From Buffett to Soros: Five investors who became legends

​Everyone loves a success story: books are written about them, movies are made about them, and the protagonists’ words are turned into famous quotes. The ability to manage money wisely and grow capital can sometimes seem almost like magic. But each of these investors took a very different path to legendary status.

When one good idea is not enough

The Economist recently explored what separates a truly great investor from thousands of professional money managers. One of its main examples was the events of September 1992, when Stanley Druckenmiller proposed to his then-boss George Soros that they sell $5.5 billion worth of British pounds and buy Deutsche marks. Druckenmiller believed the Bank of England would no longer be able to keep the pound within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

The proposed trade was already extreme: it would have put around 100% of Quantum Fund’s capital behind a single position. But Soros thought Druckenmiller was being too cautious and suggested increasing the position to roughly 200% of the fund’s capital using leverage. Britain was eventually forced to abandon its support for the pound, the currency plunged, and Quantum made around $1 billion on the trade. Soros subsequently became known as “the man who broke the Bank of England.”

Stories like this cannot be explained by market analysis alone. An investor has to spot an opportunity before others, be willing to put substantial capital behind it, survive periods when a strategy stops working, and quickly abandon an idea when necessary. These are the kinds of stories behind the five investors on our list.

Warren Buffett – 60 years against the market

Warren Buffett bought his first stocks at the age of 11 and took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965. Over the next six decades, he transformed the former textile company into an investment giant. From 1965 through 2025, the market value of one Berkshire share increased by an average of 19.7% per year. The cumulative gain over that period was around 6.1 million percent. At the end of 2025, Buffett stepped down as Berkshire’s CEO but remained chairman of the board.

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One of his best-known investments is Coca-Cola. By the end of 1998, Berkshire had spent around $1.3 billion building its stake in the beverage maker, while its market value had already reached $13.4 billion. Buffett’s portfolio has also included major stakes in American Express, Apple, Bank of America, and other companies over the years. Forbes currently estimates his net worth at around $144 billion, even though he has already donated more than $68 billion to charity during his lifetime.

George Soros – the investor who made risk his profession

By 1992, Soros had already been managing large amounts of capital for more than 20 years. He began managing client money in New York in 1969 and later created the Quantum Fund. Over three decades, the fund generated average annual returns of around 31%. Soros made large bets on currencies, stocks, bonds, and shifts in the global economy, often using leverage. In 2007, for example, he became actively involved in managing the fund again and earned around 32% as the financial crisis approached.

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By 2011, Soros Fund Management had around $25.5 billion under management. Soros then returned less than $1 billion to outside investors and converted the firm into a family office focused on managing his own wealth. Forbes currently estimates his net worth at around $7.5 billion, but that figure does not reflect everything he has earned: by 2018, Soros had transferred $18 billion to the Open Society Foundations. At certain points, his personal fortune exceeded $20 billion.

Stanley Druckenmiller – 30 years without a losing year

Druckenmiller is far less famous among the general public than Buffett or Soros, but his track record remains one of the most unusual in the investment industry. He managed Duquesne Capital from 1981 to 2010, generating annual returns of around 30% without recording a single losing calendar year. Even in 2008, when the average hedge fund lost almost 20%, Duquesne gained around 11%.

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In 2000, Druckenmiller left all of his other roles to focus exclusively on Duquesne Capital. Ten years later, he closed the fund and returned investors’ money; by then, it managed around $12 billion. Druckenmiller has since continued investing his own capital through the Duquesne Family Office. Forbes estimates his net worth at around $7.8 billion.

Ray Dalio – a fund born in a two-bedroom apartment

Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 from his two-bedroom apartment in New York. The firm landed its first major institutional client ten years later, when the World Bank entrusted it with $5 million to manage. Bridgewater eventually became the world’s largest hedge fund firm. Today, it manages around $92 billion, while Forbes estimates Dalio’s net worth at $15.4 billion.

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His career nearly ended before it had properly begun. After making a wrong call on the U.S. economy, Dalio lost his own money as well as clients’ funds and had to borrow $4,000 from his father to cover family expenses. Bridgewater later launched its flagship Pure Alpha strategy, which has returned an average of around 11.4% annually since its launch in 1991. In 2025 alone, the fund gained 33%.

Ken Griffin – from a Harvard dorm room to the Citadel empire

Ken Griffin started trading while he was still a student at Harvard. In 1987, he managed around $265,000 raised from relatives and acquaintances, and even installed a satellite dish on the roof of his dormitory to receive real-time market quotes. His short positions made money during the Black Monday market crash. In 1990, at the age of 22, Griffin launched what would become Citadel with just $4.6 million in capital.

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Today, Citadel describes itself as the most profitable hedge fund manager in history based on cumulative net gains. As of August 1, 2026, its investment capital had reached $77 billion, while Forbes estimates Griffin’s net worth at around $53 billion. The journey was not one of uninterrupted growth: during the 2008 financial crisis, Citadel’s flagship funds lost around 50%, only to rebound by approximately 62% the following year.

Why Elon Musk is not on the list

In terms of wealth, Elon Musk is far ahead of everyone on this list. Forbes currently estimates his net worth at around $872 billion, while in June 2026, following SpaceX’s IPO, it briefly exceeded $1 trillion, making Musk the first trillionaire in history.

However, Musk did not build most of his fortune through investing. He founded SpaceX himself, has led Tesla as CEO for decades, and much of his wealth comes from stakes in companies he created or helped build. Buffett, Soros, Druckenmiller, Dalio, and Griffin built their careers primarily around managing capital and selecting investments, while Musk’s story is first and foremost that of an entrepreneur who creates companies and retains large ownership stakes in them.

There is no single formula for success among these five legendary investors either. Buffett held strong companies for decades, Soros and Druckenmiller made large bets on market shifts, Dalio turned investing into a system, and Griffin focused on technology and scale. What unites them is not one strategy, but the ability to stick with their own approach for decades while also being willing to abandon it when the facts show they are wrong.