Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Bill Ackman

Transcript

Bill Ackman · The David Rubenstein Show

0:02
Speaker 1: In recent years, one of the most successful Wall Street
0:05
Speaker 1: investors has been Bill Ackman. He's built Pershing Square into
0:08
Speaker 1: one of the most successful and listened to firms in
0:10
Speaker 1: all of Wall Street. But he's also been outspoken in
0:13
Speaker 1: a number of other areas, including philanthropy and politics. I
0:16
Speaker 1: had a chance to sit down with Bill in his
0:18
Speaker 1: office recently to talk about a variety of issues, including
0:21
Speaker 1: his latest bet on where the economy is going. There
0:24
Speaker 1: is a general consensus in the United States in some
0:26
Speaker 1: circles that we probably have avoided a recession for the
0:29
Speaker 1: near future. We're going to have a so called soft landing.
0:32
Speaker 1: That's the consensus. Is that your view as well?
0:35
Speaker 2: I think it's really hard to predict. I do think
0:38
Speaker 2: the economy is weakening. We're seeing evidence of that in
0:41
Speaker 2: some of our companies. You're seeing and I have some concerns.
0:46
Speaker 2: There's been a huge subsidy in terms of low interest
0:48
Speaker 2: rates and companies. Most companies fix their rates or their
0:53
Speaker 2: debt at very low rates, and certainly real estate investors
0:57
Speaker 2: did the same. And that works until it doesn't work,
1:00
Speaker 2: And so I think we're what's going to be interesting
1:02
Speaker 2: is to see what happens when people get have to
1:04
Speaker 2: reprice their debt, and I think that can have sort
1:06
Speaker 2: of a cliff like effect, and you're certainly seeing that
1:09
Speaker 2: in real estate now.
1:11
Speaker 1: The markets are assuming, and the markets are not always right,
1:14
Speaker 1: but the markets are assuming that there's going to be
1:15
Speaker 1: a FED discount cut sometime next year. As we talk
1:20
Speaker 1: now just about the end of November. It's not clear
1:23
Speaker 1: what the Fed will do. But some people say that
1:25
Speaker 1: the Fed, if they were to cut interest rates next year,
1:28
Speaker 1: would help the Democrats and therefore be seen as very political.
1:31
Speaker 1: The other hands, some people say the Fed can't wait
1:33
Speaker 1: till after the election because the economy might need a stimulus.
1:36
Speaker 1: So you have a view on what the FED is
1:38
Speaker 1: likely to do.
1:38
Speaker 2: I think they're going to cut rates, and you know,
1:40
Speaker 2: I think they're going to cut rates sooner than people expect,
1:43
Speaker 2: because you know, what's happening is the real rate of
1:46
Speaker 2: interest ultimately, which is what impacts the economy, keeps increasing
1:50
Speaker 2: as inflation declines. Right, So if the FED keeps rates
1:52
Speaker 2: in the sort of middle fives and inflation is trending
1:57
Speaker 2: below three percent or you know, that's a very high
1:59
Speaker 2: real r of interest and I think that is having
2:02
Speaker 2: a sort of retarding effect on the economy. And then
2:04
Speaker 2: of course, again, you know, many businesses and certainly many
2:08
Speaker 2: individuals have the benefit of fixed rate debt, and that
2:12
Speaker 2: fixed rate debt, certainly for companies and for commercial real estate,
2:15
Speaker 2: starts to roll off. So I think there's a risk
2:18
Speaker 2: of a hard landing if the FED doesn't start cutting rates,
2:20
Speaker 2: you know, pretty soon. So, you know, I think the
2:22
Speaker 2: market expects sometime middle of next year. I think it's
2:25
Speaker 2: more likely probably as early.
2:26
Speaker 1: As Key one for the economy itself. Do you think
2:28
Speaker 1: it really is going to make a difference if President
2:30
Speaker 1: Trump is if he's the Republican nominee and gets selected,
2:33
Speaker 1: or President Biden is the Democratic nominee he's elected.
