| Rank | Name | IQ | Born | Known For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 1st | John H. Sununu 🇺🇸 | 180 | 1939 | Being White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. |
| 2 2nd | Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. 🇺🇸 | 168 | 1934 | |
| 3 3rd | Warren Buffett 🇺🇸 | 145 | 1930 | Leadership of Berkshire Hathaway with Charlie Munger |
| 4 | Frank Drake 🇺🇸 | 140 | 1930 | SETI <br> Drake equation |
| 5 | Sylvia Plath 🇺🇸 | 140 | 1932 | The Bell Jar and Ariel |
| 6 | Carl Sagan 🇺🇸 | 130 | 1934 | Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, The Dragons of Eden, Th… |
| 7 | R. J. Hollingdale 🇬🇧 | — | 1930 | Translator of German Literature |
| 8 | Tu Youyou 🇨🇳 | — | 1930 | Discovering artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin |
| 9 | Yaakov Ziv 🇮🇱 | — | 1931 | LZ77, LZ78 |
| 10 | Toni Morrison 🇺🇸 | — | 1931 | The Bluest Eye (1970)Sula (1973)Song of Solomon (1977)Tar Baby (1981)Beloved (1987) |
| 11 | Alice Munro 🇨🇦 | — | 1931 | |
| 12 | Glenn Gould 🇨🇦 | — | 1932 | Attending The Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) at age 10 |
| 13 | Cormac McCarthy 🇺🇸 | — | 1933 | Suttree (1979) <br> Blood Meridian (1985) <br> All the Pretty Horses (1992) <br> No Country for Old… |
| 14 | Amartya Sen 🇮🇳 | — | 1933 | |
| 15 | Jane Goodall | — | 1934 | Study of chimpanzees, conservation, animal welfare |
The Great Depression and the rise of fascism cast a shadow over a decade in which nuclear physics was racing forward at astonishing speed. Existentialism was emerging as a philosophical response to a world in crisis, while Gödel proved the limits of mathematics and Turing laid the foundations of computing. The decade ended with the world on the brink of the most destructive war in human history.
John H. Sununu is ranked #1 among geniuses born in the 1930s with an estimated IQ of 180, known for Being White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush..
Our database includes 22 notable geniuses born between 1930–1939, spanning fields from science and mathematics to philosophy, literature, and the arts.
The average estimated IQ of documented geniuses born in the 1930s is 150, with the highest recorded being 180.
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