Great philanthropists often follow a simple formula: 1) make billions of dollars in ways that stir controversy and occasional outpourings of ire; 2) give much of it away to marble-plaqued institutions like colleges and libraries so that public revulsion gradually melts into reverence.
George Soros got the first part right. As a detached and mysterious currency speculator, he made billions by moving markets in a manner that made him a whipping boy for besieged bankers and ministers. In one famous week in 1992, he made $1 billion betting against the British pound, earning him the grudging title of the Man Who Broke the Bank of England. This summer Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused him of being a criminal. He said Soros the speculator had attacked Southeast Asian currencies to punish their governments for admitting the Burmese military regime--which Soros the humanitarian opposes--to asean, a regional political and trade organization.
Now Soros is gleefully flouting the script for Act II. With a unique and astonishing passion for challenging conventional wisdom, he is leveraging his billions to move controversial ideas and speculate in policy. In the process, he has made himself the most influential, intriguing and to some the most infuriating philanthropist of our era. Says he: "When I was offered an honorary degree at Oxford, they asked me how I wanted to be described, and I said I would like to be called a financial, philanthropic and philosophical speculator."
Initially, he focused his philanthropic speculation on Central and Eastern Europe. A survivor of the Holocaust and communism, he spread hundreds of millions of dollars to support democracy in countries struggling to break from the old Soviet orbit. In the waning years of the cold war, he bought photocopiers for his native Hungary so the communists couldn't monopolize information. Later, with Russia adrift, he spent $100 million to help Soviet science, and scientists, survive the transition. In Yugoslavia he was outraged by what he perceived to be the pusillanimity of the West, so he doled out $50 million to try to save Sarajevo from Serb depredations. He has spent millions more funding Open Society foundations around the world, which finance education, freedom of speech and human-rights projects.
He is now turning his attention to the U.S., his adopted country. The reason? The good guys won abroad; there's work to do at home. The collapse of the Soviet Empire, he says with typical forthrightness, "was a historical opportunity, and I rose to the occasion, so there was no time for any other activity. When things calmed down, I had the opportunity to start thinking about what could be done here."