2:36
Speaker 2: You know, I do think leadership matters enormously in everything
2:40
Speaker 2: from the economy to geopolitics, and I hope we're going
2:45
Speaker 2: to have a broader selection than Trump and Biden. I
2:48
Speaker 2: think Biden's done a lot of good things, but I
2:51
Speaker 2: think his legacy will not be a good one if
2:55
Speaker 2: he is the nominee. I do think the right thing
2:58
Speaker 2: for Biden to do is to step asi and to
3:00
Speaker 2: say he's not going to run and create the opportunity
3:03
Speaker 2: for some competition of alternative. Do you think that I
3:07
Speaker 2: think that I think he's you know, past his prime
3:09
Speaker 2: in a kind of meaningful way. I do think of
3:11
Speaker 2: It's a bit like being CEO of a major company.
3:13
Speaker 2: It's a it's a it's a full time job, and
3:15
Speaker 2: you need to be at your you know, you need
3:17
Speaker 2: to be strong, you need to be at your intellectual best.
3:21
Speaker 2: And I don't think Biden is there. And I don't
3:23
Speaker 2: say that, you know, with any derision of the President.
3:27
Speaker 2: I always respect the president and want whoever the president
3:30
Speaker 2: is to be successful. But I think he's clearly past
3:34
Speaker 2: his physical and cognitive peak.
3:36
Speaker 1: So you're a young, experienced investment professional. You ever thought
3:40
Speaker 1: about running for office yourself?
3:42
Speaker 2: I think, you know, if the country wanted me at
3:45
Speaker 2: some point, you know, I would be open to it.
3:48
Speaker 2: You know, it's not I think it's not my time.
3:50
Speaker 2: I still have a lot of work to do, and
3:53
Speaker 2: you know, like to if I ever would take that step,
3:56
Speaker 2: I would have to do I'd have to find myself
3:59
Speaker 2: at a time in life when I felt ready to
4:01
Speaker 2: take on that kind of responsibility. But it's something where
4:04
Speaker 2: the country would have to ask me, as opposed to
4:07
Speaker 2: you me put myself out there.
4:09
Speaker 1: Let's talk a moment about the background of yourself, when
4:13
Speaker 1: you grew up and how you came to this business.
4:15
Speaker 1: So where did you grow up.
4:17
Speaker 3: I grew up in Chappaqua, New York.
4:18
Speaker 1: And did you say to your parents, I want to
4:20
Speaker 1: be a hedge fund investor?
4:22
Speaker 2: No, what did you want to be? I wanted to
4:24
Speaker 2: be a businessman. It's probably what I told him at
4:26
Speaker 2: age ten or something like this. So I always had
4:28
Speaker 2: all kinds of entrepreneurial jobs and things.
4:30
Speaker 1: So as a young boy, or did you have any
4:33
Speaker 1: newspaper routes or things like that.
4:35
Speaker 2: Sure, So my dad did not believe in allowances. He said, look,
4:39
Speaker 2: you want to make money, you have to work. And
4:42
Speaker 2: initially he offered me some job opportunities.
4:44
Speaker 3: Early one was.
4:45
Speaker 2: Digging a fifty foot long, you know, sort of ditch
4:50
Speaker 2: as I would describe it, to help deal with water
4:53
Speaker 2: flow off of our property. And he offered to pay me,
4:56
Speaker 2: you know whatever, It was a dollar an hour or
4:59
Speaker 2: something like this, and it was a good lesson and
5:02
Speaker 2: that I didn't want to get paid per hour. So
5:04
Speaker 2: next time he gave me a project, I said, look,
5:06
Speaker 2: let me price the project and then it doesn't matter
5:10
Speaker 2: how quickly I get it done on I don't want.
5:11
Speaker 3: To be paid on an hourly basis. So those are
5:13
Speaker 3: some of the early things.
5:14
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call them entrepreneurial, but they generated some money
5:18
Speaker 2: that I was spending money. In terms of early life
5:21
Speaker 2: job experiences.
5:22
Speaker 3: One of the most.
5:24
Speaker 2: Valuable ones was actually when I was a Harvard student.
5:28
Speaker 2: There's something called the Let's Go Travel Guides, which were
5:30
Speaker 2: these books that.
5:33
Speaker 3: Students wrote about budget travel.
