John Paulson is the president and chief investment officer of investment firm Paulson & Co. He became famous in 2008 when his company made about $4 billion betting against the subprime mortgage market, profiting from its collapse.
He worked for Bear, Stearns & Co as a fixed-income analyst from 1983 to 1985; then, he joined Salomon Brothers Inc., first as a 24-year-old bond trader and then as the youngest executive managing director at the firm before being fired amidst an insider trading scandal in 1997.
He founded Paulson & Co. in 1999 with the financial backing of J. Tomlin & Co., which helped him establish a traders’ hedge fund at Goldman Sachs before investing in the mortgage securities market.
In 2000, Paulson invested $4 million in the Spring Valley Water Company, which went bankrupt in 2003. As of 2018, it has been reported that Paulson’s wealth is estimated to be around US$21 billion.
He is a self-made billionaire. He worked in the fixed income department at Goldman for about 20 years, then left and set up his hedge fund.
Business Insider – John Paulson became a well-known hedge fund manager in 2007 when he was forced to make an enormous bet on subprime mortgage bonds. The wager paid off well. According to Forbes, Paulson’s funds made $15 billion and earned him a fortune of $3.7 billion. He continued to make money one year later when he bet against the housing market and the U.S. stock market in 2007, according to a spokesperson for Paulson & Co., Paulson’s hedge fund based out of New York City.