Ken Griffin is worth between $1.2 billion and $1.7 billion dollars.
Introduction
Ken Griffin founded the hedge fund Citadel to become very rich. He grew his fortune by being a savvy investor and trading in the stock market. Citadel has been very profitable for this investor. Citadel has a net worth of about $5 billion dollars. If you are on the verge of being wealthy, you might want to consider becoming an investor at Citadel.
As of July of 2022. Ken Griffin is now the second richest person in the world.
Early Life
He started his investment career with a $3,000 investment that earned him $20,000 in four months. After graduating from Harvard, Griffin worked for Merrill Lynch. In 1997, Griffin joined Morgan Stanley where he worked for four years before he began investing his own money.
During his first 2 years at Harvard, he started a hedge fund focused on convertible bond arbitrage. The fund was capitalized with $265,000 from his friends and family, including money from his grandmother.
Career
Frank Meyer, a former banker and an investor, provided Griffin with $100,000 to invest and gave him a 10 percent stake in the firm. After graduating from Harvard, Griffin made a 70 percent return on his investment with the firm.
In 1990, Griffin founded Citadel with US$4.6 million. By 1998, Citadel had grown to a team of more than 100 employees and US$1 billion in investment capital.
In 2006, Forbes magazine named Griffin the number four self-made billionaire in the world under the age of 40. In 2007, Griffin placed 5th in the Forbes ranking of Young America’s Richest People under the age of 40.
Citadel is one of the best places to work in the financial services sector. The company has implemented a collaborative work culture within the firm through various programs like the Fitness Center, the Free Lunch and Museums Tour. In addition to being one of the best places to work, Citadel has been recognized as a best place to work based on employee surveys.
As of July 2025, Ken Griffin’s net worth $29.8 Billion.
Highlights
Ken Griffin is a billionaire who owns and runs one of the largest publicly traded companies, Citadel Investment Group. He got in trouble when he bought up a bunch of private companies, borrowing the money he needed from the companies themselves. He then let the companies go bankrupt, using his cash to buy them back for pennies on the dollar. The SEC sued him, and found he had made $8 billion dollars while the companies were in trouble.
Favorite Quotes From Ken Griffin
A clear-cut message to talented people that it’s time to leave is a sad thing to see. The people who feel they are under-valued in their organizations are often the best people, and they’re talented, they’re smart, they do great work, but I’m not saying it’s because of their accent. I’m saying it’s because there’s no way to communicate with them. When people feel their contributions are not valued, they leave.
My advice to every student who is trying to decide for the years immediately after graduation:
Take the opportunities that in your mind are the most rewarding that you are most passionate about and find most interesting and save the rest of your life for being risk-averse. Whatever you want to do, this is the time to pursue it. Twenty years from now, your freedom to take risks will be limited.
Ken Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund manager who is looking to run for Illinois governor, said that people who are successful in business have the right attitude to succeed but they also need to be prepared to make the tough decisions.
“When you run a business, almost all politicians can have a great one-on-one meeting. But I’m not interested in the candidate who can have a great meeting. I’m interested in a person who can make the right decisions.”
Ken Griffin is a candidate for Illinois governor.
We’re subject to the same forces of capitalism that have built the entire American economy, and we have to develop our own ideas, get better, and move our ideas forward, or else we face extinction.
I love Ken Griffin’s analogy of a company that creates a product that directly or indirectly adversely impacts the health of people. It doesn’t matter if the company was negligent in producing that product. The company has a moral responsibility to the people if it manufactures anything, and must be held accountable.
3 Motivational Lessons From Ken Griffin
Ken Griffin’s net worth is now over $3.5 billion. He managed to grow it from $1.3 billion to $3.5 billion.
1. Start As Early As You Can
We have a few different ways to make money in the stock market. The most common of which is through buying a company’s stocks and other investing related activities. You will need to learn to trade stocks and keep track of the stock market trends. It won’t be easy, but you have to start somewhere.
2. Losses Are Inevitable
The loss that Griffin suffered and the other loss investors have made in the stock market, were not the main problems. The real problem faced by the investors was the inability to adapt to the loss of a part of their money and invest in other assets to recover.
3. Adapt To Change
When you start a career in investments, you will find that changing trends and changes are expected at all times. Adapting to change is very important if you want to succeed in the industry.
Summary
Citadel started as a family business. When Ken started at Citadel he had inherited the idea from his late father, who started his own brokerage company in the 1950’s.
As of July 2019, Tim Cook’s net worth is roughly $75.65 Billion.