저자: BillAckman · 외국인
요약 보기
성공의 핵심은 실패를 다루는 방식이며 빌 애크먼은 극단적 솔직함(extreme candor)과 채용 중심 리더십을 강조한다. 이사회·CEO에 대한 직언, 실수를 즉시 인정하는 조직 문화, 직원 무이직(리셉션 포함) 사례를 든다. 투자 관점에서는 스타트업 근무 경험을 통해 좋은 사업과 나쁜 사업을 구별하는 안목을 키우라고 권한다. 본인의 투자 경력도 우상향이었지만 중간중간 굴곡이 있었다고 말한다. 자산 가격에 대한 구체적 전망은 없다.
다듬은 글
You look at the most successful people in the world. I I know very few of them that haven't had a major failure. You know, if you read through the uh they're not the financially most successful people. If you read through the Forbes billionaire list and you read their stories, you know, they've had failed businesses and they've lost everything and they've hung on the you know, they've almost died holding on to the ledge.
So, there are lots of examples of people who had huge adversity. And I think it's how you deal with adversity that determines your ultimate success as opposed to how you deal with success that determines your ultimate success. My approach in business, in my personal life, in a management role is extreme cander.
Just be direct. If you live that way, um you know, you'll run the risk of offending various people over time. Um but you'll have much better relationships because um you know, if you tell people the truth, first of all, it's not typical. You know, a lot of people uh in the interest of politeness or fear of confrontation or it's just uncomfortable don't speak the truth.
And that goes for people on boards. You know, there are lots of examples of super talented people sitting around the room as an institution is failing. Think of all the the banks during the crisis where people were not willing to confront the CEO. So, I'm willing to confront the CEO. Uh and uh but I'm completely candid with him about his successes and his failures.
Um and uh it's but I give him, you know, I don't step on his I don't run the company. I'm not involved day-to-day at all. I trust his judgment. It's a bit of a trust but verify uh type relationship and it's worked very well. So that's the my only public leadership role. I am CEO of Persing Square. It's a much easier business to run than a a normal company because we've got only 56 employees.
And here the key is uh the key to successful leadership is one hiring the right people. Uh I have the benefit of not inheriting anyone because I hired everyone in the company. I interview every receptionist. I interview every secretary. I interview every investment person. Um, and so I get to pick ultimately everyone that I work with and that helps leadership a lot because if you hire the key behind leadership, if you hire super talented people, you don't need to do that much leadership because they're going to do the right thing.
Second thing is setting up the incentives correctly. So in Persian Square, everyone is incentivized by how the overall firm does, which I think is a good dynamic because it creates uh teamwork. uh I follow the same extreme uh cander uh approach in uh evaluation evaluating people um and I care about everyone I work with uh as I do of family members and so we look out for each other and if someone's going through a difficult health issue or personal issue uh financial issue or uh you know I have the benefit of having a lot of relationships and whether it's the medical community or in the uh business community or or in the political community and so we we help our And uh we don't tolerate uh insincerity.
Uh I you know people are encouraged to admit their mistakes immediately uh before they figure out a solution to the problem. So my when when I hired my CFO um in the first year of working with him, he would approach me with a mistake he had made after he had figured out how to solve the problem. And I would get angry with him every time.
I said, "No, no, I don't want to hear about the mistake after you figured out the solution. and I want to hear the mistake now and then we can work together on solving the problem. So I think if you have an organization where people very quickly admit mistakes um and where you're candid with them and they're not punished for making a mistake um that is a very good uh uh dynamic and uh it's worked very well.
we have almost no turnover even in the reception desk at Purging Square. Um and and that's worked uh it's been a good model and so I don't do that much leadership other than uh I guess on the leadership side I think you have to uh you know you have to set an example uh in terms of the way you live in terms of the way you behave because that affects how other people uh will watch you.
So my other key success factor for being a leader in the 21st century in the era of everyone having a video camera on their cell phone is assume that everything you're doing is being videoed and recorded uh at all times and that will you know and consider that the video ends up as a top video on on YouTube and then adjust your behavior accordingly.
So fair. The way to really understand investing is to understand a business. And one of the most important skills you need as an investor is distinguishing between a great business, a good business, a fair business, and a bad business. And one way to get a sense of the quality of a business is go to work for one.
This is the greatest time in in history to work for a startup. There are lots of incredibly interesting businesses being formed. And if you can be one of the early employees, you're going to learn a lot about how a business works, how to make payroll, how to market your product, how to design something.
And those skills I think are invaluable. First of all, you might even find it really interesting. You might have joined the next Facebook. So that's one thing. Even if the business fails, you'll learn a ton from that. I think that's the best experience you can get ultimately to be a good fundamental investor.
Experience is making mistakes and learning from mistakes. And uh unfortunately as students, you haven't made many mistakes yet. You know, you've gotten to Oxford at this point in your career. The biggest risk is you probably haven't screwed up a lot. And so, you know, the risk of that is when data comes across your desk that's inconsistent with your being successful, you're less likely to pay attention to it than if you've made a few mistakes.
So, I encourage you to make some mistakes. Um, and uh actually I I've made plenty over the course of my career and I think I've been very successful uh over time, but it's not been a straight line up. In fact, I had if if I were a stock, it would look something like this after business school, you know, and then and so the concern is whether this is coming, you know, but but so far, you know, we we've you know, the overall trend has generally been positive, but you know, there there are certainly bumps along the way.
Comments 0