索罗斯等四位商界大亨的第一份工作

    乔治•索罗斯

    最初进入金融行业时，这位被称为“打垮英格兰银行的人”将自己的求职信递给伦敦每一家商业银行的每一位常务董事，最终获得Singer & Friedlander银行提供的一个入门职位。索罗斯对那段经历的描述是“孤独、绝望、郁闷”。他当时的想法是通过这份银行工作赚到足够多的钱（10万美元），然后就退休，专心做自己感兴趣的事。他在第一份工作中学会了如何赚钱，并成为个中高手。正如他所说：“我被卷入到赚钱的游戏当中。事情一件接一件，最终让我沉迷其中。”

    动用10亿美元操作的一次做空英镑的货币投机活动，让乔治•索罗斯在全世界尤其是金融领域闻名遐迩。他在一天内赚取的利润接近20亿美元。索罗斯不只为自己赚钱。他也是非常成功的量子基金的经理，该基金每年的回报率超过30%。

    索罗斯早已实现了当初赚钱的梦想，并且他终于认识到自己已经赚得足够多。索罗斯说道：“当我的个人财富达到3000万美元的时候，我在想我为什么还要继续赚钱？”1993年，索罗斯成立开放社会研究所，致力于全世界开放社会的发展，终于实现赚足够多的钱来追求个人兴趣爱好的愿望。截至目前，他的基金会已经捐款超过80亿美元，用于推动70个国家的人权、言论自由等进步事业。

    George Soros

    The man known for ‘breaking the bank of England’ got his start in the finance industry by writing to every managing director in every merchant bank in London until he was offered an entry level position by Singer & Friedlander. Having described that experience as “lonely, forlorn and…unhappy,” all Soros wanted to do from that bank job was make enough money to retire on ($100,000) so that he could devote his time to personal interests. He learned how to make money at that first job and became very good at it. As he says, “I got sucked in to making money. One thing led to another and I got caught in it.”

    George Soros is known around the world, especially in financial circles, for risking $10 billion on a single currency speculation shorting the British pound. In a single day, that trade generated a profit of nearly $2 billion. He didn’t make money only for himself. Soros also raked in returns of more than 30 percent per year as manager of the wildly successful Quantum Fund.

    While Soros more than fulfilled his initial ambition of making money, he ultimately reached a point where he felt he had made enough. “When my personal wealth was about $30 million,” Soros says, “I thought, why should I keep on making money?” Finally making good on his desire to make enough money to pursue personal interests, Soros founded the Open Society Institute in 1993, dedicating his efforts to the development of open societies around the world. To date, his foundation has given more than $8 billion to support the advancement of human rights, freedom of expression and more in 70 countries.