A hugely successful energy trader, Arnold once worked. Yet the foundation is also focused on reforming what the Arnolds see as a broken public pension systema project that, in practice, usually means cutting payments to retirees, raising retirement ages, and switching new workers to 401(k)-style plans. John Arnold, a former Enron trader and hedge fund honcho known as the "king of natural gas", . Philanthropist John Arnold is pictured in this photo provided by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation on July 10, 2018. . Of 1,576 researchers who responded to a recent online survey from Nature, more than half agreed there is a significant crisis of reproducibility. And then, after a couple of years, people were like, oh, no, hes actually like that.. . Nosek is also still campaigning to convince researchers to preregister what they plan to analyze and report in a study, so that they cant adjust their experiment on the fly or hide less-than-dazzling resultsa problem that Goldacre is also tackling. Those were the early days of the internet, and he managed to gain access to an online bulletin board intended only for card dealers. His mother later would work as an accountant at Centaurus. Rank: 590. Yellen warned inaction could have wide-ranging financial repercussions, including on taxpayers and the federal governments credit rating. In the 1830s, French writer Alexis de Tocqueville famously compared Americans penchant for civic association with that of France and England: Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.. W hen former Enron trader and billionaire hedge-fund manager John Arnold and his wife, Laura, announced plans to donate 5 percent of their net worth to charity every year, they may have. [35], In 2019, the organization was transformed into a limited-liability company composed of the former foundation, a donor-advised fund, and the Action Now Initiative advocacy organization, effectively combining philanthropy, research, policy, and advocacy efforts. CRC respects confidentiality and will not share your e-mail address. [32], In October 2018, it was reported that Arnold had spent more than $100 million in health-care related grants since 2014, with a particular focus on reducing pharmaceutical drug costs. In 2002, he founded Centaurus Advisors with $8 millionhis last Enron bonus, paid out just days before the company filed for bankruptcyin Houston, Texas, to invest in futures, options, and derivatives for coal, natural gas, and crude oil. Put a Stake in "Zombie Charity.". Centaurus Hedge Fund Fined $75,000 for Nymex Violations LAURA AND JOHN ARNOLD FOUNDATION | Foundation Directory | Candid And good traders, as Arnold sees it, naturally come to appreciate something that researchers too often miss: Its very easy to be fooled by your own data. The Center for Open Science's replication efforts have inspired economists and even tropical ecologists to plan reproducibility projects of their own. Stem Cell Junk Yards Reveal a New Clue About Aging. But consider the ramifications of a Soros Ventures, or Steyer Ventures, or Buffett Ventureslimited liability companies that could field virtually unlimited resources to lobby on foreign policy, abortion rights, illegal immigration, or health care, with almost no public transparency. Houston-based Centaurus has been one of the most successful hedge funds in the industry, delivering a compound annual return of about 130% since it was founded by Arnold in 2002 after the collapse of Enron. And so, at age 38, Arnold walked away from it all. The NAACP and ACLU have criticized the Arnold PSA because they believe risk assessment tools actually increased the number of prisoners under the guise of criminal justice reform. She is a graduate of Harvard College, Yale Law School, and has a Master of Philosophy degree in European Studies from the University of Cambridge. John Arnold shocked the hedge fund world in 2012 when, at just 38 years old, he announced he would no longer manage other people's money. Foerster and Marny Eng and musician John Oates on the way that music and imagery can combine to drive narrative, the dramatic heart at the core of the new independent comedy/drama 'Gringa' and the level of difficulty involved in post-pandemic independent film distribution. George Soros, Soros Fund Management - $1.1 billion. Plus, systems of prestige and advancement die hard. Thirty-seven year old John Arnold, one of the world's youngest billionaires, had the worst year of his hedge fund career. Is there something special about frauds in the securities biz that they should be penalized infinitely more harshly than other business frauds? he went on. For us, the principle of it is unchanged. Now everybody says we need replication; we need reproducibility, Ioannidis tells me. During the podcast, he mentioned that he was raising money in the hope of funding experiments that might deepen our understanding of the root causes of obesity. Not surprisingly, researchers who dont see a crisis in science have started to fight back. People would read into it, and they would say hes just being cagey, DAgostino says. Mr. Arnold is also Founder of Centaurus Capital LP, a family office investment fund