While the hedge fund industry may be mostly comprised of professionals from privileged upbringings, some of the world’s most successful hedge fund managers actually come from more humble beginnings. 
Hedge fund legends such as George Soros, Ray Dalio, and sibling duo Marc Lasry and Sonia Gardner are just some of the recognizable names in the industry from middle-class backgrounds who worked their way up the corporate ladder to become some of the most successful leaders in the financial world.
According to Soros’ official biography, the Hungary native and founder of New York-based Soros Fund Management, immigrated to England when he was 17 to attend the London School of Economics. His uncle paid his living expenses while he attended the business school. 
Nowdays, Soros, also known to many in the industry as “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England” for his $1 billion investment profit for his bet during the 1992 currency crisis that struck the United Kingdom, is one of the richest people in the world. He came in at No. 15 in this year Forbes’ 400 List of Richest Americans with a net worth of about $19 billion.
Bridgewater Associates founder Dalio runs one of the largest and most successful hedge funds in the world, but the Queens native grew up in the middle-class neighborhood of Jackson Heights. He also spent part of his childhood years catering to the needs of rich businessmen. 
According to Maneet Ahuja’s The Alpha Masters, Dalio, the son of a jazz musician and a homemaker, began caddying at the age of 12 at a Long Island golf club to make extra money. 
After earning his MBA from Harvard, Dalio decided to start his own firm at the age of 26 following a “drunken argument” with his boss on New Year’s Eve. Bridgewater launched in 1975 out of his Manhattan apartment, and today, the firm’s approximately 1,000 employees works out of the firm’s sprawling Connecticut office, managing approximately $120 billion in assets for its investors. Bridgewater also knocked out its competitors in 2011 by making its investors $13.8 billion in profit, which earned Dalio $3.9 billion that year.
Probably one of the best “rags-to-riches” stories in the industry is that of New York-based Avenue Capital Group duo Lasry and Gardner. As reported in the The Alpha Masters,the Morocco-born siblings arrived to the U.S. in 1966 with their parents and spoke no English, only French. Along with their younger sister, the family moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Connecticut. 
Scholarships and loans helped Lasry and Gardner get through college at Clark University in New Orleans. The summer before Lasry was supposed to start law school, he worked as a UPS driver and even considered abandoning his academic plans to work full-time as a truck driver because they “make a lot of money.” Fortunately, his wife deterred his plans and he eventually completed his law degree at the New York Law School. The years of studying paid off as Avenue Capital, founded in 1995, now manages about $12.7 billion in assets. 
A novice in comparison to some of the more established hedge fund managers, Adam Guren, the founder of New York-based hedge fund Hunting Hill Capital, is part of the newest wave of financial leaders who came from the 99%. He told eVestment|HFN that running a hedge fund in the bustling Big Apple was not something he envisioned as a kid growing up on a farm in Ohio. 
He also admitted that while most of the industry professionals he has met in his “limited experience” are from wealthy families, he insists that there are “ways to mitigate” over time the disadvantages for those with less connected backgrounds, as “friends from grad school and the people you meet over the years” become more successful and can act as contacts. 
Guren proclaimed to eVestment|HFN that he was lucky to have started his career at the trading firm First New York Securities where the “playing field was level regardless of age, background, experience or connections.”
The multi-billion hedge fund industry is a lucrative one and an intimidating one at that for anyone wanting to break in, but success in it is certainly achievable, no matter your status, through hard work and dedication. That’s the American Dream. 
Read George Soros’ official biography