5:35
Speaker 2: And a friend of mine, Whitney Tilson, and I he
5:39
Speaker 2: became a friend, sold advertising for those guides all over
5:42
Speaker 2: the world, and so we had this working out of
5:44
Speaker 2: the basement of dorm room.
5:45
Speaker 3: We sold hundreds.
5:47
Speaker 2: Of thousands of dollars of advertising in these books, and
5:50
Speaker 2: we got a commission for doing so, and it started
5:53
Speaker 2: that's got a fifteen percent promote for selling advertising, and
5:56
Speaker 2: that kind of led to this hedge fund thing.
5:58
Speaker 1: And you did pretty well on Harvard, and when you graduated,
6:01
Speaker 1: you then did what.
6:02
Speaker 3: I graduated work for my dad.
6:04
Speaker 2: Actually, my grandfather and his brother started a firm that
6:08
Speaker 2: arranged financing for real estate developers and what you might
6:12
Speaker 2: call commercial mortgage brokerage, and also raised equity financing for
6:16
Speaker 2: developer sold property and I went to work there. I
6:20
Speaker 2: spent a little under two years there before going to
6:23
Speaker 2: business school.
6:24
Speaker 1: And you went to business school at Harvard I did.
6:26
Speaker 1: And after you graduated from Harvard Business School, what did
6:28
Speaker 1: you do?
6:29
Speaker 3: That's when I started a hedge fund.
6:30
Speaker 1: And just just said, Okay, I've got a harvardusins school.
6:33
Speaker 1: I don't need to have any more experience. I'm just
6:35
Speaker 1: going to start a hedge fund.
6:36
Speaker 2: Yes, I had started investing in business school with a classmate. Actually,
6:43
Speaker 2: I went to Harvard with a plan about I was
6:45
Speaker 2: going to learn about investing so I could someday be
6:47
Speaker 2: an investor. And there were no courses on investing at Harvard,
6:50
Speaker 2: but there were courses on finance and accounting and competitive
6:53
Speaker 2: strategy with Michael Porter, and that was the backdrop for
6:57
Speaker 2: my education about investing. I said, look, I'll open a
6:59
Speaker 2: brokerage account. I've made a little money in my real
7:02
Speaker 2: estate commissions, and this will be another year of If
7:06
Speaker 2: I lose it all, it's another year of Harbard Business School.
7:08
Speaker 2: If I learned something from it, maybe it's a career.
7:10
Speaker 2: And I kind of fell in love with investing and
7:13
Speaker 2: it's something you can kind of figure out. Actually whether
7:16
Speaker 2: you're good at or not pretty a couple of year
7:18
Speaker 2: period of time.
7:19
Speaker 1: So you started Pershing Square after that period of time
7:22
Speaker 1: or right away.
7:22
Speaker 2: I started a firm called Gotham Partners with a partner
7:25
Speaker 2: named David Burkwitz, a classmate of mine a business school.
7:27
Speaker 2: We started in September of ninety two. And yes, we
7:31
Speaker 2: had no experience. And what was interesting is that none
7:35
Speaker 2: of the people who knew me in high school, like parents,
7:37
Speaker 2: my friends.
7:38
Speaker 3: Had no interest because they thought of me as a kid.
7:40
Speaker 2: But we raised money from mostly people who were themselves
7:44
Speaker 2: good investors, and I think they could see in us.
7:47
Speaker 2: I guess some potential, all.
7:49
Speaker 1: Right, So you then transformed that into Pershing Square year
7:53
Speaker 1: or two later.
7:54
Speaker 2: No, So Gotham was a decade and we did kind
7:59
Speaker 2: of equity and then private equity and some venture capital,
8:03
Speaker 2: and then actually had a pretty challenging period that led
8:07
Speaker 2: to a decision to wind up Gotham and then I
8:10
Speaker 2: launched Pershing Square in January of two thousand and four,
8:13
Speaker 2: almost twenty years ago.
8:15
Speaker 1: You specialized in picking stocks. You weren't a macro investor then,
8:18
Speaker 1: where you were a stock picker.
8:19
Speaker 2: Yes, I would say we were kind of an activist
8:23
Speaker 2: stock picker. We would buy pretty concentrated portfolio by large
8:27
Speaker 2: stakes and companies that we thought were great businesses or
8:29
Speaker 2: had great assets but were undermanaged.