with a specific focus on the energy industry. Returning WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. To be fair, the Arnolds are far from wild-eyed leftists. That same hunger would make large-scale philanthropy far more challenging than he had anticipated. In my conversations with Arnold and his grantees, the word incentives seems to come up more than any other. The Billionaire Behind the Fight for Lower Drug Prices Following an incredibly successful trading year in 2001, Arnold was awarded an $8 million bonus, which he used to kick off Centaurus . All rights reserved. We asked ourselves, What is the point of having two separate entities? . But he also stood out for his skepticism. Hide Background LAURA AND JOHN ARNOLD FOUNDATION Family foundations "[36], In 2019, Arnold spoke out against donor-advised funds (DAF), criticizing them for delaying charitable giving and promoting giving to institutions that are less likely to need the money. In the name of social experimentation, in 2020 Arnold supported Oregon's referendum decriminalizing all drugs, which passed. But compared with the benefit of near-total anonymity, wealthy elites like the Arnolds are forgoing the tax advantages of a foundation or traditional nonprofit to further withdraw from public scrutiny. It wasnt long before Arnold had the answer to his doubts. Luce's career in natural-gas storage includes leading roles with energy and utility company Sempra Energy and with NGS Energy, a developer backed by billionaire energy trader John Arnold's Centaurus Advisors hedge fund. At Enron, a company famous for its brash, testosterone-laced cowboy culture, the perennially boyish-looking trader was reportedly so soft-spoken that his colleagues had to gather in close to hear him at restaurants. In 2007, Arnold became the youngest billionaire in the U.S. His firm, Centaurus Advisors, LLC, was a Houston-based hedge fund specializing in trading energy products that closed in 2012. And in 2015 the Arnold Foundation paid journalist Nina Teicholz to investigate the scientific review process that informs the US Dietary Guidelines. He and a graduate student were developing an online system that would allow researchers to keep a public log of the experiments they were running, where they could register their hypotheses, methods, workflows, and data as they worked. 6. Arnold figures that some of his specific grants might not work out as planned. [28] From 2010-2013, the Arnolds were heavily involved in the Innocence Project which led to their interest in criminal reform. Like Tom Steyer, George Soros, and a number of other mega-donors on the Left, John Arnold earned his vast wealth as a hedge fund investor. ), The backlash against Teicholz also furnished one of the few occasions when anyone has raised an eyebrow at the Arnolds funding of science critics. After that Arnold started his own hedge fund, Centaurus Energy, where he became, in the words of one hedge fund competitor, "the best trader that ever lived, full stop." . Does anyone really believe that charity is better off when only experts can distinguish between the two? View Subscription Options Texas billionaire quietly steered millions toward groups linked to Arnold has said that the first phase of his life was 100 percent trying to make money and that its now 100 percent trying to do good.. 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John Arnold - Forbes Amaranth, which was gambling with money from large pension funds, suffered a $6 billion loss and collapsed. But when I visit the Arnold Foundations Houston headquarters in June, Laura has been called away on a family emergency, leaving John to do the talking. The guest that day was science journalist Gary Taubes, and he was talking about how the prevailing dietary wisdom of the past 40 yearsthat eating too much fat leads to obesity and heart diseasearose from the flimsiest of scientific evidence. Click here to request a free trial. John Arnold, one of the most profitable traders in the hedge fund industry, has decided to shut down his Centaurus Advisors and return money to investors, according to people familiar with. No. Arnold founded Centaurus with an $8 million employee bonus from Enron. Scientists believe lasting symptoms following a coronavirus infection is not a single disorder. Guest: John Arnold is an American philanthropist and founder of Arnold Ventures. Laura and John Arnold, Houston $285 million. Donald Trumps real net worth? But figuring out which organizations were most effective turned out to be vexing. John But now, with their stepped-up ambitions, the couple entered a new realm. 5. A 2016 study to determine the effectiveness of the badges showed that the number of articles that reported publicly available data had increased tenfold. Founded in 1992, Centaurus was formed with a singular focus - to provide unparalleled service, support, technology, and education to independent financial advisers in the securities industry. In 2010, Centaurus experienced its first annual loss. John Arnold managed to walk away from Enrons 2001 collapse with a seven-figure bonus and no accusations of wrongdoing attached to his name. His estimated net worth is $3.3 billion as of writing. For a look . The extent of that individuals ability to freely support causes may be magnified by using an LLC instead of a nonprofit, but it also further blurs the already faded line between philanthropy and politics. Now she's turning her attention to storing green hydrogen, which is hydrogen produced using clean power. 