The head of $18 billion hedge fund Citadel began trading from his dorm room as a Harvard undergrad. Now recovered from a brutal credit-crisis thrashing, he just donated $150 million to his alma mater, the biggest gift in its history.
All In the Family
Born in 1968 in Daytona Beach, Florida. His grandfather had died five years prior, leaving behind a small oil company. Bankers descended with bids, but Griffin’s grandmother took over, learned the trade and years later sold out for “several times” those initial offers.
If The Short FITS …
Earns money repairing computers for IBM while a student at Boca Raton Community High At age 18 profitably shorts the Home Shopping Network after reading a Forbes article about the televised-retail operation.
Raising Funds, Trading Bonds
While majoring in economics at Harvard, pulls in $265,000 for his first fund from investors including his grandmother. Trades bonds via a computer program he wrote himself.
(This story appears in the 02 May, 2014 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)