8:32
Speaker 1: And when you're an activist, of course that word has
8:34
Speaker 1: different meanings to different people. But you would you call
8:37
Speaker 1: the CEO and say, we own five percent, we'd like
8:39
Speaker 1: to be on the board, we'd like to tell you
8:40
Speaker 1: how to run your company? Did you do that? And
8:42
Speaker 1: was that intimidating to do that?
8:44
Speaker 2: It's not exactly what we said, because again we were
8:47
Speaker 2: young and inexperienced, but it was more that we'd find
8:51
Speaker 2: a company. One of the early investments was Wendy's, the
8:54
Speaker 2: Hamburger chain, and Wendy's owned one hundred percent of a
8:57
Speaker 2: chain called Tim Horton's in Canada. And Tim Hortons was
9:00
Speaker 2: a very profitable, successful, pure franchise of coffee and donut
9:04
Speaker 2: chaining principally in Canada, and you could fairly clearly see
9:07
Speaker 2: that business was worth about five billion dollars at least.
9:10
Speaker 2: It had about four hundred and fifty million of operating income,
9:13
Speaker 2: probably worth meaningfully more than that. But you could buy
9:15
Speaker 2: all of Wendy's for five billion, So literally the market
9:18
Speaker 2: was describing zero value to the Wendy's franchise, and our
9:21
Speaker 2: advice to the CEO is, well, just spin off to
9:23
Speaker 2: Importance and then focus on fixing Wendy's. But you can
9:27
Speaker 2: create enormous value in just separating two companies. So it
9:29
Speaker 2: was a bit like investment banking where we didn't charge
9:32
Speaker 2: a fee, and actually, back then because we couldn't get
9:36
Speaker 2: a return phone call because we were a tiny, little
9:39
Speaker 2: fun circa two thousand and four, we hired Blackstone, which
9:45
Speaker 2: had an investment bank at the time, and we hired
9:48
Speaker 2: them to say, put together a fairness opinion, if you will,
9:51
Speaker 2: what Wendys would be worth if they spun off to Importance.
9:54
Speaker 3: And then we wrote a letter to the board.
9:56
Speaker 2: We attached the Blackstone evaluation, which was double where the
10:00
Speaker 2: stock was trading, and then six weeks later, magically they
10:03
Speaker 2: spun off Tim Horton's.
10:05
Speaker 1: Okay, so you did that with other companies and being
10:07
Speaker 1: an activist, was it consistent with your personality to do this,
10:11
Speaker 1: because you've got to be a tough guy to call
10:13
Speaker 1: up CEOs and say, look, I got a better idea
10:15
Speaker 1: abou how to run your company than you do.
10:18
Speaker 2: It was consistent with my personality. I've think always been
10:21
Speaker 2: some form of an activist.
10:22
Speaker 1: Yet and today your focus is on the kind of
10:26
Speaker 1: activist investing or you've stopped that.
10:28
Speaker 2: So, you know, when you're no one knows who you
10:31
Speaker 2: are and you're trying to affect change in a company,
10:35
Speaker 2: you have to sort of be an activist. You have
10:37
Speaker 2: to use the media, the public platform to in some
10:41
Speaker 2: cases shame a company into doing the right thing. Twenty
10:44
Speaker 2: years later, having had a meaningful number of successful engagements.
10:49
Speaker 3: With companies, we don't really have to.
10:50
Speaker 2: Do that anymore, and so a lot of the stuff
10:52
Speaker 2: we've done recently has been either buying into a company
10:56
Speaker 2: that already has great leadership and we're happy to share ideas.
11:00
Speaker 2: In some cases, you know there needs to be a
11:03
Speaker 2: change in leadership, but we're able to get things done without,
11:07
Speaker 2: you know, sort of what you might call activism, more
11:09
Speaker 2: like engaged owners of businesses.
11:11
Speaker 1: And you've done three extremely successful macro bets. One during
11:16
Speaker 1: the period of the time of the housing crisis seven
11:19
Speaker 1: o eight and that one was extremely successful. You did
11:22
Speaker 1: one again during the COVID period of time, yes, which
11:26
Speaker 1: was I think maybe your best investment ever. You made
11:28
Speaker 1: a ninety four times your money.
