Bill Ackman: SVB Collapse, Biden vs Trump, How I Lost $400M on Netflix, Bill's 10-Year Long
Bill Ackman (guest), Harry Stebbings (host)
In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Bill Ackman and Harry Stebbings, Bill Ackman: SVB Collapse, Biden vs Trump, How I Lost $400M on Netflix, Bill's 10-Year Long explores bill Ackman on risk, resilience, politics, and fixing capitalism’s flaws Bill Ackman recounts his early days raising Gotham’s first fund, lessons from key failures like Gotham’s closure and the $400M Netflix loss, and how those experiences shaped his approach to risk, liquidity, and position sizing at Pershing Square.
Bill Ackman on risk, resilience, politics, and fixing capitalism’s flaws
Bill Ackman recounts his early days raising Gotham’s first fund, lessons from key failures like Gotham’s closure and the $400M Netflix loss, and how those experiences shaped his approach to risk, liquidity, and position sizing at Pershing Square.
He explains why he is outspoken publicly, especially on Twitter, and lays out his views on banking fragility, the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, FDIC reform, inflation, and how the Fed should respond to current financial instability.
Ackman explores broader themes including free speech, wealth inequality, smarter tax design, and the role of ownership and compounding in addressing inequality, along with his evolving relationship to money and philanthropy.
On the personal side, he discusses trust, partnership, marriage, parenting in a world of privilege, and hints at a possible future in politics while remaining an optimist about America’s long‑term trajectory.
Key Takeaways
Choose partners you deeply trust and listen to your gut.
Ackman emphasizes that long‑term partnerships work only when built on total trust and aligned character; his rare disappointments came when he ignored early “spidey sense” concerns about people.
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Design your investment vehicle to match assets and liabilities.
Gotham’s downfall stemmed from mixing illiquid private investments with redeemable capital; Pershing Square was built to avoid this asset‑liability mismatch by focusing on large, liquid public companies.
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Systematically learn from both losses and missed opportunities.
He analyzes not only losing investments (e. ...
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In crises, focus on daily progress and physical and mental hygiene.
His playbook for dark periods includes sleep, nutrition, exercise, surrounding yourself with people who love you, and making incremental daily progress—leveraging compounding to dig out over months.
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Bank stability now requires broader, clearer deposit guarantees.
He argues the SVB episode exposed systemic risk from partial guarantees; a temporary blanket deposit guarantee followed by a reformed FDIC regime with higher insured limits is, in his view, essential to stop runs on regional banks.
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Address inequality by giving everyone a stake in capital compounding.
Rather than wealth taxes that could cripple startups, he advocates principle‑based tax fixes (e. ...
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Prioritize alignment and shared values in marriage and family life.
Ackman attributes his strong marriage mainly to picking the right partner with shared drive and values, then deliberately protecting time together; with children, he believes character and money attitudes come more from parenting than from income level.
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Notable Quotes
“You don’t want to have a tax policy that destroys the economy.”
— Bill Ackman
“Don’t let the past disrupt the future… start with a blank sheet of paper.”
— Bill Ackman
“Experience is making mistakes and learning from them.”
— Bill Ackman
“My conflict, if you will, is I’m long America.”
— Bill Ackman
“I’ve been consistently happy pretty much since birth.”
— Bill Ackman
Questions Answered in This Episode
How should individual investors apply Ackman’s lessons on liquidity and asset‑liability matching to their own portfolios?
Bill Ackman recounts his early days raising Gotham’s first fund, lessons from key failures like Gotham’s closure and the $400M Netflix loss, and how those experiences shaped his approach to risk, liquidity, and position sizing at Pershing Square.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What concrete safeguards could regulators introduce to prevent another SVB‑style duration mismatch without overregulating regional banks?
He explains why he is outspoken publicly, especially on Twitter, and lays out his views on banking fragility, the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, FDIC reform, inflation, and how the Fed should respond to current financial instability.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How feasible is Ackman’s baby‑account compounding proposal politically, and what design details would determine whether it actually reduces inequality?
Ackman explores broader themes including free speech, wealth inequality, smarter tax design, and the role of ownership and compounding in addressing inequality, along with his evolving relationship to money and philanthropy.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Where is the line between productive public activism by investors and market‑moving commentary that can unintentionally fuel panic?
On the personal side, he discusses trust, partnership, marriage, parenting in a world of privilege, and hints at a possible future in politics while remaining an optimist about America’s long‑term trajectory.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If Ackman entered politics, which of his views—on tax reform, immigration, or banking—would be most controversial within each major party?
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Transcript Preview
... you know, the Biden wealth tax, which is like 25% of the appreciation of things that you own privately, it's gonna bankrupt every startup. No one will ever start a business in America anymore, right? 'Cause you, you know, god forbid someone puts money in your company at a billion-dollar valuation, all of a sudden you owe, you know, if you own half the company, you owe $100 million in taxes that year. You know, those kinds of taxes I think are destructive. You don't wanna have a tax policy that destroys the economy.
Bill, I am so excited for this. I've heard so many great things. I just told you I was matching with Jackie Reses, but heard so many wonderful things. So thank you so much for joining me today.
Well, I'm delighted to be here.
I would love to start, I've listened to many of your interviews before, and bluntly, I wanted to ask different questions. And so I wanna start with you went to HBS, and then you founded Gotham. How was raising the first fund?
Uh, it was fun. Uh, it was a bit like Blind Dating. (laughs) A lot of blind dates, not much success. Uh, but we had, uh, I think we eventually saw well over 100 people, and we had six people ultimately say yes and give us money, and the six people totaled l- $3.1 million, actually $3 million, and my partner and I put up 100 together.
(laughs) What worked? What didn't work? 100 meetings, there must have been some lessons.
So, uh, well, what's interesting is anyone who knew me as a kid wouldn't give us money. (laughs) So...
(laughs)
And the same went true for my partner, because they thought of me, their perspective was me as a high school kid or a elementary school kid or whatever. So, I had no success with anyone I knew. Um, but of the original six, four of the six were in the Forbes 400 wealthiest people in America. So we went to people who were worth $400 million. We asked them for, like, a half million bucks, and that was a good strategy actually. And what was interesting is the people who were entrepreneurs really liked the idea of backing a couple of young guy, couple, couple of young guys who are entrepreneurs, and I think that was a big part of the connection. And the pitch we made, so we said, "Look, we're not doing venture capital. We're investing in, you know, uh, public companies. Uh, we're doing, you know, a high, detailed due diligence. We have no track record, but we have a strategy that has an excellent track record." You know, we're, you know, Mr., we're Warren Buffet devotees, and we said, "Look, we're putting all of our collective net worths in. We're, you know, missing out on the opportunity to go work at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs to do this."
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