Cohen grew up in Great Neck, New York, where his father was a dress manufacturer in Manhattan's garment district and his mother was a piano teacher. He grew up in a Jewish family. He is the third of eight brothers and sisters. He took a liking to p…

In 1978, after graduating from Penn, Cohen got a Wall Street job as a junior trader in the options-arbitrage department at Gruntal & Co. On his first day on the job at Gruntal & Co., he made an $8,000 profit. He eventually would go on to make the comp…