1.800.427.5747 Arnold was not criminally charged with any wrongdoing at Enron, but he was named in a bankruptcy lawsuit by other Enron staff. Given our enormous appetite for policy change, and given the fact that we thankfully are not constrained by one structure, we dont have resources channeled only to the C3. When we started as solely a foundation and we had a C4 that was kind of ancillary to it, we respected the distinction and division the law requires. Form He is the Executive Director of the Global Health Security Fund, a Geneva-based nonprofit that supports impact investment in global health security innovation. In 2010 the Arnolds had signed the Giving Pledge, promising to give away at least half their wealthand he wanted to be as strategic about that goal as he had once been about trading. Corp In 2018, he jokingly complained that hes been called the next Koch brother by the far left press and the next George Soros by the far right.. John Arnold's Greatest Trade: Blowing Off Brian Hunter The United States is almost alone worldwide in granting tax deductions for charitable donations (Sweden also enacted such a policy in 2019), which were established with the Revenue Act of 1917. He started working at Enron four days later. Fix terrible science. But among hedge funders and energy traders, Arnold is a legend. A new edition of the record evokes the feeling of the remarkable 18th-century studio in which it was recorded. But as a practical matter, we grew to be so large in terms of our appetite for change in our policy areas that it just became cumbersome to have a C3 group on one side and a C4 group on the other side and having them not really be able to talk to each other. Were looking to create an organization of thoughtful failure and fantastic success., If John Arnold does have an identifiable ideology, it is that of a lifelong trader and quant: unsentimental, metrics-focused, interventionist. Late on Saturday, September 16, Amaranth's senior energy trader Brian Hunter asked John Arnold, Centaurus CEO, whether the hedge fund would like to make a bid for some of Amaranth's positions. John D. Arnold is the founder and the only shareholder of Centaurus Energy Advisors, a hedge fund specializing in trading of energy. Wealth: $3.3 billion. The Arnolds are candid about this, telling the Chronicle of Philanthropy in a January 2020 interview that the goal is to change policies: We have never viewed our work and our philanthropy in terms of C3 versus C4. Enron billionaire frets about public pensions' solvency $24.5M Texas mansion hits the market | wfaa.com [3][8] At 14, he started his first company selling collectible sports cards called Blue Chip Cards. For the rest of us, we can only hope that he continues to inspire us with his unique blend of starry-eyed optimism and rocket expertise. It Depends On Who You Talk To", "How we Ranked Forbes 400 based on their giving", "Dog The Bounty Hunter Joins Lawsuit Against Chris Christie Over Bail Reform", "June Rodgers v. Christopher Christie, No. Arnold, head of $3 billion Houston-based Centaurus Energy, has generated gains approaching 200% so far this year, according to a person familiar with the former Enron trader and his fund. The foundational studies, Taubes said, looked at the diets and disease rates in various countries, then essentially guessed at which items in the diet were responsible for the countrys good or bad health statistics. Centaurus Advisors Awards & Accolades. [25][1] The organization was founded in 2010. John Arnold is Founder and Co-Chair of Arnold Ventures. Media reports declared the field of psychology, if not all of science, to be in a state of crisis. [15], He then founded Centaurus, a hedge fund, with his previous year's bonus in 2002. The journals Science and Nature have started bringing in statisticians to review their papers. In 2016, John Arnold gave $250,000 to an unsuccessful effort to lift the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts, and they poured more than $500,000 into a PAC that helped bolster Governor Charlie . Science is built like a building, Arnold says. Joseph (Rusty) Walter III and Paula Walter . [23] Arnold has also given to The City Fund, an organization focused on growing the number of charter schools in the USA, and its political arm, Public School Allies. Alpha Magazine Ranks Hedge Fund Overlords | Seeking Alpha The biggest green hydrogen hub in the US could be | Canary Media Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. | They have personally donated to numerous Democratic campaigns, the Democratic Partys leading congressional political action committee (House Majority PAC), and both of Barack Obamas presidential campaigns. [30] The new entity is known as Arnold Ventures LLC with the charter "to remove barriers between data and decisive action, working swiftly across the policy-change spectrum. But