Private, non-publicly traded companies are not obligated to do any of those things. John D. Arnold is an American philanthropist and businessman. Bachelor of Arts/Science, Vanderbilt University. George Soros, Soros Fund Management - $1.1 billion. If Arnold decided he wanted to beat hunger, DAgostino says, I wouldnt want to bet on hunger., For all the swagger of that description, Arnold himself has virtually none. The BMJ investigation, in turn, met with angry denunciations from nutrition experts who had worked on the US Dietary Guidelines; a petition asking the journal to retract Teicholzs work was signed by more than 180 credentialed professionals. Prior to founding Centaurus Energy, he held various positions within Enrons Wholesale Division, including Head of Natural Gas Derivatives. John Arnold. Billionaires John and Laura Arnold Billionaire Pledges to Give Away 5% [51] They have three children. [3][4][5][6][7], In 2019, Arnold became the chairman of Houston's 2026 bid for the FIFA World Cup. 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. Returning And Noseks project was an attempt to head it off at the pass. Weve always wanted to change policies. The Biggest Microbiome Study Sheds Light on Shared Health Risks, The Little Bang Helping Physicists Study the Infant Universe. 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. John Arnold, a former Enron trader and hedge fund honcho known as the "king of natural gas", . Not long after the podcast went online, he received a five-line email from Arnold. 1. In 2006, Centaurus reportedly generated a 317 percent return overall, after taking the opposite side of a risky bet that another hedge fund, Amaranth, had made on fluctuations in natural gas prices. In recent years Arnold has invested in solar farms and deepwater oil developments in the Gulf of Mexico. Media reports have declared the field of psychology, if not all of science, to be in a state of crisis. Whole 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. founded Houston-based hedge fund Centaurus Advisors but retired in 2012 . Were not looking to create an organization of safe success, she says. Arnold, who specializes in trading natural gas, is the former Enron trader who launched Centaurus in 2002 with the $8 million bonus he received from Enron after making the firm $750 million. Bruce Kovner, Caxton Associates . For one thing, the problems plaguing scientific research are now increasingly well known. He is unapologetic about having worked at Enron, and he can be defensive about the moral standing of Wall Street in the public mind. "Looking back what I was doing was geographic arbitrage.". In 2012, after growing his firm, Centaurus Advisors, from an initial $8 million to $5 billion in less than a decade, he announced that he was walking away to pursue other interests. It was the largest cash bonus ever distributed by the company. A new study shows are the four most dangerous words, Arnold wrote on Twitter. Republished By law, natural gas pipelines had to make much of their information public, and around the time Centaurus was forming, more of that information began to appear online. His father, who died when Arnold was 18, was a lawyer. 1 manager, John Arnold, offers a tricky model to follow because he trades only energy futures, and my guess is he's a very short-term trader. [33] It was just a way for us to just all be under one umbrella, and everybody does what he or she needs to do in furtherance of one mission. Regulators have to figure out how to get them on the market. What's Fishbowl. |, Related topics: The Reproducibility Project, meanwhile, swelled to include more than 270 researchers working to reproduce 100 psychology experimentsand in August 2015, Nosek revealed its results. As Enron neared bankruptcy, executives scrambled to hold its operation together, offering bonuses to keep traders on board. Ultimately his army of volunteers could verify the findings of only about 40 percent of the studies. The Supreme Court has come under intense scrutiny lately over a series of reports suggesting potential conflicts of interest. John Wealth: $3.3 billion. A former executive at Salomon Brothers later told The New York Times that there were very few incidents in the history of Wall Street comparable to Arnolds success that year. By the time he was 14, Arnold was running his first company, selling collectible sports cards across state lines. [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. Michael Maggi is a former Enron trader who then spent time at Centaurus Capital, the hedge fund founded by noted Houston philanthropist John Arnold, before founding Goldfinch Capital. Compared with the IRS-mandated transparency of a private foundation, 501(c)(3) public charity, or 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, private companies are black holes for public disclosure. The more you read the research, the less you know, Arnold says. Theres little evidence to prove how necessary or helpful many of the accepted norms in psychedelic-assisted therapy areand some could even harm patients. 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. Updated March 10, 2017 5:18 pm ET. Form 990s and Section 501(c) of the U.S. Tax Code were created in 1954, followed by rules governing private foundations in 1969. In exchange for forgoing those revenues, the government requires a certain standard of public accountability for nonprofits, delivered through public disclosure of annual Form 990 filings and limits on political activities.