11:30
Speaker 3: Investment or less one hundred times actually one hundred times.
11:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yes, we bet that the credit spreads would widens
11:37
Speaker 2: because we needed we'd have to shut down the global economy,
11:40
Speaker 2: and that's basically what happened.
11:42
Speaker 1: So did people say, do you have any more deals
11:44
Speaker 1: like that? When you did that one? Yes, and that
11:47
Speaker 1: was a hard to find.
11:49
Speaker 2: You know, the three black Swan events in the last
11:52
Speaker 2: twenty years, we were We've been able to make a big, big,
11:56
Speaker 2: profitable bets on. But these kind of blacks one type
12:00
Speaker 2: things hopefully occur only every seven years.
12:04
Speaker 1: Let's say interest rates went up and they started going up,
12:06
Speaker 1: you made another macro back that turned out to be
12:08
Speaker 1: pretty successful as well. Yes, So do you have any
12:11
Speaker 1: other macro bets you can mention now or nothing you
12:13
Speaker 1: can mention?
12:14
Speaker 2: We have another one on as we speak. Actually, we're
12:17
Speaker 2: betting that the Federal Reserve is going to have to
12:19
Speaker 2: cut rates more quickly than people expect. That's the current
12:23
Speaker 2: macro bet that we have on.
12:25
Speaker 1: The pleasure you get out of doing this is what
12:27
Speaker 1: you like to make money. You have investors, you want
12:29
Speaker 1: to make them happier.
12:31
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of things.
12:32
Speaker 2: You know, one I work with a great group of
12:34
Speaker 2: people that I got to individually select. I mean, as
12:37
Speaker 2: you know the benefit of being a CEO, as you
12:38
Speaker 2: get to pick everyone you work with. We choose people
12:40
Speaker 2: based on principally personal qualities. You know, they a good
12:44
Speaker 2: human being, Are they a person of good character? Of course,
12:46
Speaker 2: they need to be exceptional in whatever it.
12:48
Speaker 3: Is that they do for the firm. And we're a
12:51
Speaker 3: tiny firm.
12:51
Speaker 2: We're unusual, and most firms with seventeen billion of assets
12:55
Speaker 2: have a lot more than forty one employees. And of
12:57
Speaker 2: the forty one, we only have eight people team, which
13:00
Speaker 2: is also unusual. So I think this plays attracts you
13:06
Speaker 2: know what people call force multipliers, you know, people who
13:09
Speaker 2: could get done a lot more whether you're on the
13:11
Speaker 2: accounting team the legal team than a typical.
13:14
Speaker 3: Kind of person.
13:15
Speaker 2: So you have a bunch of high performing, high quality
13:17
Speaker 2: fund people and I get to come into the office
13:19
Speaker 2: every day and work with them.
13:20
Speaker 3: So I would say that's a great thing too.
13:22
Speaker 2: It's actually a lot of fun to make money for people,
13:24
Speaker 2: you know, it's you know, I get the occasional letter email,
13:27
Speaker 2: often from existing investors, but actually more often from people
13:32
Speaker 2: that I don't know that happen to, you know, buy
13:35
Speaker 2: a stock along with us. You know, we've had some
13:38
Speaker 2: nice successes which you know, have been life transformational for people.
13:44
Speaker 2: So I do it is fun to make people money.
13:47
Speaker 1: Even if some hedge funds they've delegated the money decision
13:51
Speaker 1: making to many of different people in the firm, you
13:54
Speaker 1: make all the final decisions yourself.
13:56
Speaker 2: It works as we have an eight person investment team,
13:58
Speaker 2: and each idea is one that a two person team
14:02
Speaker 2: will do a deep dive on.
14:04
Speaker 3: I will do less of a deep dive.
14:06
Speaker 2: I'll read the public filings, I'll read conference called transcripts.
14:09
Speaker 2: I won't be the person that you know, talks to
14:12
Speaker 2: former employees that kind of thing. And then we talk
14:15
Speaker 2: about every idea as a team, and ultimately the team
14:19
Speaker 2: collectively we don't do things generally that you know, we
14:23
Speaker 2: don't have kind of collective buy in on. At the
14:25
Speaker 2: end of the day, I do retain the ultimate veto yeah,
14:29
Speaker 2: your name, and the ultimate decision on sizing.