as it happens, Nosek is just one of many researchers who have received unsolicited emails from the Arnold Foundation in the past few yearsresearchers involved in similar rounds of soul-searching and critique in their own fields, who have loosely amounted to a movement to fix science. The Arnold Foundation has been the Medici of meta-research, Ioannidis says. Meet Laura Arnold, the billionaire philanthropist taking on the parole But thats not what this project was about. Laura Arnold has served on the boards of the Innocence Project[29] and the REFORM alliance. Billionaire John Arnold pushes for charity reform. By kindergarten, Arnolds talent for math was apparent. Arnolds work at Enronseeking to capitalize on seasonal price differences in natural gaswasnt all that different from what hed done as a teenager selling sports cards. The foundation aims to foster a culture in which individuals have the best chance to succeed and prosper, while encouraging a sense of responsibility, compassion and reinvestment toward their communities and society as a whole. He is unapologetic about having worked at Enron, and he can be defensive about the moral standing of Wall Street in the public mind. In 2011 Centaurus Energy Master Fund LP was fined $75,000 by the New York Mercantile Exchange for violating position limits in natural gas trading (see Daily GPI, Dec. 28, 2011). In 1934, Congress set limits on lobbying activities for charities followed by limits on other political activities in the 1950s. She is co-founder of Arnold Ventures LLC. A guy such . [17] August 2008, Centaurus acquired around 10% of the shares of National Coal Corporation (NCOC). The National Institutes of Health is moving forward with new requirements for data sharing; starting as early as this year, all NIH-funded training programs must include plans for teaching researchers the principles of reproducibility. The IRS strictly regulates foundations and nonprofits engaged in political work, such as lobbying and voter registration. John E. Murray (1959-2018) wasnt famous like Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Prior to founding Centaurus Energy, he held various positions within Enrons Wholesale Division, including Head of Natural Gas Derivatives. But he should loom larger on the conservative radar considering that the two nonprofits associated with this billionaire couple poured out nearly $1 billion in grants between 2008 and 2018. Sign In, Listen to the latest episode of our newest podcast, 2023 North American Pipeline, LNG & Market Hubs Map, 1Q23 N.A. At its peak Centaurus managed some $6 billion before Arnold closed the fund and retired in 2012 at the age of 38, establishing the Laura and John Arnold Foundation with his wifea former oil executivesoon after. Why he started his own firm energy trading firm, Centaurus Advisors, and why he ultimately hung it up as a trader to focus all of his energy on philanthropy. . This article appears in the February issue. Arnold graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1995, taking only three years to finish his degree. One is literally betting on ones research.. In Hedge Hogs, a 2013 book about hedge fund traders, Jeff Shankman, another star trader at Enron, is quoted describing Arnold as the most thoughtful, deliberate, and inquisitive person he worked with on the gas floor. 19-2616 (3d Cir. The Centaurus founder could probably point to trades that made him a ton of money but you really can't put a price on avoiding the humiliation that would've come from . Famous in England as a sharp-witted scourge of bad science, Goldacre spent years building up a case that pharmaceutical companies, by refusing to reveal all their data, have essentially deceived the public into paying for worthless therapies. Nosek says that the cash offers were Arnolds idea. It became one of the biggest science stories of the year. John Arnold, then head of the hedge fund Centaurus Advisors, testifies before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington, August 5, 2009. From its ashes, Arnold built his own hedge fund, Centaurus Advisors. If John Arnold . At age 38, Texas billionaire John Arnold decided to step away from high finance. John Arnold has criticized labor unions, college tuition schedules, and the New York Timess increasing contempt for free speech. John Douglas Arnold (born 1974) is an American philanthropist, former Enron executive, and founder of Arnold Ventures LLC, formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. Trading up: Life lessons with philanthropist John Arnold His father, who died when Arnold was 18, was a lawyer. As a general rule, the incentives related to quantitative research are very different in the social sciences and in financial practice, says James Owen Weatherall, author of The Physics of Wall Street. LLCs dont have foundations 5 percent annual spend-out requirements or strict investment rules. John Arnold, a highly successful energy trader at 38 years old, earned $750 million after Enron, the company he worked for had . FORTUNE magazine once dubbed Arnold one of the least-known billionaires in the US. His profile in the public consciousness is almost nonexistent, and he rarely