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Fortune
Fortune
Emma Burleigh

How a book that inspired Warren Buffett and a $14,000 side hustle helped billionaire Bill Ackman get started as an investor

Photo of Bill Ackman (Credit: Fortune's Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast)

Billionaire Bill Ackman has built a $35 billion hedge fund, led high-profile overhauls at companies like Chipotle, and boasts an eye-watering investment portfolio through his firm, ranging from Amazon to Microsoft. Now he’s revealing the two things that moved the needle in his career: a book that inspired Warren Buffett and a $14,000 side hustle.

“One early formative experience was at Harvard, where I took a job at Harvard Student Agencies selling advertising for the Let’s Go travel guides—a series of books where Harvard students wrote reviews of hotels around the world,” Ackman recently told editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell during Fortune podcast Titans and Disruptors of Industry.

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