Search Results

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Google's Ruth Porat on the Employee Habit That Drives Her Nuts" at the WSJ The president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google shares her foolproof B.S. detector and why big tech can be like playing with fire. By Holly Peterson Nov. 6, 2025 12:00 pm ET Success, they say, is inspiration plus perspiration. But what of sheer universe-vibration? We ask the most successful people we know to tell us what role luck plays in one’s career. When Ruth Porat was 6 years old, her physicist father would come home from his job at the Stanford Accelerator Laboratory and the two would tinker for hours in the garage, soldering radios and adding machines. Perhaps he had a hunch that putting his daughter at ease around gadgets would one day set her up for a good job. How about a massive job? Today, as the chief investment officer and president of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, Porat oversees global corporate investments as well as Alphabet’s “other bets,” including Waymo self-driving cars and the drone-delivery startup Wing. During her decadelong tenure, the company’s market capitalization has soared from $384 billion to nearly $3 trillion. Porat is known for the clarity of her vision and intent, despite her leadership role at a company that includes a dizzying array of products, such as Google Search and Cloud, YouTube, Android and Chrome. To maximize her team’s output, she pushes her teams to stop focusing on the branches—“Look at the whole tree.” Before arriving in Silicon Valley, Porat hacked her way through the jungles of Wall Street. Starting in the mergers and acquisitions department at Morgan Stanley months before the crash of 1987, she went on to co-head tech investment banking during the early, heady days of the internet. These smart risks opened new doors and eventually led to her running the financial institutions group (a position, she says, that she had initially assumed would be “so boring”). How does Porat explain her rise? “My record of making things work and delivering so people wanted to take a risk on me.” It’s just one of the reasons leaders in the private and public sector have placed her in central roles—and often in the hottest of hot seats. When you started at Google in 2015, having just left Morgan Stanley, how confusing was the lingo, given your background in finance? I was in a meeting with Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Sundar Pichai and about 20 others. I was sitting next to Larry; we were debating something new to me. And so I’m googling the terms. Larry tells the room, “She’s googling what we’re talking about!” I said, “Yeah, I have to learn it. I’m busted by the founder of Google for googling?” Ruth Porat in front of a photo of her with her father, Dan Porat, who died in 2019 at 96. In 2015 she brought him to the Google offices on family day. Google Are you a rule breaker? Am I rule breaking by having been one of the few women in finance and pushing through all the stereotypes? No, that’s setting new norms. Is innovation breaking rules? Yes, in a sense. The art of the possible does need to be redefined constantly. And if you’re not applying data, analytics and thinking into teams to push the edge of what is possible, you’re missing something. How did you earn your credibility in finance and public policy? Some people had an issue with a woman in the room. There weren’t very many of us, but you can’t argue with data. I’m very clear about laying out data in a way that forces a conversation. Defining the core underlying assumptions. Then we can have a discussion about where to invest, how to invest and what the implications are. How did you rise so high so fast? I always said, “What is my highest and best use?” People come into their careers with a preordained notion of what work they’re going to do. Given that the world is dynamic, not static, they miss seeing things that otherwise might be extraordinary. My calculated risk was worth taking: I was asked to run financial institutions, and my immediate instinct was, No, that is so boring. I did it before the 2008 crash, which opened doors I didn’t even know existed. What’s something an employee does that drives you nuts? I don’t want people who process. I want people who think. Step back and put yourself in my shoes; if I’m having a conversation with a head of state somewhere, think, “Is this material rich, deep, insightful—does it take the conversation to another level?” When you get into the deep weeds of a project, get your hands dirty, is it because you can’t help yourself, or your team didn’t do it the way you want? You only have instincts about data because you’ve gotten tactile and granular about building models. You have a feel for it, and you can then go to the core issues. Sometimes I feel like a Morgan Stanley trainee. And I often find that the best way to bring up a team is actually to get in the trenches with them. So I do think this notion of being a player-coach is a really important part of it. What makes a star employee? A star is someone who is in my face, because I want them to challenge me in different ways. Are you stubborn? l’m stubborn in the demand for thinking things through and being crisp and clear and articulate. What is it that we’re doing? Why are we doing it? What are we solving? Porat as a child with her siblings and mother. Ruth Porat A good leader focuses the team. A savvy leader has a fine-tuned B.S. detector. Do you? My father, who was a physicist, said if someone can’t define a quark in less than 30 seconds, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Throughout my career, I have used the quark test. If you think something adds value, at Alphabet, or at Morgan Stanley, and you can’t tell me why in a compelling way in less than 30 seconds, then you don’t know what you’re talking about. With such a vast empire, can you pass the quark test with your own job description? Work with public and private sector leaders to unlock the upside from AI, with a focus on investments in energy, infrastructure and skills training. Did your father get to see most of your accomplishments? He died at 96 in 2019. At Google, in 2015, everyone was so young, they didn’t have kids yet, so we had Bring Your Parents to Work Day. I brought my dad. He said, “Where can this company be in years to come? With this extraordinary technology, amazing talents and tenacity, there’s really no limit, but it’s about applying all of those together.” When do you feel defeated at work? When you’re working with really bright people, you can keep analyzing and litigating things, and that gets frustrating. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. When you worked with Hank Paulson at Treasury on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG during the 2008 financial crisis, what was your most profound takeaway? The lessons from the financial crisis are relevant for every industry, for every leader in good markets and bad. Identify your greatest source of vulnerability early. In 2008, everybody’s greatest source of vulnerability was liquidity. And if you didn’t have durable liquidity, you failed. Nobody at the time was doing the stress analytics to know if they had that. I learned during the AIG crisis that you can’t drive a car—or run a business or country—with mud on the windshield. ‘The lessons from the financial crisis are relevant for every industry, for every leader in good markets and bad,’ said Porat, pictured here with Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke. Don Pollard (c) Council on Foreign Relations What lessons from the financial crisis apply to running Google? At Google, you have to be at the forefront of innovation. That becomes the greatest source of upside and the greatest vulnerability. If you try and catch it late, with something moving this quickly, you’re destined to be a follower. It’s 2025, and we are now not in an “Oh, Al is here!” moment. If it was, we couldn’t be delivering the volume of innovation and TPU chips that were years in the making. What does it mean to be prepared, whether it’s with deep-sea cables, data centers or the electricity to support AI? A major success indicator for you is not being wrong in what you prepare for. You must have analytics that help you assess the dimensions of how much is needed. What’s the cost and downside relative to undershooting? It all comes back to frame it out. Get that sensitivity analysis. In 20 years, we don’t want to be the people sitting around a table saying, “Why didn’t you make the investments?” You’ve worked in three environments, finance, government and tech. How does the culture at Google stand out? It’s very different. “Why not?” is very much the ethos. How do we create an experience to be more profound? Do you own a hoodie? Yeah, a lot of them. Do you wear them to work? Yep. I’m in jeans right now. How has luck affected you? I think if bad luck comes out of the blue, good luck must as well. You increase the probability you will have good luck by taking calculated risk, smart risk. It’s not just telling people to jump into a lagoon. Porat with her children. ‘I wanted to make sure I could see them graduate from high school,’ she said of her cancer diagnosis. Ruth Porat Bad luck would, of course, be your cancer diagnosis, which you’ve been open about. Being diagnosed with cancer when my kids were 5, 7 and 9 was terrifying. I wanted to make sure I could see them graduate from high school. That was the main thing that I was focused on. With the advent of AI, survival rates are increasing, breakthroughs are coming. It’s increasingly manageable. Not for everybody, and I’m always careful to say that, because people are still dying from cancer. We lost a colleague just last month. Were you able to remain optimistic? The second time I was diagnosed with cancer, and the odds of survival were very low, a friend who had been through cancer multiple times told me that when you’re enjoying life, a bird will show up on your shoulder and say, “Why are you happy? You have cancer.” The image empowered me when the bird showed up. I told it, “Get lost. You are not taking away the joy that I am having.” Even though I didn’t believe it in the moment. Does anything ever scare you about AI? With any technology this profound, you have to be focused on mitigating downside risk. Sundar Pichai pointed out that with all technologies, there’s upside and downside, even going back to the earliest days with fire: It can heat your home, it can sterilize your water, but left unmanaged, it can also burn down your home. You have to be bold and responsible. That gives you the right to execute to the upside, because you’re mindful and putting in guardrails to the downside. I’ve seen you be the first one out on the dance floor. You’ll rush out of a midweek dinner to go dancing. In fact, it’s hard to get you off the floor. Oh, my God, it’s so fun. You’re just free and it’s fun and music is uplifting. It boosts your serotonin. As CFO, you played songs before earnings calls. Which ones? Diana Ross, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now” is a good one. And I love “We Are Family.” This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. This article appears in WSJ. Magazine. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.”

