Chapter One

On a chilly spring morning in 1994, Julian Robertson, head of the Tiger Management, and his analysts were closeted in the firm's offices in midtown Manhattan, poring over reports and information from various commodities producers and users looking for the diamond in the rough. For Robertson, who had launched Tiger 14 years earlier as a hedge fund that used long/short equity strategies to extract profits from the market, the time had come to expand into bigger markets that offered greater profits. That year things had started off slowly for the firm, but as it rolled into the second half of 1994, the firm and its funds became a force in the market. Investors clawed their way for access to the hedge fund and the trading powerhouse, dumping nearly $4 billion into its coffers. It was clear by now that the 1990s was going to be the decade of the big cats.

Still, Robertson was troubled. There was a dark shadow around his consciousness, and the name of the shadow was George Soros. Soros had started his firm in the 1960s and was now a legend in international financial circles. He was the envy of money managers. Robertson felt that he could pick stocks and play the hedge fund game as well as Soros, but he had not yet had the big break that would take him from being a successful name on Wall Street to an icon known around the world. That was the hunger that kept him searching for information from the reports that his associates brought to their weekly investment meetings.

But now something caught Robertson's eye that just might make a difference. He picked up a feeling of sorts from