“Success is not a straight line up,” Bill Ackman told the UBS audience during this year’s Berkshire Hathaway Fireside Chat. “You’re almost guaranteed to fail over the course of your life and it’s how you respond to failure that determines your success.”
Ackman, always frank, spoke openly about lessons learned over the past year. “President Trump… everything he said he’s going to do he’s going to do. When he says tariffs are the most beautiful word he ever heard he meant it.” But Ackman warned, “Keeping tariffs at 145% with China is a mistake for many reasons.” His advice? “Pause the China tariffs or take them down to 10 or 20%… the balance of power in the negotiation comes back to us.”
On navigating markets in uncertain times, Ackman said: “The most important thing we can learn from Mr. Buffett is owning super high quality businesses… put yourself in a position where you’re never forced to sell.”
He continued: “We love owning royalty collecting companies. Universal Music is a royalty on people listening to music. Uber is a royalty on people getting driven around and ordering food.” These businesses, he said, are “inherently sort of inflation protected.”
For young investors seeking, Ackman offered this: “The mistake an investor makes early on… is being effectively too short-term… it’s just, one it’s no fun, two it’s not a great way to live your life.”
Durability, in his view, is key. “Usually what creates durability is that the company gets to a certain kind of market position… they offer a product or service that their customers love… they’re at a certain scale that is difficult to disrupt.”
But investing is only part of the picture. “If I want to live a significant life—which is sort of the business plan—I think the significance comes from having the biggest positive impact from the largest number of people.”
He spoke proudly of his philanthropic evolution: “I’ve sort of learned through the experience of philanthropy that actually through business you can accomplish way more good than you can with philanthropy.”
In his signature style, he added a dose of perspective: “This investing stuff is not a real challenge. A real challenge is like having cancer… being in Ukraine and you know getting hit with missiles… So the key to enduring things is perspective.”
And as for the secret to bouncing back? “You just focus on making a little progress every day… compounding works exactly the same way with money.”
You can watch the entire fireside chat here:
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