Warren Buffett

Warren Edward Buffett (/ˈbʌfᵻt/; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the most successful investor in the world. Buffett is the chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, and is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's wealthiest person in 2008 and as the third wealthiest in 2015. In 2012 Time named Buffett one of the world's most influential people.

Buffett is often referred to as the "Wizard of Omaha" or "Oracle of Omaha," or the "Sage of Omaha," and is noted for his adherence to value investing and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. Buffett is a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Gates Foundation. On April 11, 2012, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, for which he successfully completed treatment in September 2012. Buffet is also active in contributing to political causes, having endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for president during the 2016 campaign season.

Ruchir Sharma

Ruchir Sharma is an emerging market portfolio manager, and has written widely on global economics and politics. As head of the Emerging Markets Equity team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, he manages over $25 billion in assets under management. A longtime columnist for newspapers and magazines around the world, Sharma is the author of Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles (Norton/Allen Lane, April 2012).

Career

Sharma has told interviewers he spent his early school years in Mumbai, Delhi, and Singapore. He did his undergraduate studies at the Shri Ram College of Commerce in New Delhi, and afterward joined a securities trading company, and in 1991 he launched a column called For Ex, first for The Observer, later for The Economic Times of India. His writings attracted the attention of Morgan Stanley, which hired him in its Mumbai office in 1996. In 2002 he moved to the New York office, which remains his base today. In 2003 he became cohead of the emerging markets team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. In 2006 he became head of the team.

CNBC

CNBC is an American basic cable, internet and satellite business news television channel that is owned by NBCUniversal News Group, a division of NBCUniversal, owned by Comcast. Headquartered in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the network primarily carries business day coverage of U.S. and international financial markets; following the end of the business day and on non-trading days, CNBC primarily carries financial and business-themed documentaries and reality shows.

Originally established on April 17, 1989 by a joint venture between NBC and Cablevision as the Consumer News and Business Channel, the network later acquired its main competitor, the Financial News Network, in 1991—a move which expanded both its distribution and its workforce, and Cablevision sold its stake to NBC, giving it sole ownership. As of February 2015, CNBC is available to approximately 93,623,000 pay television households (80.4% of households with television) in the United States. In 2007, the network was ranked as the 19th most valuable cable channel in the United States, worth roughly $4 billion.

Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio (born August 8, 1949) is an American businessman and founder of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates.

In 2012, Dalio appeared on the annual Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2011 and 2012 he was listed by Bloomberg Markets as one of the 50 Most Influential people. Institutional Investor’s Alpha ranked him No. 2 on their 2012 Rich List. According to Forbes, he was the 30th richest person in America and the 69th richest person in the world with a net worth of $15.2 billion as of October 2014.

Early life

Dalio was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, United States. The son of a jazz musician, Dalio began investing at age 12. At this young age he bought shares of Northeast Airlines for $300 and tripled his investment after the airline merged with another company.

Education

Dalio received his BA from Long Island University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Career

After completing his education, Dalio worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and invested in commodity futures. He later worked as the Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick LLC. In 1974, he became a futures trader and broker at Shearson Hayden Stone. In 1975, he founded the Westport, Connecticut based investment management firm, Bridgewater Associates which in 2012 became the largest hedge fund in the world, as it is today with over $160 billion in assets under management, as of October 2014.

Pilot Flying J

Pilot Travel Centers LLC,doing business as Pilot Flying J, is a chain of truck stops in the United States and Canada. The company is based in Knoxville, Tennessee where Pilot Corporation, the majority owner, is based. The company is owned by Pilot and FJ Management Inc.. The company operates truck stops under the Pilot Travel Centers and Flying J Travel Plaza brands.

History

Pilot Flying J was founded as Pilot Travel Centers on November 15, 1993 in a joint venture between Pilot Corporation and Marathon Petroleum Company. Immediately all Pilot Truck Stops were converted into Pilot Travel Centers. At its inception, the number of stops was around 60; however, that was to be short-lived.

In the next few years, Pilot Travel Centers experienced significant growth. Marathon converted many Speedway truck stops, wholly owned by Marathon, over to the Pilot Travel Center moniker starting in mid-2002. Midway through 2003, another major expansion occurred with the purchase of the Williams Truck Stop chain. The Marathon-Pilot joint venture successfully increased the Pilot Travel Center name recognition throughout the United States, as the number of stops more than quadrupled.