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Inside Tom Feston's Wild Ride From 'I Want My MTV!' to $3 Billion in Revenue" at the WSJ By Holly Peterson Illustration by Lorenzo Alessandro for WSJ. Magazine Nov. 13, 2025 1:23 pm ET Success, they say, is inspiration plus perspiration. But what of sheer universe-vibration? We ask the most successful people we know to tell us what role luck plays in one’s career. IN THE EARLY DAYS of MTV, the receptionist sold cocaine and the office had one clothing rule: no frontal nudity. Such was the circus atmosphere of the place, according to Tom Freston, whose memoir, “Unplugged,” reveals how a team of die-hard believers turned music into television. By 1969, he’d earned an M.B.A., but soon after nixed his banker-bro side part, quitting his job at Benton & Bowles advertising firm. Why? He says talking about mouthwash or toilet paper for hours with clients “didn’t turn me on.” Instead, Freston hopscotched the globe for a decade, living in Southeast Asia as he launched a multimillion-dollar clothing business. Returning to the U.S. in 1979, he became part of the initial squad that launched MTV in August 1981 with a paltry 160 music videos. Freston’s unusual and messianic marketing department got megastars like David Bowie and Mick Jagger to scream, “I Want My MTV!”—a campaign designed to strong-arm cable systems into carrying the fledgling station. Between seductive advertisements and must-see videos, Freston and his cohorts had made enough noise by 1985 that Viacom decided to purchase MTV Networks for $550 million (a deal that included Nickelodeon and VH1). Two years later, Sumner Redstone made a hostile bid for Viacom, buying the company for $3.4 billion. Freston drove consistent double-digit growth for 17 years; by 2001 the company had reached $3 billion in revenue—the shiniest gem in the Viacom universe. Hiring misfits and creative oddballs, Freston and his team launched Comedy Central and stars including Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver. MTV is back in the headlines, with David Ellison’s Paramount looking to revive its legacy with younger listeners—a tough road, given that the median MTV audience is now 56 years old, according to Nielsen, and that the brand’s cachet faded in the post-Freston era with the rise of digital media. Here, the CEO who built the company into a juggernaut talks about how the unconventional network fought its way into the mainstream. You had an M.B.A. and were living in a chicken coop without running water. Were you a super-scruffy dude? I had rocking chairs and made it kind of nice. It wasn’t out of line with the people I was hanging out with, or the spirit of 1970. I’d had every menial job imaginable. Post-M.B.A., you surfed in Sri Lanka, hiked in Nepal, rode horses in Afghanistan and didn’t call your parents—or anyone. Not once? With no social media, no one knew where the hell you were. I reveled in that disorientation. To call from Asia, you had to scream and yell. It cost a fortune. Humility, self-awareness, cultural nuance and confidence is the great gift of travel. That’s a good attribute to have as a manager, particularly for the kind of business that I came to preside over at MTV Networks and Viacom. Tom Freston in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush in 1973. What aspect of office life were you bad at? Glad-handing. When I worked at [advertising firm] Benton & Bowles and I was on the Procter & Gamble track, I would have a hard time going out with clients and talking about mouthwash for three or four hours. It didn’t turn me on. What turned you on about music videos? Were you a music guy in high school? I had an encyclopedic knowledge of music and songs, like Elvis, the Everly Brothers and Little Richard. I never had any idea that one day this would be valuable information for me. Tell me about the early MTV culture. Were people smoking weed in the office all the time? Actually, no. But I had the worst-dressed group of people at any office building in Manhattan. The only dress-code rule was no frontal nudity. It was not a traditional company. But it wasn’t like everyone was stoned all the time. People were working their asses off. It was a more raucous kind of wild place where everybody was on a crusade to sweep the nation with this musical invention. We were lucky in that it was an ascendant business at the time. Music videos already existed, but MTV exploded the concept. What videos were the most catalytic at the time? Aerosmith and Run-DMC “Walk This Way.” It made the rock ’n’ roll hip-hop connection between two distinct groups of youth-culture fans. Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video with more overt sexuality in a church setting created a big furor, because Pepsi-Cola, who was a big advertiser, came in and said, “If you run this video, we’re gonna have to pull all our advertising.” Did you hesitate before running it? No way. You couldn’t be caught caving to an advertiser. That’s the big no-no. Freston and Mick Jagger, circa 1987. When running an entertainment company, should you cater more to corporate goals or customer tastes? Choose one. More the customer. We had to get inside the customer’s head, because we were going after specific audiences. If we failed in making a connection with viewers, we didn’t have a business. Do you think fans today are loud enough about sharing opinions, pro or con, about the ABC or CBS settlements with the Trump administration? The telling story is the Jimmy Kimmel episode . I like Bob Iger. I have great respect for him. In trying to avoid one problem by bending the knee to Trump, he put in play a larger problem. Young people who have an affinity towards someone on television do not like it at all when it’s taken away from them, and they will make a lot of noise that will cause you reputational and economic damage. There must have been 30, 40, 50 instances where I had that experience with MTV always being dropped by cable operators where we had to fight to get it back, and we always won. Our viewers always came to our rescue. How many times did you take LSD? A handful of times. I was never a big druggie, but I had some profound experiences with psychedelics. I’m definitely a believer that there are therapeutic applications for these drugs today. It feels cliché, but you do feel some sort of peaceful connection to everything in the universe. It’s certainly working for alcoholism and PTSD. You were more of a corraller than a content creator, but you shared the same sophomoric humor with the animation guys who put Comedy Central into the stratosphere: “South Park,” “Beavis and Butt-Head,” “SpongeBob SquarePants.” We cracked the original animation model, the opposite of what was done by some factory development squad at Hanna-Barbera. I said, Let’s find the type of pot-smoking guys in high school in the back of the class that draw well and have some character living inside their heads, like this hippie Steve Hillenburg who made “SpongeBob.” And let’s get these guys who don’t know anything about how to make a series and school them and we’ll crank it out. It took you a quick minute to greenlight “South Park.” How’d you know so fast? It’s just right away, Wow. Who wouldn’t want to see this? This is hilarious. Who are these guys? Let’s put these guys in business. We added 30 million subscribers to Comedy Central because of the first episode. We had six episodes of “South Park” in the first batch they made. People ordered cable just to see it. Sumner Redstone outside MTV’s Video Music Awards in 1992. Redstone had assumed control of Viacom, which owned MTV Networks, in a hostile takeover a few years earlier. You say hipness evaporates without regular reinvention. Did you ever feel unhip? First of all, a hip person never really thinks about hipness. But MTV’s hipness quotient would allow us to be more powerful than we ordinarily would be—advertisers would pay more, people would want to be associated with us. But you don’t keep hipness, unless you die young, like Jimi Hendrix. Or regularly reinvent yourself to be on the leading edge. What role did luck play with MTV? Do you believe in pure luck? Or do you believe professionals earn it? I believe in both kinds of luck. In the office you make your luck in a way. You put yourself in a position where things can happen to you, and you prepare for them. But a lot happens through serendipity. After Viacom took us over, Sumner Redstone started buying up stock. He wanted to take over the company and oust the current Viacom management and begin his own entertainment empire. And Bob Pittman called me one day and said, “[Redstone] wants to know more about the company. Will you go see him at a secret meeting in his room in the Carlyle Hotel in New York?” Because I did that, I endeared myself to him and helped him, in a way, make the decision to go ahead and buy the company. Tell me about when MTV was bought and the grown-ups took over. In 1985, when Viacom bought MTV Networks, cost-control guys took over who were lacking vision for what the company could become. They were hard-nosed, proper business people. And they came to this company retreat in Montauk [N.Y.], instantly saying in a speech, “We’ve talked to our lawyers, and we don’t think we have to pay your stock options out.” Nothing about “Hey, we see a great future for you ahead, and we love what you’ve done so far and accomplished.” And next they take off in their helicopters. Did you sense that the party was ending? That the fun, O.G. squad had lost power? We were pissed off, and everybody went to the bar, and one thing led to another. Bob Pittman started throwing glasses against the wall. And then, you know, next thing I know, palm trees, plants are being slammed, fish tanks turned over. We got thrown out of Tribeca Grill, which we busted up as well, and they threw us out on the street. Freston surrounded by the animated characters from some of his networks’ TV shows, including ‘Beavis and Butt-Head,’ ‘Hey Arnold’ and ‘Rugrats.’ Terry Doyle Was there ever a time when you started to feel like a suit yourself? When you said, Wow, my behavior is really suitish; I’m officially one of them. There were times in 17 years of running MTV Networks, as a nontraditional company. The bigger we got, the more we got under the microscope. Double-digit growth top and bottom line every year, so Sumner ruled us with a light touch. That said, once I was president and then CEO of Viacom, I had to deal with more unpleasant stuff and was tormented by Sumner, earnings calls and unpleasant suit stuff to me. I would be resentful. When he offered me the top job, I had to think, “Jesus, I don’t have to work for this guy. That means I’m going to be fired, because he fired all my predecessors. That means I’m not going to be close to the things I love to do.” But you know, let’s be a big boy. Put on your big-boy pants. Maybe it’s time to do it. Was that the only way you were tormented by Sumner Redstone? I know you share some, shall we say, colorful stories about him in the book. No. I was on a worldwide quest to take MTV everywhere. In the late ’80s and ’90s, countries began to deregulate media, satellite dishes multiplied on roofs. I kept saying, “Sumner, you got to come to Asia. You’re not going to believe what’s going on there.” So he called me up to his office one day, says, “I’m really finally ready to go to Asia. I’d like to go.” I said, “Well, let me figure out some places for you to go that could do the most good for us. Obviously, we could go to Shanghai, we could go to Taipei, we could go to Mumbai.” And he says, “I’d like to go to Bangkok, just Bangkok.” I told him we didn’t do any business in Thailand, but he insisted on going. We got to Bangkok and he said, “I’d like to go to some sex clubs.” I said, “Oh, my. OK.” Sumner had this gleam in his eye, and he wanted to see some sex. Were you embarrassed? Terribly. There’s shows where people have sex. He was transfixed. They kind of run through the Kama Sutra catalog. And they do, say, acrobatic tricks with ping-pong balls. I sat behind him. I’d only been to a sex club once, years before. That was not my thing. And I used to wonder how these girls end up here. How’s this happening? On the other hand, in Bangkok we had a meeting with the [Charoen Pokphand Group], and Sumner was fantastic. He made such a great case for Viacom and why we should do some business together. I don’t mean to demean his abilities as a businessman. But as the internet took over you were unable to adapt his entertainment conglomerate to the digital tidal wave. What could you have done differently? We could have started a separate corporation outside of the rules of the legacy media company and hired a lot of engineers from Google or whatever and started our own thing. That doesn’t count. I’m talking within the legacy Viacom tent. No one was able to transform themselves into a digital-first company. Viacom were like the canaries in the coal mine because our younger audiences were the first to really start turning towards the internet. Viacom had a certain performance they had to show Wall Street. They couldn’t sink into losses. So we were constrained in terms of what we could buy. We just couldn’t start up something and have it lose money for a decade, like it was Facebook. From left, Brad Grey, Freston and Tom Cruise in 2005. Alex Berliner Was there anything you did personally that made the transition harder? Any regrets? If I had a regret, I would say that I didn’t push hard enough with YouTube, because we were the leaders in short-form video on MTV, VH1, Comedy Central. YouTube started in 2005, and all of a sudden, anybody can be a pro. Now it’s worth $500 billion. The Viacom board felt that YouTube was a copyright infringement machine. We made acquisitions of websites that never really amounted to much. It seems like the only choice a legacy company had at the turn of the century was to create more content and become irresistible. Yes. Take Disney as an example. They realized they weren’t going to set up some social network. What they could do would be to triple down on buying production companies and make Pixar or Lucasfilm or Marvel. Let’s amass more content under our roof so we are more invincible to these forces. And when they started a streaming service, they had a lot of ammunition. Now they have to prove that they can compete with Netflix. In September 2006, Sumner fired you in part for not buying Myspace when it sold to Rupert Murdoch for over $500 million. Sumner didn’t know at the time that you were right, that Justin Timberlake and Specific Media would later buy it for only $35 million. So he fired you. Tell me about that. He said, “I have terrible news for you and me. The board wants me to fire you.” I didn’t say anything to him. I just got up and left on the advice of my lawyer, Allen Grubman. Did you at least give him a look? Yeah, a look like, “What the f—? Are you kidding me?” I mean, you’re telling me the board’s making you do this. You control the board. That’s a joke. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. This article appears in the WSJ. Magazine. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.”

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Bill Ackman Says He's 'Uncancelable'" at the WSJ The founder of Pershing Square Holdings opens up about his mistakes, his anti-DEI crusades and why he still hates to pay for parking Holly Peterson Illustration by Lorenzo D’Alessandro for WSJ. Magazine Oct. 6, 2025 5:30 am ET Success, they say, is inspiration plus perspiration. But what of sheer universe-vibration? We ask the most successful people we know to tell us what role luck plays in one’s career. IT’S SAFE TO SAY Bill Ackman isn’t afraid of getting canceled. No matter how you view his posts about DEI , antisemitism or free speech—either as articulate counterpoints or as rambling, impolitic screeds—no one can deny that they’ve resonated far beyond his 1.8 million followers on X. Being loud comes naturally to Ackman, the son of the commercial real estate broker Larry Ackman, who was known for being the outspoken parent at PTA meetings. Born in Manhattan, Bill grew up in Chappaqua, N.Y., in a $56,000 home that was a “stretch” for his father. Ackman credits his drive in part to his dad making it clear not to expect a penny’s inheritance from him. When he was still in his 20s, Ackman launched Gotham Partners with $3.1 million in funds. He quickly pivoted to activist investing. As CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, he’s seen some spectacular highs (the restructuring of mall operator General Growth Properties and Canadian Pacific Railway) and crushing lows (a hefty position in Valeant Pharmaceuticals cost him an estimated $4 billion when the stock plummeted). Of the losses, Ackman now says, “That would have been the end, but no f—king way was I going to let them liquidate me.” Ackman has recently turned his megaphone to social issues, cementing his place among a brotocracy of the nation’s wealthiest men trying to dictate policy. He was Harvard’s most vociferous critic for its handling of pro-Palestinian student protests. Some saw his efforts contributing to the resignation of the university’s president , Claudine Gay, as laudable, while others found them deplorable. Asked why he’s the rare Wall Street executive to comment on polarizing issues, he says, “Everyone is afraid of losing business. If you don’t want to buy my stock, you know, don’t buy my stock. Who cares?” ‘Success comes from how you deal with failures,’ Bill Ackman says. Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg News Do you consider yourself self-made? I got a big head start. If you are born to parents in New York’s Midtown, like me, instead of tough areas of the South Bronx, there’s a different outcome. I don’t know exactly how much personal credit I can take for that. Tell me why you had an advantage. I lived in a house that my dad paid $56,000 for in 1965, which was a big stretch for him. I went to a good school. We were comfortable. But there were things I could order on the menu, and certain things I wasn’t allowed to order. I never got the CB jacket I wanted or the Nike shoes. I never got an allowance. I had to work to have spending money. Did you ever feel your parents were being too strict with you to make a point? No, not at all. My father said very clearly to me that no matter how successful I am, “You’re not going to inherit any money from me. You’ve got to make it on your own.” Besides family happiness, how do you judge success? Based on the returns I generate for our investors. Warren Buffett had a 60-plus-year track record—my ambition is to best it. Our industry is a phenomenal industry, and we get paid extremely well if we do a good job. But I don’t see people ranking themselves on how much money they make. I’m not competitive, in a way. It’s so interesting that you believe you’re not competitive with your peers. At my stage of the game, what am I focused on? I’m focused on my success in my business; it’s based on my track record. Say Dan Loeb or Carl Icahn, or another peer, does better for five years. That doesn’t rankle you? It would only motivate me. It certainly wouldn’t rankle me. Good for them, you know, whatever. I’m not sure I believe you. Do you think people see you as tougher than you are in real life? How am I seen? Tell me. For starters, you’re an activist investor, tough as hell, with an insane drive to beat others. Maybe to a pulp. I told my dad that I was going to be a millionaire by 30, have $100 million by 40 and a billion by 50. I told him this when I was 18 or 19, and I was always ahead of my goals. I didn’t adjust for the inflation or the depreciation of the dollar, but I was always ahead. I was always optimistic, generally and about myself, and that carried me a long way. Ackman as a young man with his parents, Larry and Ronnie. ‘You’re not going to inherit any money from me,’ Ackman says his late father told him. ‘You’ve got to make it on your own.’ Bill Ackman Lots of people peak in high school. But when they get to real life, they’re not as quick on their feet or as talented as they think they are. So I was lucky. Is that hard work or luck? You went to Harvard with lots of smart people. What made you believe you had a comparative advantage? And what was your comparative advantage? My comparative advantage is that the things I set myself to achieve as a kid, I achieved, and that built confidence that I could do the next thing I set myself to achieve. That’s it. Simple. Some people make a lot of money and love to spend it. Others, like Warren Buffett, are not interested in “balling out,” as my kids say. Do you look down on huge planes and boats and Beyoncé birthday parties? I’m not judgey. To each his own. Are you neurotic about your own money? No. You sure? I also don’t believe that. All right—I don’t like wasting money. I knew it was something. If I don’t like the price of the garage, I’ll go to a different one. It’s funny. I don’t like paying for parking, and I used to own a parking company. Or it really upsets me if the gas grill was running over the weekend—which it was, and it pissed me off. I really don’t like wasting money. I wouldn’t call it a neurosis, but it’s something that I care about. I find most of those things are patterned in childhood. Dad was very big on not wasting things. If I left my light on in my room, he’d get really upset. Now I go around the house turning off every light. How do you talk about money with your kids? I’m still working on that. I’m for setting a good example. Kids do what you do, not what you say. I’m for being realistic and not hypocritical. I think it’s confusing for kids who grow up a certain way, and their parents are like, “You can’t have a cappuccino.” I totally understand that. If you’re in a position to help, I think the best thing you can do for your kids is create the opportunity to pursue the thing they’re most passionate about. If they want to be a teacher, you don’t want them to be an investment banker just so that they can afford to live in New York City. If you have the ability to help them with an apartment so they can be a teacher and still live a nice life, that’s a wonderful thing a parent can do for a child, and I don’t think it poisons them. Tell me about your biggest bump in the road. I wrote this white paper questioning the AAA rating of a company called MBIA, and they went after me very aggressively. I found myself in a really bad place, under investigation by [Eliot] Spitzer, the New York AG, and then the SEC. And some guy on crutches comes over and says, “Ackman, what the f— is going on?” It’s Ian Cumming, the chairman of Leucadia National. He goes, “I told you this s—was going to hit the fan. But, look, we really believe in you. You’ll get through this, and when you’re ready, we’re going to back you in a significant way.” It doesn’t sound like luck to me. Sounds like life and grit. Success comes from how you deal with failures. I dealt with that failure well, and I launched Pershing Square in January 2004. My investment was $4 million. And I had to borrow a million against my house, OK? In 2004 I probably had a $10 million net worth, plus an apartment. I wasn’t worth that much. Comparatively speaking you weren’t worth that much. How many times are you up from that now? A lot. A lot. What’s a lot? A thousand times. When I was 50, I brought the whole firm together and I said, “Look, we don’t have to raise money anymore. We’re out of the hedge-fund business. We have what Buffett had.” I looked it up: When Buffett was 50, Berkshire had $400 million of capital, and our public vehicle had $3.9 billion. We had a vehicle 10 times as large—not adjusted for inflation, but still. What was the scariest moment of the past few decades? The only scary moment was the day my new girlfriend, Neri Oxman, called me and said, “Brad Pitt is at the [MIT] lab visiting our students.” Neri and I usually text and talk all day, but with Brad Pitt there, it’s like radio silence from 10 in the morning to 10 at night; she doesn’t respond. I say to myself, “OK, I’m going to lose this woman. Brad’s going to steal my girlfriend, and then I’ll get wiped out.” So you tell me, how much did luck play a role? A lot. Ackman with his wife, Neri Oxman. One of Ackman’s scariest moments was the day Oxman, then his girlfriend, called to say Brad Pitt was visiting her lab at MIT. Bill Ackman I’m still not convinced it was luck. My father always said to me, “Bill, in life, you have to keep your antennae up. Opportunities present themselves. You’ve got to take advantage of them.” I’m curious about the psychology of people who make it to the tippy top. CEOs are often energized from some deep interior place. Was there anything sad in your childhood? No. Why are you so driven then? You wanted to please your parents? What do you credit it to? I didn’t like that my parents could decide stuff for me. I wanted to do whatever I wanted, say whatever I wanted. I’m very motivated to speak freely. That’s why I’m so active on Twitter. Have you ever felt concerned about your image? I hate it when people have an inaccurate perception of who I am. What’s the most annoying instance of that? Generally speaking. Something about private-jet, hedge-fund guy. You do have a private jet, and you’ve been a hedge-fund guy for years. How much money are you giving away—or what percentage are you planning to give away? A substantial majority. Giving effectively can be difficult. How are you going to do it? I don’t know exactly. I’ve given away over $900 million. My foundation still has almost a billion dollars. I’m going to come up with a thoughtful way to distribute the resources. Ackman with activist investor Carl Icahn. Heidi Gutman/NBCUniversal/Getty Images OK, let’s talk about the Twitter madness, because sometimes it is pure madness. Explain what you are doing. I’m doing what I was motivated to do from the time I was a kid: I wanted to be able to say what I thought. One of my best friends said, “Bill, you know, the way you should live your life is pretend you’re dead. Your best friend gets up at your funeral. What do you want them to say?” You should work your life in reverse, right? I figured out I’m going to die. I want a significant life. I want to have the greatest beneficent impact on the largest number of people. Isn’t giving your money away going to have the greatest beneficent impact on the most people? I thought originally, business was about making money, philanthropy was about doing good, and that’s how I was going to save the world. I fairly quickly concluded that business actually can do enormous good—way more good than any nonprofit. In fact, many nonprofits are a complete disaster, the governance structure, everything’s terrible. Philanthropy should be saved for capital market failures, where there isn’t a for-profit answer, something no venture capitalist will back. Give me examples on how philanthropy can do things businesses can’t. They can fund early-stage scientific research. You can solve poverty in Africa with philanthropy, or reduce hunger. But the other way you can have an impact is having a voice. Some people would say your voice is loud, but they don’t believe it’s made the world better. Well, they should look at all the various issues I’ve taken on. Look at the Pornhub people: I got them to take down 85 percent of videos that were nonconsensual, or under 18, sexual abuse. We achieved that in part by shaming Visa, MasterCard. That’s a very powerful thing. So I like Twitter. Ackman playing tennis. He’s recently turned his megaphone to social issues, cementing his place among a brotocracy of the nation’s wealthiest men trying to dictate policy. Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News You’re political on Twitter. Look, I helped Trump get elected. I was a very “out there” voice supporting him. Not everyone, including some people in my family and some friends, agrees with me on Trump. Have you ever pulled down a Twitter post? Sure. Because it embarrassed you or someone pointed out something false? The latter. I learned something that caused me to realize I was wrong, but not often. My whole Twitter history is up there, pretty much, except for a couple. Do you even get embarrassed? No, because I’m not afraid to admit my mistakes, which in my business is really important. I do it very publicly, which very few people do in my industry. Are you cocky? I don’t think so. When I was a kid, people thought I was cocky, but I was just confident. What’s the difference? Cocky is being very confident with no basis for it, or an inadequate basis. Confidence is when you believe in yourself because you’ve proven you can do what you say you’re going to do. Let’s talk about the demonstrations at Harvard. You were the most vocal alum. Do you wish you’d done anything differently? Nope. I wish Harvard had opened the kimono and listened. From the very beginning, Claudine Gay never responded to my letters. I wanted the opportunity to meet with the board, but I wasn’t given that. That’s why I ended up going public. That was the catalyst. They were afraid of me because I had a Twitter account. You’ve been outspoken about antisemitism, anti-DEI and pro–free speech. Why do you feel you need to comment on everything? Your peers are so cautious. Why do people not speak up? They’re afraid of getting canceled, afraid of being accused of being a racist, of losing business. One of the most important things I’ve been willing to do is speak what I believe to be the truth, regardless of what other people think. That’s one of the benefits of being independent financially. I’m unafraid. Yeah, if you don’t want to buy my stock, you know, don’t buy the stock. Who cares? Have you ever been canceled by a group? No. I’m uncancelable. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. This article appears in WSJ. Magazine. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.”

