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Fleeing Hungary, Soros and his brother ended up in Britain in 1947. George enrolled at the London School of Economics, where, from philosopher Karl Popper, he learned about the links between communism and fascism and the importance of "open societies." The lessons stuck with Soros and now underpin his efforts on behalf of the part of Europe that bore the brunt of both repressive isms and where, he fears, freedom may be at risk if economic and political chaos provokes a return to authoritarian rule. "There are two reasons why I support open societies," he explains. "One is the possibility of actually having an impact, of turning a tragic situation around; and the other, because, simply, history has no end. People may see a black hole where Yugoslavia once was, but in the future those people will survive, and some form of organization will emerge. What we preserve or support now will have a chance later on."
Ivan Berend, a former president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and now a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, describes Soros as a "man on a mission," an heir to the powerful East European tradition of intellectuals guiding a political transformation. "He has become consumed with making a difference," says Berend, former head of the Soros Foundation in Hungary.
Soros can afford to make a difference in the East because he makes money in the West. Lots of it. His personal wealth is estimated at $1 billion, and as the founder and manager of the Quantum Fund -- in effect a series of funds speculating in commodities, currencies, stocks, bonds and sophisticated financial instruments -- he is the brains behind one of the most successful investment vehicles ever created. Fund equity has increased about 400% since 1988. In 1981 Institutional Investor magazine crowned the former L.S.E. philosophy student "the world's greatest money manager."
Deserved as it was, it took Soros a long time to acquire the title. After university he pursued a relatively lackluster career in the City of London and on Wall Street until 1969 when, with partner Jim Rogers and $250,000 in capital, he set up an offshore investment fund that he dubbed Quantum. The name, a tribute to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, was highly appropriate: Soros' investment philosophy is suffused with the belief that markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and that money is to be made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected. Thanks to his special brand of financial alchemy, he appears to have discovered a modern-day philosophers' stone, not for turning base metal to gold but for turning risk into reward. The original Quantum Fund has spawned several others, and Soros now manages $9 billion -- enough to move markets and make central bankers quake.