The survivor
March 29, 2007
As a sickly child in a family of 11 growing up in near-famine conditions during the Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong, Matthew Li was not expected to survive. Now he sits atop a $1.8 billion hedge fund complex that he runs from a Park Avenue address overlooking the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
Mathematics propelled Matthew Li out of poverty in China - and made Fore a top-performing convert player.
By Eric Baum
As a sickly child in a family of 11 growing up in near-famine conditions during the Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong, Matthew Li wasn't expected to survive. He did so by eating tree leaves at his family's farm in a small village near Dalian. "People were surprised that I lived," says Li. "They thought that I would either be dead by malnutrition or disease or an accident. None of that would be considered abnormal."
But Li not only survived; he thrived. Now 42 - with deep lines on his face the only hint of his difficult upbringing - Li sits atop a $1.8 billion hedge fund complex that he runs from a Park Avenue address overlooking the skyscrapers of Manhattan. In fact, he's also a survivor of another kind - this...
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