Bill Ackman
Founder and chief executive of Pershing Square Capital Management, the activist investment firm he started in 2004.
Bill Ackman did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Our reading
The value of anything is the present value of the cash you can take out of it over its life.
Their wordsThe value of anything, I would say, other than love, let's say, is the present value of the cash you can take out of it over its life.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 1st of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd very few businesses that you can have a really high degree of certainty about. And as a result, many investments are speculations because it's really very difficult to predict the future.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 2nd of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsYou want to buy a company at a price that if you're wrong about what you think it's worth and it turns out to be worth 30% less, you paid a deep enough discount to your estimate that you're still okay. A big part of investing is not losing money.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsPrice matters a lot. You can buy the best business in the world and if you overpay, you're not going to earn particularly attractive returns.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 4th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThe most difficult analysis to do as an investor is that, is kind of figuring out how wide is the moat, how much at risk is the business to disruption? And we're in, I would say, the greatest period of disruptability in history.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 5th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd that's why we have tended to stay away from companies that are technology companies because technology companies generally... The world is such a dynamic place that someone's always working on a better version.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 6th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsSo as I like to say, incentives drive all human behavior and that certainly applies in the business world. So understanding the people and what drives them, and what the actual financial and other incentives of a business, are very important part of the analysis for investing in a company.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 7th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsPeople tend to get excited about investments when stocks are going up and they get depressed when they're going down. And I think that's just inherently human. You have to reverse that. You have to get excited when things get cheaper and you got to get concerned when things get more expensive.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 8th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsSo as long as you don't borrow against securities, you own really high quality businesses and it's not money that you need in the short term, then you can actually be thoughtful about it.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 9th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThere are very few that earn their keep in terms of the fees they charge. They tend to be too diversified and too short-term. And you're often much better off just buying an index fund.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 10th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsI even recommend for individual investors to invest in a dozen companies, you don't get that much more benefit of diversification going from a dozen to 25 or even 50.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 11th of 22 in this recording
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Our reading
Individual investors analysed Tesla better than the professional investors and analysts did.
Their wordsActually individual investors did a much better job analyzing Tesla than the so-called professional investors or analysts, the vast majority of them.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 12th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd what activism has done, and I think we've helped lead this movement, is it restored the balance of power between the owners of the business and the management of the company. And that's been a very good thing for the performance of the US stock market actually.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 13th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThat large owner on the board can help buy the time necessary for management to behave in a longer term way. And that's, I think, good for all the shareholders.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 14th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd oftentimes it's more important to them to have the public perception that they're good directors so they get the next best deal. If they have a reputation for taking on management too aggressively, word will get out in the small community of founders and they'll miss the next Google.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 15th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsSo we at Pershing Square short a very few stocks. And the reason for that is short selling is just inherently treacherous.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 16th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsIt's really a self-perpetuating board that effectively elects its own members. Once the balance tips, politically, one way or another, it can be kept that way forever. There's no kind of rebalancing system.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 17th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsA friend of mine sent me Christopher Rufo's book, America's Cultural Revolution, which is sort of a sociological study of the origins of the DEI movement and critical race theory. I found it actually one of the more important books I've read and also I found it quite concerning. Ultimately, DEI comes out of a kind of Marxist socialist way to look at the world.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 18th of 22 in this recording
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Our reading
Universities would be better run by business leaders than by academics the faculty approves of.
Their wordsI would argue having a business leader run these institutions and then having a board that has, itself, diverse viewpoints, and by the way, permanently structured to have diverse viewpoints is a much better way to run a university than picking an academic that the faculty supports.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 19th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsWhen a company fails, most people blame the CEO. I generally blame the board. Because the board's job is to make sure the right person's running the company, and if they're failing, help the person.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 20th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThe problem is the defamation law in the US is so favorable to the publisher, to the media, and so unfavorable to the victim. And the incentives are all wrong.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 21st of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsSo having an independently owned powerful platform is very important for truth, for free speech, for hearing the other side of the story, for counterbalancing the power of the government.
↗Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413youtube.com 22nd of 22 in this recording