress Investment Group: went to OSU (in Oregon)
Chinh Chu - former Blackstone partner: went to University of Buffalo???; referenced in the book King's of Capital
Two investments he sourced in chemical companies during the early 00s were home runs that generated something like $1.8 billion in profits.
Both worked in banking though.
Bonderman too, but he's pretty old. Went to Univ. of Washington then law school at Harvard (I think)
didn't see this was just referencing HFs.
If the answer is no, does that change your mind about what you want to do?
Nope. Not interested in the hedge fund field, I was just curious after watching Billions haha.
Axe is an inspiration to us all haha
All of these answers are technically correct but don't really answer the intent of the question. The above mentioned people got onto Wall Street at a time when there was no standard "traditional" background.
I'd be much more interested to see if anyone could name successful HF managers from a "non-traditional" background that graduated Undergrad post-2000 (or even post-1995).
you aren't going to find many billionaires (or 100 millionaires) who graduated post 2000 from any background just because they aren't old enough yet...grad in 2000 puts you at about 38-39 years old.
The only name that comes to mind is Chase Coleman (I think someone has mentioned him already)...
He also went straight to Tiger after graduating in '97, and then in '00 got $25 million in seed funding from Julian Robertson.
Might not have gone down the "traditional" path, but he definitely enjoyed a privileged head start.
Tbh I think there are still a number of backgrounds today. Would you consider chase coleman "traditional?" No BB, straight to Tiger after Williams.
It's PE, but David Rubenstein was a lawyer.
I know this question is just for fun, but it's kind of framed in a confusing way, IMO.
Basically you're asking if someone was just given money to invest without any sort of background in investing. Now, certainly some folks paid more dues in the industry than others, but to just suddenly be given the reins to an investment vehicle without a relevant skill set - well, that's pretty impractical.
Besides, your $XXX,XXX,XXX threshold is pretty high!
I know I framed it a bit high and probably shouldn't make the $$$ threshold so high. I just wanted to know if any hyper successful hedge fund managers that maybe started off not in finance (like law, policy, etc) and ended up getting the finance bug.
Keep in mind, for all of the people listed on this thread - the financial industry, particularly hedge funds, was booming during their respective careers. The financial and hedge fund industries will likely be in secular decline during your career - the result of low (prospective) returns, financial repression, regulation, etc. - so it's not a valid comparison to today. If that's what you're looking for (a source of inspiration). But if 9 figure millionaire or billionaire is your goal, then you're destined to have a meaningless life regardless.
I know an ex-HF PM who played a professional sport before going to finance. Nowhere near 9 figures though.
Anne Dias-Griffin... Georgetown to various foreign policy roles. Gets pretty traditional after that though; Goldman to Fido to Soros to Viking to her own start-up HF. I'm guessing she's a billionaire although tough to know what she'd be worth without Kenny G...
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