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Inside the Snooty, Well-Dressed World of British Grouse Hunting" at the WSJ A guide to the ‘country gentleman’ look, a dashing fall style that nods to grouse-shoot outfits. Labrador not included. Bespoke shooting wear from Huntsman, the Savile Row tailor. Photo: Nick Tydeman I once dated a Frenchman for his cashmere blazer—the buttery feel on my cheek, the faint caramel scent in the chilly October sun. We lasted one Parisian autumn. I was more in love with the style than the man. This fall, on urban sidewalks and rural paths, you’ll find plenty of variations on that country-gentleman look: tweed blazers, chocolate-suede laced ankle boots and a playful purple sock peeking out from under a forest-green corduroy cuff. Not to mention all those of-the-moment barn jackets. Brands in this space include Loro Piana , Fendi (which last year released a Princess Anne-inspired menswear collection) and, if you fancy a cashmere sweater pricier than a Porsche 911, the Italian brand Brunello Cucinelli . The style is rooted in the culture of the British grouse shoot, where European men and women stomp through muddy hillsides, typically in shooting parties of nine or ten. Whether shooting or watching, they don tweed suit jackets and trousers, wool buttoned vests and earth-colored sweaters—a look as far from the tactical cargo gear and backward baseball caps of American hunters as a banana split is from a flaky Napoleon pastry. (The best shooting grounds in both the U.S. and U.K. are models of conservation for nongame wildlife and proper land use. All downed birds are sold for their free-range meat.) Huntsman Bealach Tweed Jacket, $3,330 Country-gentleman style reminds us of a more genteel world, one that honors beautiful manners and the art of conversational back and forth. For a key source of this seductive look, look to Huntsman, founded in 1849 on Savile Row in London. Initially Queen Victoria’s tailor, it’s considered by many the holy grail of elegant equestrian, military and sporting tailoring. “Our materials move with you whether crossing a river or getting into a city taxi,” said Huntsman’s owner, Belgian financier Pierre Lagrange. He explained that his tweeds are naturally water-resistant. “The garment must have a raison d’être,” he said. “Men go for utility over how it looks.” Pierre Lagrange, owner of Huntsman, pictured in Berkshire, England. Photo: Simon Upton Alongside Lagrange, I attended my first weekend shooting party at a Cotswolds estate a few years ago. By day, he wore a Huntsman mossy, sagebrush houndstooth suit with a purple check woven into a light tweed; at night, he slipped on a velvet smoking jacket. In the morning fog, a dozen guests piled into green vintage Land Rovers for the first of five daily “drives.” It looked like a plaid-and-tassel factory had detonated all over our group. When I packed my bag in New York for that first shooting party, I’d found the clothing list pretentious. I’d paid no heed to silly suggestions such as a flat, plaid newspaper-boy cap. Stupid move. Mud plastered my tan J Brand jeans; my gray turtleneck smelled of a soaking Golden Retriever. My stubborn “non-style” came off foolish and foreign. On the moors, I witnessed the utility of shooting attire: how “breeks” (knee-level trousers or “knickers”) and thick socks with colored tassels prevent burrs and prickly thistles from riding up trouser legs. (Tassels add flair and are functional, roping around to hold up socks.) From left: Turnbull & Asser Stripe Westminster Shirt, $605; Schöffel Ross Tweed Pants, $400 Soon after, before leaving for another shoot with Lagrange, I raced to the Beretta Gallery shooting store in New York and alerted the salesperson: “Code Red, fashion trauma!” Channeling royals at Balmoral castle, I bought a plaid poncho and brown suede pants. Sadly, my look screamed, trying too hard, very “Sound of Music” Liesl von Trapp escaping Austria. Among the real habitués, rattier clothes are cooler. “Dukes and lords would not dream of wearing anything new in the field,” said London-based art collector Elizabeth Louis, a high-level shot and sartorial wonder. “The key: Look effortlessly uncrisp and seasoned, as if you spent all your living days shooting forever.” For your own outfits this fall, whether in the city or country, learn from my mishaps: You are not copycatting a snooty lifestyle. Reference the look in subtle clothes you would actually wear. When you walk down a sidewalk or grassy field, remind us of the suede-booted, worn-trousered Downton Abbey man walking up a hill with a yellow Labrador at his side. For heaven’s sake, don’t show up in knickers for your Saturday afternoon Hinge date. From left: Thom Sweeney Suede Derby Boots, $875; Borsalino Beaver Medium Brim Hat, $875 On weekends, try a crisp, light blue Oxford, a brown checked blazer and camel-colored scarf. If your afternoon doesn’t call for a blazer, don a quilted Barbour jacket and navy vest (not the Patagonia tech-bro version; a gilet with a plaid or suede collar). Tarquin Millington-Drake, managing director at Frontiers Ltd (U.K.), which books parties at conservation-friendly estates, recommends a Schöffel waterproof coat and a Holland & Holland “action back” shooting jacket (with a belt sewn in the lower back that creates a roomier top half to stretch one’s arms). For nights, he suggests an Oliver Brown smoking jacket. From left: Antonio Cavero, the Marques de Ardales, owner of the Ventosilla estate in Toledo, Spain; Sophie Neuendorf-Teba and Jaime Patiño, the Countess and Count of Teba, at the Ventosilla estate (Patiño is Cavero’s cousin). Antonio Cavero Mitjans Nobody glides between city and country more naturally than Antonio Cavero, the Marques de Ardales, whose Spanish aristocratic family dates to the 15th-century reign of King Juan II. On the Spanish hillsides, Cavero looks as rumpled as Indiana Jones; his historic Ventosilla estate holds 170 yearly partridge shoots. “A cashmere jacket and tailor-made thin linen shirt has equal elegance for dinner in Madrid or the field,” he said. Concerned you’d splurge on a tweed suit and never wear it? Peter Georgiopoulos, chairman of the Mashomack Fish and Game Preserve in Duchess County, N.Y., wears tweed suit pants with a sweater and a Schöffel jacket in the field, and the whole suit in the city. “Hell yeah, I wear these suits all the time in New York and London,” he said. “It feels great going to dinner in them.” Peter Georgiopoulos, chairman of New York’s Mashomack Fish and Game Preserve, pictured at the Goodwood House in Chichester, England. Photo: Peter Georgiopoulos Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Costume Institute at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, has worn tweeds for decades. “Those Merchant Ivory films spawned the birth of young fogeys,” he said, describing the look as “a shabby version of the English country gentlemen circa 1920s to ’30s…typified by a well-worn tweed jacket with elbow patches.” He said he’s “never quite given up” the style. Just don’t overdo it, warns Darren Henault, designer and habitué of the Millbrook, N.Y., shooting scene. “You wear paddock boots in the city and you look like a tool.” The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in its articles as outlets for products. Listed retailers frequently are not the sole retail outlets. This article appears in The Wall Street Journal . Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.”

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Bobbi Brown Created a Beauty..." at the WSJ The pioneer of “no-makeup” cosmetics and founder of her eponymous brand and Jones Road on why overthinking ruins a simple trust-your-gut approach. By Holly Peterson Illustration by HelloVon Studio for WSJ. Magazine April 17, 2025 10:00 am ET Success, they say, is inspiration plus perspiration. But what of sheer universe-vibration? We ask the most successful people we know to tell us what role luck plays in one’s career. What’s luck got to do with it? Not much, says mega-beauty-brand creator Bobbi Brown. So how does she explain her rise from makeup artist to founder of two juggernaut companies, first Bobbi Brown and now Jones Road? She calls it the “duh” factor. In the early 1990s, while most competitors were turning out flashy colors for supermodels, Brown chose not to follow the pack or listen to the so-called experts. Instead, she and her husband, Steven Plofker, emptied their savings accounts of $10,000 to create lipsticks sold out of their kitchen. Her eponymous brand sold colors “that matched my lips, foundation that matched my skin and blush that made me look like I’d just worked out. It was all ‘duh.’ I’m not good with being someone I’m not.” The makeup line she went on to produce reminded her mentor Leonard Lauder of products his mother, Estée Lauder, had created with her uncle in his kitchen before launching her namesake brand. So in 1995 he bought Bobbi Brown Cosmetics for a reported $74.5 million, keeping her on as chief creative officer. After announcing in 2016 that she was stepping down, Brown bided the remaining time of her 25-year noncompete with Estée Lauder by launching a small inn with her husband. The very day her noncompete expired, in October of 2020, she launched Jones Road , updating and modernizing products in natural colors. By year four, Jones Road was reeling in north of $155 million, according to a source close to the company. And these days, the youthful 68-year-old is having more fun than ever. Brown recently launched a YouTube series about women and empowerment. And she dubbed one of her top-selling products What The Foundation, or WTF. The first brochure of Bobbi Brown’s original 10 lipsticks, which would go on to to become the first products in the Bobbi Brown Cosmetics brand. Photo: Bobbi Brown Personal Archives How much of your eighth-grade self is still front and center now? When I see some old friends, they say, “Oh, my God, you’re exactly the same.” Growing up in Chicago, we had our feet firmly in the dirt. Though I’m more confident, I’m the same person I always was. You tell people you have to find your “superpower.” My own business-minded father said, “Figure out your comparative advantage and do that.” What’s yours? I’m a doer. I don’t want to hear too much talk. Nothing is ever going to get done if you’re overthinking it. I’ve hired some of the best and the brightest with multiple M.B.A.s, and I’m so bored in these meetings that I actually just leave. Do you often disagree with the “best and the brightest” around you? I don’t even know what they’re saying enough to agree with them. I’m just not interested in their strategies. As an entrepreneur, I know you experiment, realize that it doesn’t always work, and it doesn’t frigging matter. You started with $10,000 and created lipsticks. You tested them where? I’d bring the lipstick to work. I’d show it to models. I’d show it to editors. I showed it to my friends in the park. I was a DTC brand at first online. There was an 800 number. And my husband would mail out the lip glosses from my kitchen. I always had them on me, and I was always showing people, because I loved what it was. And then they’d say, “Oh, my God, this is so good. This is so different. How do I get them?” And I’d say, “Here’s a brochure.” Brown, holding her son Dylan Plofker, the day her first lipsticks launched at Bergdorf Goodman. Photo: Bobbi Brown Personal Archives Your vision is clear and simple. Most leaders zig and zag, but you don’t seem to hesitate or equivocate. Growing up watching my grandfather, Papa Sam, who came to America as a young boy and ended up being a car dealer, he just did it right. He built his way up not knowing a soul, selling one car that was left behind and turning it into a car dealership. He had the mindset, “OK, just get on with it.” I just do it. What one person stands out for boosting your career? Number one is Leonard Lauder, the most powerful person I ever met. He allowed me to be myself. I didn’t have to pretend. He saw something in me that he thought he wanted to be part of. I could ask him any question. He never looked at me and thought, My God, she doesn’t know that? All the years I worked with him, when I had an issue, I would call him, and he would talk me through it and help me figure out the right thing to do. And he invited me into his mother’s original archive, where I literally opened up jars and bottles that they had clearly said to me, “Don’t touch.” Of course I put my fingers in. Was he a mentor in decisiveness? Did he open your mind to the more strategic M.B.A. mentality you still find boring? He was all things to me. Once the corporates wanted me to use a different lab to re-create the original lipsticks. I called him up because I didn’t like what I was seeing. And he said, “No, you have to use the same lab. Women will know the difference. Absolutely not.” He basically told them to bug off. Brown working as a makeup artist in the 1980s before she launched Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. Photo: Bobbi Brown Personal Archives You once said your mother was so glamorous in a way you couldn’t possibly match. Is this the psychological root to your natural-color products? My mother was like a movie star. She would wear the tightest clothes and the highest shoes and black eyeliner. I was a little chunky, couldn’t fit into her jeans, and I looked ridiculous when I tried to copy her. I just looked silly. And I remember she brought me to her hairdresser, and he said, Ah, I could do this. I could, like, you know, change her. And he tried, and I looked like the biggest idiot. I knew it just wasn’t me. When I saw “Love Story” for the first time, I said, “Wow, I could look like Ali MacGraw, I see myself in that.” And that gave me permission to be natural and create that for others. You work with a lot of women who have these vulnerable feelings about the way they look. Does that ever frustrate you? My job is to help people look better. I remember when I was turning 30 and started to see little crow’s-feet here and there. And there was a Rolling Stone with Debra Winger, and she was laughing, smiling. Her head was back, and she had all these deep lines around her eyes. And I thought, Wow, she looks great. OK, I could do that, too. And I started to appreciate aging. I actually think my lines are cute. I’m turning 68, and I’m happily aging. I’m OK with it. Brown and her husband, Steven Plofker, in 2024. Photo: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images What leadership tactics helped you take the company to where it is now? It’s a combination of taking pride in my emotional intelligence and being very communicative. I am not afraid to say exactly what I want. I’m not afraid to say what I’m struggling with. I know what is not important to me, even though it’s important that it happens. The COO deals with all the operational things. I don’t want to be in any of it. I only care when it doesn’t work. I want to make sure that every woman who goes to the customer-experience team gets an answer right away. And it’s not just some stupid answer. I want a real answer. How much does emotional intelligence matter as an employee trait? If people that don’t understand me are afraid to say, I don’t understand you, they are probably not right for my team. I’m not a corporate citizen. I need people who can handle when I say, “I just don’t like it. This is crappy. Look at this, it’s junky.” I want people who don’t freak out. I don’t need to say it in corporate speak. My head of product tried something, and she goes, “This is waxy, gooky.” And I respond, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not sure I like it either.” I want people I trust to give me their opinions, not the opinion they think I want to hear. In the early 1990s, Brown and Plofker emptied their savings accounts of $10,000 to create lipsticks sold out of their kitchen. Photo: Bobbi Brown Personal Archives What’s the difference between drive and confidence? As I’ve gotten older, I realize that where everyone else is seeing roadblocks, I see opportunity. I might say I’m naive; my husband says I’m fearless. Confidence means that I’m comfortable with who I am. But growing up, I was always thinking everyone was smarter, better, taller. And it took me a while to realize that I don’t have to be like everyone else. Are you fearless in most situations? I mean, I don’t jump out of airplanes. Why don’t you know how to type? My mother let me drop out of typing class because I thought it was boring. She said, You’ll probably never be a secretary. I voice my memos. I speak them first. I have a creative director who could literally almost look at me and take it out of my brain. I just have to come in and say a few words, and it shows up on paper. I print things out, take a Sharpie and write how I want to see things done and hand it back. Are you a creative type or a business type? Pick one. I can’t. I am a very visual, creative type who happens to also be very practical and business minded. From left: Leonard Lauder, Maureen Case, Brown, Lynne Greene and Ronald Lauder at a 2009 Bloomingdale’s event. Photo: CLINT SPAULDING/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images Do you work with intellect or instinct? I wish 100 percent this wasn’t the answer—I wish it was intellect, but I am all instinct. I don’t think first much. I’m not afraid for something not to work. Were you lucky to have figured out that natural skin and lip colors are prettier before everyone else caught on? I was told by people in the industry who I admired that if I didn’t do this other kind of flashy makeup, I wasn’t going to get work. I don’t do well when I walk into a situation and try to conform to something I’m not. But is it luck that you knew that, or just instinct? I think I’ve been incredibly lucky in many areas of my life, like meeting my husband, but that also borders on gratitude. Brown and Gloria Steinem promoting Jones Road, the brand Brown launched in October 2020. Photo: Ben Ritter What’s the difference between gratitude and luck? Gratitude is to appreciate the goodness around you. I’m an optimistic person by nature. I think entrepreneurs need to be optimistic. You want good things to happen to you? You have to be the person that sees the good things. A lot of people don’t see that as luck at all. It’s you, it’s your personality, it’s your drive. If you’re always in your head, you don’t see anything. But if you are someone who’s open, you never know who you’re going to meet. I met someone else in an elevator and asked them what they did, and she said she worked at a cosmetics company. I said, “Oh, I need to find a lab.” She gave me her card. Is that luck? Or is it me being present enough to seize what’s happening in front of me? Name one innate quality of yours that led to your success. No question, it’s common sense. Choose a foundation that matches the skin. Find a lipstick that looks like your lips, blush that looks like your cheek when you exercise. Just common sense. Duh. It all felt obvious. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.” This article appears in the April 2025 issue of WSJ. Magazine.

