The purpose of this article is to compile a list of some of the world’s greatest investors and money managers. We will also try to find what can we learn from them from what they have said or done before. I hope that you will learn a new thing or two, and if you find value in it, do share it with your friends.

1. Warren Buffett

I think it is apt to start with what many would agree that it is the world’s most well-known and famous investor, Warren Buffett. He is also commonly known as the “Oracle of Omaha” and is widely viewed as one of the most successful investors in history.

If you had invested $10,000 in Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, you would have made over $170 million today.

The interesting thing about Buffett is that he only invests in companies within what he called his circle of competence. This also means that he only invests in companies that he has high certainty about. He does not invest in companies that he does not know how the future of the company is likely going to be. It is common sense and yet, something that not many investor practices.

2. Benjamin Graham

Although Benjamin Graham is not as successful an investor as Warren Buffett, he is still an amazing money manager and educator. He also authored the legendary investing book called The Intelligent Investor (I wrote a summary of it here).

He is also recognized as the father of value investing. In which the foundational philosophy is that we must always invest with a margin of safety.

3. Peter Lynch

Image source: fidelity

Peter Lynch was the manager of Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990 in which the fund’s AUM great from $18 million to $14 billion. In those years, he achieved an annual average return of 29% – and beat the S&P 500 index in 11 out of the 13 years that he was a manager of the fund.

He is a proponent of investing in what we know. And he also encourages people to do Scuttlebut, which is to really spend the time to learn the products of the company we want to invest in by experiencing it ourselves or trying out the product ourselves.

4. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal

Image source: Techcrunch

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal is a well-known investor from Saudi Arabia. He was the founder of the Kingdom Holding Company and later made a bet in Citigroup’s predecessor Citicorp in the early 1990s to become the bank’s largest shareholder.

I’m a long-termer. I’m not a seller.” —Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal

During the great recession when many people sold their investments, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal holds. He understood that patience is required to be a great investor.

5. Philip Fisher

Philip started his investment firm Fisher & Company in 1931 and managed it until his retirement in 1999 at the age of 91.

He is a long-term growth investor. One example of this is the fact that he bought Motorola stock in 1955 and held it until his death in 2004.

His book, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits is a hit among many value investors and investors in general.

He focuses on two categories when analyzing investments: the management’s characteristics and the business’s characteristics.

6. Ray Dalio

Image source: CNBC

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates. He could be considered one of the best fund managers of all time that has returned most in absolute terms to investors – at around $45 billion.

Bridgewater Associates is also currently the biggest hedge fund in the world, managing around $150 billion in investor money.

“The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you’ll be.” – Ray Dalio

7. George Soros

Image source: World Economic Forum

George Soros is a legendary investor that shorted the British Pounds. Also known as the man who broke the Bank of England. That act netted him around $1 billion back in 1992.

“Outperforming the market with low volatility on a consistent basis is an impossibility. I outperformed the market for 30-odd years, but not with low volatility.” – George Soros

8. John Templeton

“The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.” – John Templeton

John is a pioneer of deep value investing – that is done through buying at the point of maximum pessimism.

He is commonly known as a diversified investor. An example of this is during the early times of WW2, there are stories that he bought all USD stocks trading below $1. Out of 104 of those stocks, 37 went bankrupt and the $10,000 he originally invested amounted to $40,000 after holding the stocks for around 4 years.

9. John C. Bogle

Image source: Fortune

John C. Bogle founded Vanguard and was their CEO until he retired.

He was well known for pioneering the idea and philosophy of low-fee index funds – which is also recommended by Warren Buffett for the majority of investors.

“Bogleheads” is a term used to refer to fans of John C. Bogle and his philosophy of not looking for the needle in the haystack, simply buy the haystack.

“The stock market is a giant distraction to the business of investing.” – John C. Bogle

10. John Pierpont Morgan

Image source: Bloomberg

J.P. Morgan is a famous banker and power broker back at a time where Andrew Carnegie was alive.

“Money equals business which equals power, all of which come from character and trust.” – John Pierpont Morgan

11. Charlie Munger

Image source: Forbes

Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett’s closest partner and right-hand man. Hs is also the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. A Billionaire in his own right.

Charlie is in my view, a very wise person and I have learned many things from reading his writings and quotes.

“The big money is not in the buying or selling, but in the waiting.” – Charlie Munger

“To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.” – Charlie Munger

12. Seth Klarman

Image source: Bloomberg

Seth is a billionaire investor, fund manager, and proponent of value investing. He founded the Baupost Group in 1982, a Boston-based private investment partnership.

“The single greatest edge an investor can have is a long-term orientation.” – Seth Klarman

13. Bill Gross

Image source: Bloomberg

Bill is the co-founder of PIMO and was the fund manager of PIMCO Total Return fund – one of the largest bond funds in the world. He was the CIO of PIMO before leaving back in 2014.

He is not known for being a big fan of diversification.

“Do you really like a particular stock? Put 10% or so of your portfolio on it. Make the idea count. Good [investment] ideas should not be diversified away into meaningless oblivion.” – Bill Gross

14. Dennis Gartman

Image source: Bloomberg

Dennis Gartman is the publisher of The Gartman Letter that was started back in 1987. It is a daily commentary of global capital markets that is delivered to hedge funds and trading firms around the world.

“Be patient with winning trades; be enormously impatient with losing trades. Remember it is quite possible to make large sums trading/investing if we are ‘right’ only 30% of the time, as long as our losses are small and our profits are large.” —Dennis Gartman

15. Bill Ackman

Image source: CNBC

Bill Ackman is a huge fan of Warren Buffett. He is a value investor at heart. In 2020, he scored a 70.2% return for his fund, Pershing Square Capital Management.

In 2020, he also made around 100 x return on a hedge that netted him $2.6 billion. As a result of that hedge, he was shielded from the huge market decline at that time.

“Investing is a business where you can look very silly for a long period of time before you are proven right.” – Bill Ackman

16. Guo Guangchang

Image source: Bloomberg

Guo Changchang is the chairman and co-founder of Fosun International Limited. As of 2021, he is worth around $7.4 billion.

He modeled himself after Warren Buffett by transforming Fosun into an insurance-focused investment group. He is also a representative of the 12th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

“You have to maintain the balance between fast growth and smooth growth. It’s like driving a car and knowing when to balance the gas pedal and the brake.” – Guo Guangchang

17. Joel Greenblatt

Image source: Forbes

Joel Greenblatt is a value investor, fund manager, and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He runs the Gotham Funds with his partner, Robert Goldstein.

“The secret to investing is to figure out the value of something – and then pay a lot less.” – Joel Greenblatt

“The strategy of putting all your eggs in one basket and watching that basket is less risky than you might think.” – Joel Greenblatt

18. Barry Diller

Image source: Bloomberg

Barry Diller was an early internet investor in companies such as Match.com and Vimeo. He is also the founder and chairman of IAC and chairman of Expedia group. He controls around 48% of Expedia’s voting power through supervoting stock – even though he owns less than 10% of Expedia’s shares outstanding.

Recently in May 2021, Barry Diller thinks that cryptocurrency is a con.

“We’re in a world now where it’s not enough to be smart. You have to be curious.: – Barry Diller

19. Michael Burry

Image source: CNN

Michael Burry is one of the main characters behind the movie The Big Short. His mentor and biggest investor at the time for Scion Capital also happened to be Gotham Capital, by Joel Greenblatt.

“Like most bubbles, the longer it goes on, the worse the crash will be.” – Michael Burry

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