14:33
Speaker 3: One big change I made in the last.
14:35
Speaker 2: Couple of years, I pointed a cio, a very talented
14:38
Speaker 2: guy named Ryan Israel who's been with the firm for
14:41
Speaker 2: about fourteen years. And Ryan is exceptional, and he's taken
14:46
Speaker 2: a real leadership role among that eight person you know team.
14:50
Speaker 2: But you know, I use the word team often here
14:53
Speaker 2: because that's how this place operates.
14:54
Speaker 1: What type of people would get a job here. You're
14:56
Speaker 1: looking for people who are really smart, good academic credentials driven.
15:00
Speaker 1: What is it that you look for when you're interviewing people.
15:03
Speaker 3: It depends on what role.
15:04
Speaker 2: But people on the investment team generally, yes, they've graduated
15:10
Speaker 2: to the top of their class at Wharton, They've always
15:12
Speaker 2: been interested in business and investing. They went to work
15:15
Speaker 2: at a Apollo a KKR Carlisle. We like people that
15:20
Speaker 2: get private equity experience. We think that's the best background
15:23
Speaker 2: for what we do. We're really private equity investors investing
15:27
Speaker 2: in the public markets, and the sort of temperament of
15:31
Speaker 2: a typical private equity person fits well here. We only
15:34
Speaker 2: own really eight companies. They don't change that often, so
15:40
Speaker 2: this is not a place where a typical hedge fund firm.
15:43
Speaker 2: You know, people are cycling through the idea of the week,
15:46
Speaker 2: the idea of the month. Here we may do one
15:48
Speaker 2: new idea a year.
15:49
Speaker 1: Now. Another area that investors have been very interested lately
15:52
Speaker 1: is artificial intelligence. Are you investing in things relating to
15:56
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence?
15:57
Speaker 2: You know, the most direct investment we have in AI,
15:59
Speaker 2: I would say, is good Google or Alphabet, which.
16:02
Speaker 1: You're a biggest shareholder of Alphabet.
16:04
Speaker 2: We're a small shareholder of alphaet because it's a massive company.
16:06
Speaker 2: We've got a you know, a large investments approaching two
16:09
Speaker 2: billion dollar investment in the business. And actually it was
16:13
Speaker 2: it was the It was AI that created the opportunity
16:16
Speaker 2: for us to buy Google at an attractive price. You know,
16:17
Speaker 2: basically Microsoft and open ai had a very powerful demonstration
16:22
Speaker 2: of a launch of a new product, and then Google's
16:26
Speaker 2: kind of launch or it was a bit of a disaster.
16:29
Speaker 3: Stock gout crushed on the basis of you know, fear.
16:31
Speaker 2: That Google is way behind an AI and and there
16:34
Speaker 2: you know, their advertising franchise more than covered the value
16:38
Speaker 2: of the company and you got whatever they were doing
16:39
Speaker 2: in AI if you will, for free. And our view
16:42
Speaker 2: based on work we had done, is that actually Google
16:44
Speaker 2: was sort of neck and neck, if not ahead of
16:46
Speaker 2: open ai in terms of their their business progress.
16:49
Speaker 1: So one of the pluses some people would say of
16:51
Speaker 1: being a successful investor is you do make a fair
16:53
Speaker 1: amount of money and then you have the opportunity to
16:55
Speaker 1: be a philanthropist. So you were one of the early
16:57
Speaker 1: signers of the Giving Pledge. Did you do that? Why
17:00
Speaker 1: did you commit to give away half of your net worth?
17:03
Speaker 2: Well, I think he committed half for more. That was
17:05
Speaker 2: kind of my plan anyway. And then you know, one day,
17:08
Speaker 2: you know, Warren Buffett calls up and says, Bill, you know,
17:11
Speaker 2: I want you to sign the Giving Pledge. So I
17:15
Speaker 2: think it's a you know, I've learned a lot about philanthropy.