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Donna Karan Wants to Solve..." at the WSJ The designer who prioritizes comfort on the perils of fast fashion, why you shouldn’t think too hard about your outfits and the one body part you should never cover up. By Holly Peterson Illustration by Toma Vagner for WSJ. Magazine Aug. 27, 2025 11:00 am ET Success, they say, is inspiration plus perspiration. But what of sheer universe-vibration? We ask the most successful people we know to tell us what role luck plays in one’s career. Though tricky to confirm, Donna Karan is almost certain she’s improved the sex lives of her customers. Her essential pieces prize comfort and confidence over constrictive patterns, putting men and women at ease with their body and look. And because she tries on all her creations herself (and, as she freely admits, doesn’t wear a bra), most of her colleagues have seen her topless at some point. At times forgetting she was half-naked when someone popped into her office, she’d simply ask, “Yes? What do you need?” Karan’s authority blossomed early when she became the head designer of Anne Klein at age 25. It didn’t hurt that she’d grown up on Seventh Avenue (both parents worked in fashion; as a girl she watched the Thanksgiving parade from her father’s second-floor office at Macy’s ). In 1985, then 36, she launched her own company, Donna Karan New York, with seven pieces that moved gracefully from day to night, from work to socializing. For women, this meant bodysuits, wrap-and-tie skirts, tailored jackets, suede wrap jackets and camel coats. For men (after the launch of DK Men in 1992), black crepe suits, sportswear, knit T-shirts, tailored trenches and cashmere sweaters that Karan knew “women would steal.” In 2001, Karan sold the company to LVMH and stayed on as chief designer until 2015. Now she’s focusing her energy on Urban Zen, a lifestyle brand she founded in 2007 that combines fashion, accessories, home décor and wellness. (Its integrative-health initiative is a legacy of the cancer treatments Karan’s husband, Stephan Weiss, received before his death in 2001; toward the end of his life, Karan performed Reiki on him every day.) The designer Donna Karan is focusing her energy on Urban Zen, a lifestyle brand she founded in 2007 that combines fashion, accessories, home décor and wellness. Photo: Jason Lowrie/BFA.com/Shutterstock The designer isn’t shy about her spirituality. While reviewing documents for the sale of DKNY, she told the assembled group that Mercury was in retrograde—a terrible time to enter into any contract—and that they should put it off. Having none of it, her lawyer urged her to sign, saying, “This is the best f—ing deal I’ve seen in my whole career.” When Anne Klein died, you became the head of the company at 25. What qualities had you exhibited at work that made them feel comfortable with the choice? They didn’t have a choice. I was the only designer there. They could have poached someone, but the pre-fall collection was due, and we were deciding how many buttons to put on the navy blue blazer. I was eight months pregnant. Did you always know you wanted to design? I did not want to be a designer. [After I had my daughter Gabby] I told people, “I’m going to stay home and be the mom that my mother was never to me.” But that did not happen. When you look back at your first collection now, do you think it was good? I’m not a normal kind of designer. I love artistry. So when Anne told me, “You’ll do this collection,” it had a felt skirt, shearling coats, embroideries, fur coats, fringe suede skirts. It was my first and favorite Anne Klein collection. Donna Karan with models wearing Anne Klein. Photo: Lynn Karlin/Penske Media/Getty Images Were there any women designers who’d made an impression on you before you started your own label? When I opened a book and I saw Coco Chanel on a vicuña suede sofa, with her Great Dane, I freaked. I screamed. When did your company first take off? After I said I want to do seven easy pieces—really simple and stupid. Did you feel that you were being a pioneer? Women at that time were wearing jackets, shirts and ties. I wore a bodysuit. I was a traveler. Why do you think the company was successful? Because I understood women. I understood what they need. It’s not just clothes. So you see clothes differently from your peers. Everybody sees it the way they see it. Women understand women’s bodies. I am not just a designer. I see a problem and I see a solution. Design is not just what you’re wearing; it’s how you’re feeling. Do you think you were a calm executive when you were running the company? That’s why I called [my lifestyle brand] Urban Zen, because I’m trying to find the calm in the chaos myself. You feel your feet on the floor, the energy goes up the legs, into your stomach. Take another breath. All of a sudden, you find yourself sitting up a little bit straighter. I believe that every school, every class should start this way. I’m crazy, I know it. ‘They didn’t have a choice. I was the only designer there,’ says Donna Karan about becoming head designer of Anne Klein at 25. Photo: Donna Karan You’re not crazy, you’re just spiritual. Were you communal with your colleagues? With all my designers, we had fun, every time. Do you think you’re a good boss? Yes. Because I’m a beautiful person in my heart. I care about this country. I care about the people. I care about what’s happening in fashion. Though I’m not happy about it. What are you most unhappy about? The fashion industry is going in the hole because they built it to a point that is not realistic. In the fashion world, it’s what’s new, what’s new, what’s new, what’s new. I do not believe in showing the world the fashion six to seven months before it hits the stores. I am completely against it. Because everybody knocks it off. We work our butts off as designers, and they take one picture of a garment and it’s already being made, three days, four days later. And it’s too much of everything. The days of Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta. Everybody was their own thing. Now it’s all mixed up. Were you informal in the way you dealt with employees? [There were times] when they walked in and I was topless. I’d be in my office, trying the clothes on, but then someone had to see me, and I’d simply say, “Yes? What do you need?” Do you have parts of your body that you don’t feel great about? I don’t feel great about any of it, OK? But I have to work with it. Like everybody else. When I was at the Parsons School of Design, they had all these clothes that didn’t fit. I said, This is unacceptable. For me, this is the most important thing in clothes: Do they fit? Because you have to move, you have to feel good. It has to be like it’s not even on you. Where are you on plastic surgery and the lips and the Botox and all of that? Honey. Yes, yes and yes. Tell me about Barbra Streisand and Hillary Clinton and other iconic wearers of your off-the-shoulder designs—or what you called the “cold shoulder.” You never gain weight on your shoulders. It’s a guarantee. I tell everybody, cover everything up in the world except never cover your shoulder. With her husband, Stephan Weiss, who died in 2001. Photo: Rose Hartman/Getty Images What made you most stressed about the economics of your business? The problem with financial people is that they give you the money at a different pace. A designer needs it all, twice a year, because we open in September and we open in June. That’s how we have to buy the fabrics. So the money draw is huge, and you’re always conscious that it has to sell. It’s safe to say you proved that comfort plus a classic fit sells. If you can’t sleep in it, go out in it, whatever, I don’t want to know from it. I really don’t. You might have a lot of clothes, but when I get up in the morning, I don’t want to think about, Oh, what should I wear today? Women who are working just want to throw on their clothes. They have to get to work and be able to go out at night. Did you have to explain this to people around you at the office? No, I just did it. And if they didn’t get it, they wouldn’t be there. I mean, I’m not going to hire an Oscar de la Renta frilly person, you know. You pull it on. You don’t have to worry about it. But don’t women sometimes want to wear something a bit sexier? I think there’s a difference, and I’ve certainly discussed this with a lot of people, between sensuality and sexuality. Sexuality is you’re putting it out there. I’m sorry, I may get into trouble for saying this, but, you know, putting your boobs up like this? Let’s not do that. So then what’s sensuality? Sensuality is when you’re comfortable and you feel good and you show what looks good, and you hide what doesn’t. You’re as strong as your clothes. You’re in a partnership, you and your clothes. Oprah used to wear all my clothes, and because she felt like a woman, and she felt sensual—sensual, not sexual—she looked fantastic. What’s a management trait or a behavior as the leader of your company that you don’t love about yourself? I think I’m a little tough in that I have high expectations. We’re all here for a reason. If you don’t feel that something has to be finished that night, or that day—you can’t leave it for another day. It has to be ready. I’m 24/7. Nobody’s going to say, Oh, we’ve got to go home at 6 o’clock. Karan says her company took off ‘after I said I want to do seven easy pieces—really simple and stupid.’ Photo: Mario Ruiz/ZUMA Press/Alamy Did that get complicated for your employees with kids? I had a daughter too. So what did they do? They became part of the fashion show. “Mommy, could I have my makeup done? Mommy, can I have my hair done?” So you allowed kids on the set? Always. When you stumble professionally, when you screw up, how do you handle that? I mean, there’s not a day that I don’t stumble. Do you think women admit that more than men? I think men are a little linear. Women care about the kids. We care about the food, we care about this and that. We have to be flexible. Did you have any luck in your career? I wasn’t going to be a designer. And I became a designer. Was that luck? Well, it wasn’t lucky that Anne [Klein] died of cancer. It wasn’t luck that I wanted to start a company for myself. Is there life after death? Absolutely. How do you know? Because I know how many lives I’ve been living. That’s why I think I’m a bit young. Are you an optimist? No. I have a vision. I see a problem. I see a solution. But I still want to do things that I haven’t done—I want to see places I haven’t been to, I want to go with my family to those places, I want to show them the world that they haven’t seen. How do you remain pure in your vision? I like what I like, and I don’t like what I don’t like. I’m very clear about that. I’ve always been like this. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. This article appears in the 2025 Fall Women's Fashion issue of WSJ. Magazine. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.”

