Customer Reviews

Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The book basically divides Soros' life into three phases:
1. Childhood survival against the Nazis in Hungary during WW II
2. Financial successes and philosophical failures
3. Philanthropy

What I found puzzling is how much of the text was spent on Soros' philanthropic activities. They deserve a significant portion of the text, but well over half of the text is devoted to this. I would have been interested, for example, in seeing some experts from Soros "Burden", and trying to understand a bit better what issues Soros was trying to describe in his own book, but could not.

Having said all this, this was a well researched, well written, well referenced biography. This is not a trading book, and those seeking trading advice should look elsewhere.

This book has been an amazing trip for me. Just reading about his work in creating the "Open Society" foundations in various "Iron Curtain" countries was tantalizing enough for me to want to get all the books he has written and read everything. In the chapter entitled "Hungary" Mr. Soros' country of birth, the author discusses how amazed the people involved in setting up his "Open Society" foundations were when he simply puchased copy machines and had them shipped from the U.S. and installed in open areas of educational and public institutions. People had never before been able to copy and share information. Not even their own love letters and recipes. What wasn't implicitly legal in Hungary was, therefore, illegal. It makes one realize the importance of information in a free and open society. This is a very well done biography and shows Mr. Soros as a great human being.. warts and all. A very good read.

Soros is an enigma, and you'd expect to know more about this man when you bought this book. Indeed, you would, this book gives you a clear history of this man, from his childhood to his vision to his philantrophic reasons.

However, if you buy a book on Soros, you'd probably want to know a lot about what made Soros famous in the first day: The Black Wednesday, in which Soros gambled on the depreciation of British Poundsterling against the Bank of England and won US$1 billion, making his known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England."

Unfortunately, there is only a short chapter on this, even though I would bet people would be more curious on this than Soros's childhood days.

The author also speculated that the Queen of England profitted from the loss of the Bank of England, but it sounds more like a rumor because he could not confirm if there was some truth in it.

Anyway, this book is still good if you want to know abot Soros, but moves very slowly.

Although this book is lacking on investment/trading ideas, I feel that by reading it, invaluable lessons can be learnt that will help one become a better trader/investor. No doubt George Soros is the greatest money manager in the world, but do you think it is his investment ideas and analysis that gives him the edge over others? No! It is his personality, and this book gives you an insight look into the character of this amazing man. If you wanna know how this man can bet billions against the Bank of England and still be able to sleep at night, read this book.

Critical elements of George Soros' personality as the world's greatest trader:
1. Believe in your own fallibility. To put it in another words, be humble and always believe that you can be wrong and when that happens, don't hesitate to change your stance. You will be surprised how this man can change his mind with such ease, in all aspects of his life, just so long as there is a reason for it. It is his central philosophy in life to believe in his own fallibility, therefore, he is so self-critical.

2. The ability to compartmentalize. Which means this man has an extremely high EQ. As a trader, it is important not to let your personal affairs affect your trading performance, as mental concentration is of utmost importance. Soros has shown this trait throughout the book where he can immerse himself into his million dollar philantrophic activities just minutes after losing a couple of millions in a trade. Perhaps this man is so rational that he is devoid of emotions?

3. The ability to take risk. A life that is always on the edge and full of uncertainty is not something that everybody can live with, much less excel in it. But hey, this man survived the holocaust through his childhood living on the edge of life and death. What's so big deal about money? Personally, I feel without the experience of his childhood, he will not be what he is today.

4. Competitive intensity. As a trader, you make what you deserve, and when you are wrong, you pay for it. If you are not one who embrace free competition, you can't be a trader. And this man likes competition so much that he will hire expert tennis players to play with him. In terms of money managing, his desire to achieve maximum returns is a crucial factor. And mind you, it is not greed that we are talking about, it is the desire to compete and be challenged.

5. Intuition. Some say George Soros has strong survival instinct. One example is how his back aches serves as a warning about a position in a portfolio. Is it trading intuition at the highest level?

An extraordinary man indeed!

If you want a quick and easy broad overview of Soros then this is your book, but I would recommend Soros on Soros as being more useful at understanding the man.

Also if you're a trader, don't even waste your time on this book. Get Alchemy of finance. This book is a fairly quick read but as you can imagine with a man like Soros, any authorised book is going to be mostly flattery.

But it has it's amusing moments and some good pictures. I wouldn't pay more than $5 though for it. Then you can chuck it like a magazine when you're done.

If you have read any of Chernow's biographies, such as JP Morgan or Rockefeller, and love history, then read this book. This is not a book to learn how Soros invests.

This is not a book that will teach you about fixed income, equities, derivatives, or how to hedge. If you want to sell short...go to the finance section of Amazon and buy a finance book.

This is a brilliant biography about George Soros. You learn about his life, how he grew up, where he went to school. How his character was formed...the events that helped form his work ethic, his philosophy about world markets and peak into how he may think.

You aren't going to get under the hood of his brain, but you will get to the core of what matters to this famous man and why. Brilliantly done!

This is a merely average biography written about a truly exceptional human being.

I find it strange that a book about the `Greatest Money Manager of All Time,' contains hardly any deep insight into his investment methodology.

A few rather simplistic observations are made however.

Most striking is his concept of reflexivity. Many majority investment gurus that I have encountered are characterised by extreme, even delusional confidence in their own opinions. Soros provides a refreshing contrast. He is obsessive about his own fallibility, with a rare ability when needed to suddenly detach himself from prior opinions. He will follow them fanatically as far as they will lead him, and casually dismiss them upon their expiration.

The raw personality of Soros is enough to just about earn this four stars. That said, I feel that the subject probably deserved better.

In this refreshing biography, Soros comes out as an open-minded person, extremely focused and honest, with a child-like-curiosity. His childhood insecurities, emanating from the trying times during WWII, seems to have had, both, positive and negative impact on him. Positive as it enabled him to not get caught in status quo and negative for it left a psychological scar, which troubled him, throughout his adult life.


The key principle on which he seems to have built upon his latticework of mental models is his theory of fallibility (ie) there is no absolute truth, only informed guesses to be made, which are fallible as variables in the system change. Consequently, comprehending change is an integral element in his decision-making process. No wonder, he is known for his quick 360 degree turns.

I have fallen in love with Soros' theory as explained in this book using some of his own words. So much so, that for a moment I ran through my core beliefs and checked it for fallibility and they were not absolute truths but conjectures based on my experiences and pre-conceived notions. Contrary to making me fall vulnerable, it made me feel ripe for building upon my understanding of things around me.

I have already read this book a couple of times and I shall pick up this book every now and then and run through some of my favorite sections in the book. I cannot recommend this book enough, particularly the first part pertaining his early life and work.

In going over this book, I came across many experiences of my own family going through the same period of WWII. I find the personality of Soros utterly fascinating, and can well understand why in the context of US culture, a man of this type is so little understood.

What comes across is that people will only pay attention when there is money involved and when there is a lot of it, all the more. The fact that Soros has actually made substantial contributions to society are appreciated mainly because of the back drop of "money bags", rather than the intrinsic nature of his efforts. Sad to say, but that is what comes across clearly, in this very well written book.

The narrative is good, the substance is highly entertaining, I enjoyed every minute of it.

I was disappointed. Even if you do want a book about Soros' personal life, the presentation was boring. It was doubly boring for me because I was hoping to learn something about his financial history. There is Shamefully little of that in there. Even the 1/3 of the book entitled "Making Money" was not about that. There are enough uncritical biographies written about his personal life. When is someone going to write a critical account of his financial history? That is the interesting part. There is the story. Too much about his philanthropy.