gives interviews. A Google search told him that the Arnolds were a young billionaire couple in Houston. Centaurus will be returning capital to investors, according to a Reuters report. Arnold was raised in Dallas, Texas, and he was the younger of two sons. We are Centaurus. Redistributed Andrew Nerlinger - Executive Director - Global Health Security Fund In 2014 he partnered with the journal Psychological Science to offer colorful Open Data and Open Materials badges for papers that met specific criteria for sharing. On Fishbowl, you can share insights and advice anonymously with Centaurus Advisors employees and get real answers from people on the inside. Billionaire John Arnold backing energy-focused credit fund - sources Energy Trading, Post-Enron - The New York Times Just weeks before the federal guidelines were due for an update, Teicholzs blistering report appeared in the prominent medical journal The BMJ, charging that the governments panel of scientists had failed to consider evidence that would have done away with long-held worries about eating saturated fat. Centaurus Capital LP - Company Profile and News - Bloomberg Markets Bloomberg Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately. But as many Wall Street veterans can testify, betting against John Arnold is usually a bad idea. Theyve also lavishly supported the Reproducibility Project, a science reform group formed to combat the rise of politicized, ideologically driven junk science afflicting so much research, particularly in climate science. Copyright2023Capital Research Center. For one thing, the problems plaguing scientific research are now increasingly well known. Houstonian John Arnold is the founder of Centaurus Capital LP, an energy-focused, family office investment fund. [18][19], In 2009, Arnold gave a public speech to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), in which he opposed limits on financially settled trading positions but supported limits in the physical energy futures as they near expiration. He also created Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic investment firm focused on health . Far from arbitrary, this body of regulationwhich Schambra is certainly right to call annoyingcodifies a common understanding between Americans and their government: Philanthropy is crucial for a healthy civil society. It completely transformed what we could imagine doing, Nosek says. 1. Hardly anyone in the world of nutrition science seemed willing to question the science behind the low-fat diet, even after Americans grew fat and diabetic in record numbers. info@naturalgasintel.com Qu u c Centaurus Energy ca Arnold, hin ang qun l hn 5 t USD gi tr ti sn, cha bao gi kim c li nhun t hn 50% . [47], John Arnold and his brother Matthew[48] tore down historical homes in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston which led to criticism by architectural conservationists. New research shows that the cells garbage-clearing function deteriorates with ageand opens the door to reversing the process. The Therapy Part of Psychedelic Therapy Is a Mess. As a pipeline company, Enron had a direct view onto many of the factors that influence gas prices. John Arnold - President - Centaurus Capital | LinkedIn John D. Arnold - InfluenceWatch - InfluenceWatch The tech giant is helping researchers and clinicians decipher vast amounts of data generated by people with persistent symptoms. But Arnold had to come down to earth eventually. His net worth of $10.2 billion landed him at No. Still, Arnold, an intense worker with a wide network of. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, launched a similar LLC (the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative) in 2015, with Zuckerberg transferring some 99 percent of his shares in the social media company to the LLCan amount reportedly exceeding $45 billion. Billionaire John Arnold backing energy-focused credit fund - sources Like a number of up-and-coming researchers in his generation, Nosek was troubled by mounting evidence that science itselfthrough its systems of publication, funding, and advancementhad become biased toward generating a certain kind of finding: novel, attention grabbing, but ultimately unreliable. Were not looking to create an organization of safe success, she says. [37] He proposed that foundations and DAFs should spend at least 7% annually, which would result in billions of dollars more being given to charities,[30] and that DAFs should be legally held to an annual minimum distribution. Then, one day in November 2011, he was listening to the podcast EconTalk, hosted by libertarian economist Russ Roberts. THE ARNOLDS had been dabbling in philanthropy for years, supporting a few handpicked programs in education, criminal justice reform, and other areas that were important to them. That's the true story of former star Enron trader John Arnold, who most recently worked as a hedge fund manager. NGI All News Access. One of the counterparties Amaranth approached was Centaurus. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc. 2023 Natural Gas Intelligence. 4 Houston tycoons join prestigious Texas Business Hall of Fame
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