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John Paulson Fast Facts

Here's a look at the life of John Paulson, hedge fund manager and founder of Paulson & Co.

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(CNN) — Here's a look at the life of John Paulson, hedge fund manager and founder of Paulson & Co.

Personal: Birth date: December 14, 1955

Birth place: Queens, New York

Birth name: John Alfred Paulson

Father: Alfred Paulson

Mother: Jacqueline (Boklan) Paulson

Marriage: Jenny (Zaharia) Paulson (2000-present)

Children: Giselle; Danielle

Education: New York University, B.S., Finance, 1978; Harvard Business School, M.B.A., 1980

Other Facts: Hedge fund manager and self-made billionaire.

Founder, president and portfolio manager, Paulson & Company, Inc.

Became a billionaire in 2007 by shorting subprime mortgage securities after the housing crash.

Timeline: 1980-1982 - Consultant, Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm.

1982-1984 - Associate with Odyssey Partners.

1984-1988 - Managing director of mergers and acquisitions, Bear Stearns Companies, Inc.

1988-1994 - General partner with arbitrage firm Gruss Partners.

July 1994 - Paulson & Company, Inc. is established.

2009 - Paulson's ability to foresee financial crisis and profit from the 2007 housing market crash is explained in Greg Zuckerman's book, "The Greatest Trade Ever Made."

2009-2011 - Paulson's charitable donations include $15 million to the Center for Responsible Lending, $20 Million to New York University's Stern School of Business and $15 million to build a maternity hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador, his father's homeland.

2010 - Paulson's $4.9 billion take home salary sets a record for hedge fund industry earnings.

2011 - His fortune declines by $3 billion in 2011 after making bad trades. Paulson invests personal wealth in gold and earns $3.1 billion from 2010-2011.

October 23, 2012 - Donates $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy.

June 3, 2015 - Harvard announces that Paulson is donating $400 million to endow the engineering school, which will be renamed the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. It is the largest gift in Harvard University's history.

August 5, 2016 - Is announced as one of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's economic advisers. Trump is elected president on November 8, 2016.

March 2017 - Forbes names Paulson, with a net worth of $7.9 billion, tied for number 170 on its annual World's Billionaires list.

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