John Paulson was born to a middle class family in Queens, New York City. He went to a number of public schools and entered a program for gifted children. In his eighth grade he was already studying calculus, Shakespeare and other subjects intended for high school.
A bright mind with no direction or interest gets distracted. He entered New York University and his grades suffered due to loss of interest. His father sent him on a summer trip to South America and after spending time in his father’s native Ecuador Paulson felt the desire to go back to school.
Given his intellectual talents and new found drive he finished his schooling with straight A’s. With his academic record and a bit of business experience during his stay in South America, he was accepted at Harvard Business School. In 1980 Paulson graduated in the top 5 percent of his MBA class.
He worked for several financial firms and had enough money in 1994 to start his own business. Paulson & Co. started with $2 million in capital coming from himself, his family, and friends. He engaged in arbitrage and earned a lot of money.
What shot Paulson to fame was a one-time deal in 2007 where he shorted the real estate market using credit-default swaps. His firm earned $15 billion dollars, 20 percent of which went to the firm and Paulson. This is considered by many as the greatest trade that every happened in Wall Street.
Paulson continued to make gains from 2008 to 2010 and made news for buying expensive homes. Business was downhill in 2011. With his personal wealth valued at $12.5 billion in March 2012 it doesn’t seem like he’ll be poor any time soon.
Business Executives 
Posted on August 3, 2012
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