Episode summary
Bill Ackman: Investment Strategy, What the Market is Missing, How AI Breaks Businesses
All-In Podcast
· · Guests: Bill Ackman
Summary
Bill Ackman said his investing has shifted toward durable, long-term business quality rather than quick activist wins, even though he still sees himself as as activist as ever. He argued that public markets are too short-term oriented and that the best companies need room to make decisions over years, not quarters. He also described how Pershing Square now adds value differently than in its early days, when it had to fight for attention and could not even get CEOs to return calls.
AI was the central theme. Ackman said it is both the greatest era ever to build a business and a major threat to every portfolio because disruption risk has surged. He said many traditional software businesses are especially exposed, while Microsoft, Meta and Amazon look cheaper than the market implies because investors are crowding into chips and other “new new thing” names. He also said founder-led companies have a structural advantage in adapting to change, because founders have longer time horizons and more incentive to make hard calls.
Ackman laid out his Berkshire Hathaway analogy for Howard Hughes, saying the company can be turned into a compounding machine by moving its capital into insurance and investing the float conservatively in short-term Treasuries while deploying the equity into stocks. He said Pershing Square, PSUS and Howard Hughes offer different ways to express his view, and that Howard Hughes is meant to become a much higher-return business over decades.
Key takeaways
- Ackman said the biggest change in his philosophy is prioritizing durable, non-disruptible growth over short-term activism.
- He thinks AI raises disruption risk across portfolios, but also makes companies like Microsoft, Meta and Amazon look undervalued.
- Ackman said founder-led companies have an edge because founders have more authority, longer horizons and larger economic stakes.
- He described Howard Hughes as a Berkshire-style compounding vehicle that will use insurance float and equity investment to create long-term value.
- Ackman said Pershing Square’s public vehicle trades at an 18% discount to cash, and Howard Hughes is his bet on building the next Berkshire Hathaway.
Notable quotes
“the most important and most challenging thing to do is determine what's the risk of disruption”
“This is the greatest era in history to to build a business”
“people always bring their eye to the new new thing”
“I think the answer is exactly what you said”
“We're going to build this into a compounding machine over the next 50 years”
How the episode opens
One of the most provocative and interesting investors in the country, — A legendary activist investor, — Persing Square CEO and founder, Bill Aman. — Taking a short position and going public with it is a pretty serious business. Interestingly, some of the best businesses in the world are trading at the lowest multiples.
We're kind of the rebirth of the closed end investment company universe. — What did you think of Zara, the CEO of OpenAI? I'm sorry, CFO. Felt like the CEO. Yeah, I I was — Stop with that stuff. — Uh, actually I was super impressed. Uh, made me a lot more bullish on Open AI and I thought
Right — I thought she should be CEO of OpenAI. — That's what I thought. — I think Sam should be I think Sam should be chair. I think he's much better. — There was a question I wanted to ask her that we didn't get time which was what's it like working with Sam?
I mean that could have been like three hours in a documentary.
I wanted to kick this off. So thank you so much for being here. We've tried a number of times to get you to all in and it's great to to finally have you.
You obviously are a legend that doesn't need much of an introduction lately in the last number of call it years or months or quarters or what have you. It seems like your investment philosophy may be changing your model uh where you've been activist and you've entered positions and exited positions and lately you've talked a lot about more kind of permanent long-term holdings. would love to hear a little bit about if that is actually a change and how your evolution and your investment model has kind of changed over over time.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai and business disruption
- investment strategy
- market timing
- founder-led companies
- portfolio impact
Companies and tickers mentioned
- BRK-A
- BRK-B
- Berkshire Hathaway
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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