Paul Soros, 1926–2013

last updated 8 January 2015

Paul Soros became a multi-millionaire by designing bulk ports for large cargo ships to load and unload, revolutionizing world shipping. But his wealth paled in comparison with that of his younger brother George, one of the world’s richest men. Naturally reticent, Paul became known as “the invisible Soros.”

Between the Nazis and the Soviets, Soros almost didn’t make it out of his native Hungary alive, said The New York Times. As a young man, he and his wealthy Jewish family “survived a year of terror” in occupied Budapest, posing as Christians to avoid being deported or killed. But when Soviet forces defeated the Germans, they accused Paul of being an SS officer and forced him to march east to be tried as a prisoner of war. Soros managed to escape and returned to Budapest. A naturally talented sportsman, he skied competitively for Hungary and later became Austria’s No. 2 tennis player. In 1948, he immigrated to the U.S. on a student visa, escaping Soviet clutches for good.

Soros became a sales engineer at conveyor manufacturer Hewitt Robins after attending college, said the Associated Press, and soon worked his way up the ladder to be offered the chance to run the firm’s Amsterdam office. He turned it down, and instead set up Soros Associates. “Not that being a big shot in Europe is a hardship prospect,” he later wrote in an unpublished memoir, “but I knew that if I did not try the alternative, all my life it would bug me—‘what if?’” The risk paid off, with the firm now active in 91 countries. “I was lucky to survive,” Soros once said. “The rest was relatively easy.”