Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has seen his fair share of turbulence in a career spanning multiple decades. The American billionaire had experienced a particularly low point during the 2010s — going through an expensive divorce and facing a near-professional-death experience. Ackman, however, revealed during a recent address that he had tackled upheaval by ‘compounding’ and taking things one day at a time.
“All of us are going to have a moment like this, unfortunately… It could be a health issue. It could be that you’re fired from your job or your startup fails. And it’s even harder when you’ve fallen from a high place to a low place,” he said during a recent financial conference.
Ackman revealed that he had adopted the principle of ‘compounding interest’ to his personal life — trying to make incremental progress towards his goals. His method, the American businessman revealed, was “just trying to make a little progress every day”. The divorce from his first wife has reportedly cost the businessman an unspecified nine-figure amount, and his firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, lost billions of dollars. Ackman had also come close to losing control of the company during this turbulent phase.
“If you make 0.1% progress every day, it doesn’t sound like a lot—but annualized! I’m going to make progress. I’m not going to look back at where I was. If I look there…I’m going to get discouraged. I’m just going to focus on the next step, and then the next step, and the next step. You don’t notice any meaningful change for the first few weeks. About 90 days in, you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m here … and I’m just going to keep compounding,” he told Forbes.
The billionaire has since climbed back onto the ladder of success — seeing his net worth nearly double to around $8 billion in 2024 following a new valuation round for his company. He has also been happily married to Israeli-American designer Neri Oxman since 2019.