Carm

Be Bill Ackman. > Grow up in Chappaqua, New York. Your dad is in real estate. Your mom is organizing commuters to fight the railroad over lousy service. > Go gray at nine years old. Apparently, you've been stressed about the markets since elementary school. > Dad doesn't believe in allowances, so he pays you by the hour to dig a 50-foot ditch. > Realize pretty quickly that hourly work is for suckers. Negotiate a flat fee on the next job. > Tell your dad as a teenager that you're going to be a millionaire by 30, worth $100 million by 40, and a billionaire by 50. > Normal teenage stuff. > Go to Harvard. Sell advertising for travel guides. Make $14,000 in one summer. > Immediately blow a bunch of it on a ridiculous stereo system and learn about income taxes the hard way. > Graduate. Work for your dad. Go back to Harvard for your MBA. > Co-captain a rowing team that puts dollar signs on its oars. > Get booed for it. > Defend the dollar signs in the school newspaper. > This guy was absolutely born for Twitter. > Graduate in 1992. Start a hedge fund called Gotham Partners. > Cold-call people on the Forbes 400 to raise money. > Get married in 1994 to a woman your dad helped introduce you to by fax. > Yes, fax. > By 2002, your fund is winding down. Not exactly how you drew it up. > Get into a dispute with Carl Icahn over a $4.5 million earnout from a business deal. > Sue him. Eventually win. > In 2004, start another fund called Pershing Square with about $54 million. > Bet against bond insurers before the financial crisis. Make roughly $1.1 billion on the hedges. > Buy into a bankrupt shopping mall company called General Growth Properties. By 2011, an investment that started at $60 million is worth roughly $1.6 billion. > Not bad. > In 2012, publicly commit to giving away most of your wealth. > Also put on a $1 billion bet against Herbalife because you believe it's a pyramid scheme. > Carl Icahn takes the other side. > Naturally. > In 2013, the two of you get into an absolutely legendary argument on live CNBC. > Icahn calls you a "crybaby in the schoolyard." > You're two billionaires in your 40s and 70s arguing on national television like somebody stole somebody else's lunch money. > It's incredible television. > Meanwhile, get involved in Canadian Pacific Railway. Push for a management overhaul. Help turn the company around. > Exit in 2016 with roughly $2.6 billion in gains for Pershing. > Unfortunately, also get involved in Valeant Pharmaceuticals. > Lose about $4 billion. > Call it a "huge mistake." > Fair assessment. > Your marriage breaks down. Things get rough personally. You miss your kids. > Buy an apartment in the same building as them just to be close. > Then start dating Neri Oxman, a brilliant MIT professor. > She mentions that Brad Pitt is visiting her lab. > One day she goes quiet for hours while he's there. > You start freaking out that Brad Pitt is going to steal your girlfriend. > Later tell Lex Fridman this was one of the scariest moments of your life. > You've personally lost billions of dollars in the stock market, but Brad Pitt showing up at MIT is what really sends you over the edge. > I love this story so much. > Eventually marry her in 2019. > Oh, and that Herbalife bet? > Close it in 2018. Lose about a billion dollars, by your own account. > Can't win them all. > Then 2020 rolls around. > COVID hits. > Go on CNBC and tell everyone "hell is coming." > Also tell viewers you're buying stocks. > Your funds have put on pandemic hedges that ultimately generate $2.6 billion in proceeds against $27 million in premiums and commissions. > One of the great trades of the financial crisis. > Spend the pandemic buying stocks while everyone else is losing their minds. > In 2021, donate Coupang shares then worth roughly $1.36 billion to charitable causes. > In 2022, buy more than a billion dollars of Netflix. > Three months later, sell it at a reported loss of over $400 million. > Probably the most expensive Netflix subscription in human history. > Then get into a massive public fight with Harvard over its leadership. > After the university president resigns, write a roughly 4,000-word reaction. > Remember that your high school yearbook voted you "most verbose." > Absolutely nailed that one. > In 2025, at 59 years old, decide you want to play professional tennis. > Enter an ATP Challenger doubles tournament with Jack Sock. > Lose 6-1, 7-5. > Who cares. You played professional tennis at 59. > Then decide the young men of America need dating advice. > Go on X and recommend walking up to women and politely asking, "May I meet you?" > The internet loses its mind. > Double down. > This is a man who has fought Carl Icahn, survived a multi-billion-dollar loss, stared down Brad Pitt as a romantic threat, and played professional tennis. > You think he's worried about getting rejected on an elevator? > In 2026, bring Pershing Square Inc. and Pershing Square USA to the New York Stock Exchange. > And now, at 60 years old, go on CNBC and warn that the stock market has become a casino. > Bill, my brother. You've been digging ditches, fighting billionaires, making and losing fortunes, buying bankrupt malls, arguing with Harvard, giving away billions, worrying about Brad Pitt, and dispensing dating advice to strangers. You've lived about seven different lives. What an absolutely living legend! 🫡