John Paulson is an American hedge fund manager who founded Paulson & Co. in 1994. He became globally recognized for orchestrating what has been called the greatest trade in financial history: shorting the U.S. subprime mortgage market via credit default swaps ahead of the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
Before launching Paulson & Co., he began his career at Boston Consulting Group before moving to Odyssey Partners and Bear Stearns, where he was a managing director in mergers and acquisitions. His analytical rigor and insistence on forensic primary research became the hallmark of his investment methodology.