17:20
Speaker 2: I started the Persian Square Foundation, actually, I think seventeen
17:23
Speaker 2: years ago. My personal business plan was always to be
17:27
Speaker 2: super successful and then take the resources I don't need
17:30
Speaker 2: and then redeploy them in a way that I thought
17:33
Speaker 2: was best for society. I do think that philanthropy is
17:37
Speaker 2: often not the best way to solve problems. I do
17:39
Speaker 2: think that capitalism and for profit business models are generally
17:43
Speaker 2: the best way to solve problems. But there are still problems,
17:46
Speaker 2: societal ones that can't be solved in the traditional capital markets.
17:50
Speaker 2: There's sort of a gap, and so you know, those
17:53
Speaker 2: are the areas that we tend to focus on.
17:54
Speaker 1: One of the institutions you've been very philanthropic with is
17:57
Speaker 1: your alma mater, Harvard. But recently you've been very public
18:01
Speaker 1: about your criticism of the way Harvard handled the events
18:04
Speaker 1: of October seventh then their aftermath. Could you talk about
18:08
Speaker 1: that now?
18:09
Speaker 2: The first reaction of a group of thirty four Harvard
18:11
Speaker 2: student clubs on the morning after October seventh was to
18:16
Speaker 2: put out a statement saying that Israel was one hundred
18:19
Speaker 2: percent responsible for the acts of Hamas. And my view
18:26
Speaker 2: on that was, you know, that's ridiculous, and that's more
18:30
Speaker 2: than ridiculous, I would say, And you know, these students
18:34
Speaker 2: need to have some you know, judgment and perspective. You
18:37
Speaker 2: can come out and say, look, I'm very unhappy about
18:40
Speaker 2: Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank, or
18:44
Speaker 2: you can say, you know, we can talk about God's strip,
18:48
Speaker 2: but you can't support terrorists, and particularly terrorists that rape
18:53
Speaker 2: and pillage and you know, murder and burn and take hostages.
18:58
Speaker 2: And so my first point there was not so much
19:02
Speaker 2: directed at Harvard, but you know, I love to know.
19:05
Speaker 2: I got actually a text from a CEO in my industry.
19:09
Speaker 2: It's like Bill, you know your you know, the people
19:12
Speaker 2: at Harvard. I'd like to know who the students are
19:14
Speaker 2: behind these clubs, so I make sure I don't inadvertently
19:16
Speaker 2: hire them.
19:17
Speaker 3: And so I tweeted out that sort of.
19:19
Speaker 2: Made that point and caused a bit of a firestorm,
19:24
Speaker 2: and I got a lot of pushback. Why are you
19:26
Speaker 2: picking on students? I said, Look, you can't hide behind
19:28
Speaker 2: a corporate entity if you're going to support terrorism. You know,
19:31
Speaker 2: that's a that's a major decision. So that was sort
19:33
Speaker 2: of my first initiative, if you will, at Harvard. And
19:37
Speaker 2: then you know, there were protests on campus, and the
19:41
Speaker 2: protests weren't The protests were supportive of terrorism and supportive
19:47
Speaker 2: of things like you know, when you have a group
19:50
Speaker 2: of students shouting into fada, into Fada, you know, let's
19:53
Speaker 2: free Palestine and from the river to the sea. The
19:56
Speaker 2: meaning of into fada means to kill Jews. When I
20:00
Speaker 2: raised this issue, Harvard said, well, we have a commitment
20:02
Speaker 2: to free speech, and that's why we have to allow this. Well,
20:04
Speaker 2: there's certain speech that is certainly permissible under the First Amendment,
20:09
Speaker 2: and then there's certain speech that I would say is
20:11
Speaker 2: undesirable on a campus.
20:13
Speaker 1: Have you said you're not going to donate the Harvard anymore,
20:16
Speaker 1: or have you said, I'm not going to hire people
20:18
Speaker 1: from these Harvard students anymore or people like those people.
20:22
Speaker 2: No, well, one, we're not going to hire anyone that
20:24
Speaker 2: supports terrorism at person square. I haven't made any statements about,
20:28
Speaker 2: you know, economic support for Harvard. I want Harvard to
20:30
Speaker 2: do the right thing. I don't want to threaten one
20:32
Speaker 2: way or another. That's not my kind of approach. But
20:35
Speaker 2: I do think Harvard needs to do a deep examination
20:38
Speaker 2: of you know, one, there's been a meaningful rise in
20:41
Speaker 2: anti Semitic incidents on campus and university's done very little.
