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Applied Philosophy
Readers who explore biographies to gain
insight into human nature will enjoy reading Michael T. Kaufman’s presentation
of Soros:
The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire. Kaufman presents enough
about Soros’ formative years to provide a foundation to explore how Soros
became a successful fund manager and a dedicated philanthropist. If you’re
approaching this book for insight into how Soros became successful and why,
there are as many questions as answers in this book. Here’s a passage that
explores a few perspectives:
“In the
mid-seventies, Soros shunned newspaper interviews, was rarely cited in the
financial press, and was never profiled. Still, smong Wall Street insiders
his record of success was attracting interest and fascination.
Questions that began to be asked at that time have echoed and intensified
over the next two decades as investors and ordinary citizens have sought to
discover what accounted for Soros’s remarkable record. Did the key lie in the
information he was able to glean, in his analytical skills, in the level of
his desire – or was it hard towk and an uncanny streak of good luck? What
were his most valuable attributes? Some who observed him even wondered
whether he was a genius, one of those prodigiously talented people such as
Mozart or Michael Jordan, whose achievements defy simple explanations.
Being analytical and extremely self-critical, Soros, too, has reviewed his
past looking for explanations for his success. At various times he has cited
his father’s tutelage, the experience of wartime risk, the postwar black
market, and, of course, the transference of abstract philosophical concepts
to financial markets. In his books, notably The Alchemy of Finance, he
has documented money-making ventures as ‘real-time experiments,’ recording
each step as if it were a laboratory procedure. But when his closest
associates – those who have watched him operate for the longest time and from
the closest vantage points – describe his special abilities, they stress that
what sets him apart is not science so much as art – not pure rationality, but
hard-to-grasp qualities of intuition. Robert Soros once observed:
’My father will sit down and give you theories to explain why he does this or
that. But I remember seeing it as a kid and thinking, Jesus Christ, at least
half of this is bullshit. I mean, you know the reason he changes his position
on the market or whatever is because his back starts killing him. It has
nothing to do with reason. He literally goes into a spasm, and it’s this
early warning sign.
If you’re around him a long time, you realize that to a large extent he is
driven by temperament. But he is always trying to rationalize what are
basically his emotions. And he is living in a constant state of not exactly
denial, but rationalization of his emotional state. And it’s very funny.’”
All his life, Soros tried to apply a
philosophy that he was also refining and defining. Kaufman takes readers on a
journey that observes and explores this complicated man, and creates the
image of a complex and complicated character. Read Soros
and scratch the surface about one of the most intriguing characters of our
time.
Steve Hopkins, September 10, 2002
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ă 2002 Hopkins and Company, LLC
The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the October 2002
issue of Executive
Times
For
Reprint Permission, Contact:
Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302
Phone: 708-466-4650 • Fax: 708-386-8687
E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com
www.hopkinsandcompany.com
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