20:47
Speaker 3: You know.
20:47
Speaker 2: The reaction was, let's form a task force. And I
20:50
Speaker 2: think again, had this been another ethnic group that or
20:58
Speaker 2: these kind of activity took place, Harvard would be suspending
21:01
Speaker 2: the people involved, not just allowing you.
21:03
Speaker 1: So you're going to continue to be involved in this
21:05
Speaker 1: issue and try to push Harvard to do what you
21:07
Speaker 1: think they should be doing.
21:08
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know, I wrote a pretty thoughtful letter that
21:12
Speaker 2: was you know, I think twenty five million people saw
21:14
Speaker 2: it on Twitter, and remarkably I did not get a response,
21:19
Speaker 2: which to.
21:19
Speaker 3: Me is a very very bad and weak approach.
21:27
Speaker 2: Literally, no response, no acknowledgment, no Dear Bill, I hear
21:29
Speaker 2: what you're saying, but.
21:32
Speaker 3: Nothing. So, Yes, I'm an activist, but.
21:36
Speaker 2: My activism today is probably not in the corporate boardroom.
21:40
Speaker 2: It's on campus. And this is not just a Harvard problem.
21:45
Speaker 2: You know, there's and it's an NYU problem. It's a
21:47
Speaker 2: University of Pennsylvanian problem.
21:50
Speaker 3: It.
21:50
Speaker 2: You know, the the more I examined the issue, the
21:53
Speaker 2: more woke, the more left leaning the institution, the more
21:58
Speaker 2: anti semitism, which is a very unfortunate thing.
22:02
Speaker 1: You've built Pershing from nothing to what it is today,
22:04
Speaker 1: a very successful hedge fund. What makes you most proud
22:08
Speaker 1: that having done that from the start? Or are the
22:11
Speaker 1: things you've done in your philanthropic life? What are you
22:13
Speaker 1: most proud of having achieved in your life so far?
22:15
Speaker 2: So, you know a number of things. I love having
22:18
Speaker 2: a company where I believe that pretty much everyone here
22:22
Speaker 2: is excited to come into work every day. I think
22:24
Speaker 2: we've made a kind of meaningful contribution to you know,
22:30
Speaker 2: the capitalist system and the functioning of how you know.
22:33
Speaker 2: I think the probably the most significant impact we've had.
22:35
Speaker 2: We were sort of an early activist and as you
22:39
Speaker 2: probably know, the nature of boardrooms, you know, twenty years
22:43
Speaker 2: ago is meaningfully different today, and a big part of
22:47
Speaker 2: that is the rise of shareholder activism, and I think
22:48
Speaker 2: we played an important role there. I think that's led
22:51
Speaker 2: to the US capital markets, in the US stock market
22:54
Speaker 2: being one of the best performing markets in the world,
22:56
Speaker 2: and that has a huge impact on people's pensions, on
22:59
Speaker 2: people's savings, people's livelihood, on US competitiveness, on our national security,
23:05
Speaker 2: and so, you know, I think, you know, the good
23:07
Speaker 2: news about my day job is, you know, it's fun,
23:09
Speaker 2: it's profitable, benefits our investors, but it also on benefits
23:14
Speaker 2: kind of the market generally. So I think that's an
23:16
Speaker 2: important and good contribution.
23:18
Speaker 1: You know.
23:19
Speaker 2: Philanthropically, we have invested in, you know, six hundred million
23:24
Speaker 2: dollars in a wider range of initiatives, and you know,
23:28
Speaker 2: a number of those, uh, you know, it's a bit
23:30
Speaker 2: like investing. You have, hopefully you have a few Googles,
23:34
Speaker 2: and we have a couple of those, a number of
23:37
Speaker 2: those filanthropically, and I do feel like we've invested money
23:42
Speaker 2: on which society has earned unattractive return.
23:47
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
23:49
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
23:53
Speaker 1: wherever you listen