Click Here to read It's So Nice... at New York Times

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Peter Brant Doesn't Believe in Trust-Fund Babies..." at the WSJ The industrialist, art collector and champion-horse breeder on why great art matters—and how to pick a winner. By Holly Peterson Illustration by Toma Vagner for WSJ. Magazine Sept. 9, 2025 1:00 pm ET Success, they say, is inspiration plus perspiration. But what of sheer universe-vibration? We ask the most successful people we know to tell us what role luck plays in one’s career. In high school, Peter Brant cut class to gamble on horse racing at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York, by asking an adult to take him inside. At the University of Colorado, he partied at fraternities with such gusto his father took away his car keys until his grades improved. Average kid stuff—if you consider it normal for a 19-year-old to use his stock market earnings to buy art from a then virtually unknown Andy Warhol. Brant, 78, says spotting the artist’s genius early wasn’t luck. “I just knew it,” he says. “I was always a believer.” He went on acquiring contemporary art, selling some works purchased later for as much as $100 million. His advice on detecting a masterpiece? Go look at it in a museum 50 times; you’ll learn something every time. Brant’s transformation of the family paper business, by purchasing several paper mills and expanding operations, turned him into a billionaire industrialist and the philanthropist behind the Brant Foundation, Inc., dedicated to the exhibition and study of contemporary art. He purchased Warhol’s Interview magazine from the estate in 1987 and owned it until 2018, when his daughter Kelly relaunched it. Now CEO of newsprint-manufacturer White Birch Paper ( The Wall Street Journal is a customer), he restructured the company in 2020 under Chapter 11 because of declining demand. Brant’s life has been riddled with epic lows. Now married to his second wife, supermodel Stephanie Seymour, he’s lost two of his nine children (Harry, who died from an accidental overdose at 24, and Ryan, who died of cardiac arrest at 47). He also got into legal trouble in 1984 for failure to keep proper records, a misdemeanor that he calls “a horrible experience” but which he credits with making him a better person. But Brant has also experienced expansive highs, as a polo player who reached the highest rating for an amateur and as the breeder of champion thoroughbreds. Swale, a dark bay colt he co-owned, won the Kentucky Derby in 1984, while several others bred by Brant won the Breeders’ Cup. His youthful obsession with horses, which he now calls a “disease of passion,” paid off. You grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in Queens. Tell me about your earliest memories. During the ’50s, polio was pretty rampant. My parents believed that city life gave you a bigger chance of catching it. So they sent me away to camp at 5 years old. I can remember going to Grand Central Station and leaving my parents and sobbing. I clung to sports. I was constantly playing baseball, football, soccer. Of two types of boys—tough, baseball hats on backward, getting into scuffles, or more intellectual, into culture and books—which were you? Definitely both. Peter Brant with his wife, supermodel Stephanie Seymour. Photo: Marc Dimov/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images You were best friends with a guy named Donald Trump until eighth grade. I went to Kew-Forest, the same school that Donald Trump went to. I adored Donald. We were best friends. He was a great athlete, great competitor and somebody you want on your team. I just really never knew him very well afterwards. When I saw him later in life, he would say we never lost. Of course we did. Tell me about your European father’s influence on you. He would not come outside and play catch with me. He never showed up to any of my competitions. My name was in the newspaper, for scoring goals on the soccer team. I was so proud of it. That didn’t mean anything to my dad. A good college or a good test score meant something to him. Did it hurt your feelings that he didn’t come to your games? It really hurt my feelings. I don’t know a successful person, a meteoric success, who didn’t have a childhood where they desperately wanted attention or to please someone. Making it to the top fills some gap, often a sad gap. Are you like that? No. There’s a caveat to that. Sometimes the person [you want to please] could be you. You could have a self-drive, and when you accomplish something it really pleases you. So there’s primal drive, and some people have more equanimity? Or just relish the game? I think I came up because I enjoy it. My real skill is the ability to focus and put everything else aside. I can’t say that intelligence is what brought me through. I don’t see myself that way. You never finished your college degree. How come? I had all my credits except for maybe three or four. [It] never made a difference in my life, because I never was asking anybody for a job. Did you ever interview for a job? Never. Did you ever apply for a job outside your family business? Never. Brant reached the highest rating for an amateur polo player. Photo: Tim Clayton/Getty Images What is luck’s role in your life? Luck is a very important factor. There were a number of times in my life where I have gone into something for a reason. But the reason that I made the move never happened. I thought it had all these things going for it, but then it worked out for another reason. Or I didn’t go into it because I thought it was terrible. So you call that luck? Yes. What’s a whopper that you said no to? We were looking at buying the New York Mets. I got the book on it and said, “This is the worst investment I’ve ever seen. This bleeds money.” Their attendance had gone down like 70 percent since the ’70s when they won the pennant. It looked terrible. But my partner said, “I’ve always wanted to own a baseball team. This is a New York franchise, and it’s a good opportunity.” And it turned out the next year, the whole league went on strike, and it would’ve been a cash-flow nightmare. We were the second-highest bidder, I think $18-and-a-half [million] or $19 million. [Nelson Doubleday Jr. and Fred Wilpon] bought it in 1980 for, like, $21 million. Just sold for over $2 billion. So that would’ve been the best investment you could imagine. I thought it was terrible. You are one of the great American art collectors. Talk about selling at auction and getting rich from an artist who isn’t. Can you sell and not be a schmuck? I’ve sold tremendous amounts of art, and I’ve bought tremendous amounts of art. Like any profession, you have a certain standard. You have a certain etiquette. You have to be a person that’s respected and gives back because you’re dealing in the arts. But there’s nothing wrong with somebody investing their money in it. Kings have accumulated collections of art, countries have invested in art. Why did you buy Warhols so early, in the mid-1960s? What did you see in him? That wasn’t luck. I mean, I just knew it. I was always a believer. I thought Warhol was the most important artist of his time. I still think that today. Why? Because he mixed mediums in a way that nobody had ever done before. He used photography and serial imagery and stardom in a way that nobody had ever done. How many Warhols have you owned in your life? Hundreds. How many Basquiats do you own right now? I don’t count these works. I don’t think of it in terms of numbers. Is art an asset class? My portfolio has about a 10 percent stake in art. My financial adviser tells me to think of a painting on my wall as something I love, but don’t count it as cash. Art has always been an asset class. Anytime I ran short, in terms of liquidity, the place I always turned was art. It was immediate liquidity. It’s hard to sell real estate. It can take two years, three years, four years. If you put a house, a piece of commercial real estate on the market, it doesn’t sell right away. Art is much more liquid. There are auctions all the time and dealers who want to make deals. Why does art matter to society? Why are people so obsessed with it? When you’re fighting a battle, artists are the first wave on the front. They see the war, they’re the first battalion to experience what’s going on, whether it’s for democracy or against democracy. Art lives in a freer environment. Artists are the first to express revolution. It’s one of the first signs of what is glory or decay or whatever. It’s just the way it is. Tell me about mistakes you’ve made. Tell me about the misdemeanor. Did you learn a lesson from that? It had to do with using our paper-company plane to go to horse races. Even though the things we were using the plane for were deductible, the accounting was not done properly. It was something that was so ridiculous to have gotten to that point. I had nothing to do with any of the financial dealings of the company. I was not in the accounting department, nor was I the chief financial officer. He didn’t report to me or anything like that. Resting during a polo match. Photo: Rose Hartman/Getty Images Did you behave differently after? I came out a much better person. It was a horrible experience for me and a horrible experience for my family. But I went through it, and I said the only way I can turn this into the truth is to work harder and continue to be successful. In horse racing, you’ve won the Breeders’ Cup Classic. You won the Kentucky Derby. What’s similar about collecting horses and art? You have to look at buying really good examples of an artist’s work. Same with thoroughbreds. You have to have partners contributing to making them successful, meaning they’ll breed to the animal, they’ll be part of the team. It’s like [horse breeder] Bull Hancock used to say—it’s a people game. You have to take into consideration the people that you partner with, that they’re not just money people, but they understand the game and can manage their holdings well. That’s going to affect you and the pedigree of your horses. You also play polo. You achieved a seven-goal rating, the highest amateur rating of the last 25 or 30 years. What’s your relationship to the horse when you’re hurtling down a polo field? It’s a fine line. You trust them to go with you, mentally and physically, into doing things that you need to do in order to win the game without hurting yourself or hurting the animal. If you ask them to do something that is not feasible for them, they don’t trust you anymore. And they won’t perform for you. How does that relate to business and art, that fine line? You have to have trust in other people. You have to treat people in a humanistic way. You have to be a mensch. You have to show them that you trust them, and that they trust you. But don’t the biggest a—holes succeed all the time? Yeah. But that’s the world. And that doesn’t mean that we all have to be a—holes. The horse he co-owned, Swale, won the Kentucky Derby in 1984. Photo: Jerry Cooke/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images What is your relationship with your money? Do you enjoy it? It’s just—it’s basically funds doing the things that I really like doing. And a lot of that is our businesses. And then I try to help my family. I’m very lucky with my kids. Unfortunately, I lost two of them. Nothing tougher. No doubt, nothing tougher than that. As someone in a family business, would you advise against people hiring their kids? No. Why? If you are good, who’s going to teach them better than you? If they’re capable, they’re going to develop a career. You’re helping them in the direction to create independence for themselves and to achieve something themselves. I think it’s the best thing a parent can do. Where are you with money and the kids? I’ll go back to my father, Murray Brant. He would always say, “Hunger is a very, very valuable commodity.” Hunger teaches people character. How do you instill that if they grow up around Basquiats and Warhols and racehorses and polo ponies? I gave them great educations and a great place to live and everything like that, but I never wielded out cash to them. And if I did, to anyone, it was always negative. It always turned out to be a negative thing. I’ve always set up trusts for them and all that, but I don’t—I don’t believe in trust-fund babies. They have to have a job. They have to do their job. And that could require being very nice to people and doing services for people. Are you less interested in people with whom you do business who are not aesthetes? Yeah, I would have to say yes. Do you see a lot of crap art collections? A lot. And what do you say? You can’t ever think you’re the last word. It doesn’t work like that, saying, “This horse will never be a runner.” As soon as you say that, get prepared—because the horse could be a great one. You can’t count them out. You might see an artist who is edgy, who you don’t understand, who winds up being a very important artist. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. This article appears in WSJ. Magazine. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.”

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "The Awful Quandry of the Super-Rich..." at WSJ By Holly Peterson Illustration by Robert Neubecker August 9, 2024 9:00 pm ET When rich people hang out, the conversations are always laced with one-upmanship. Tennis elbow? My orthopedist can fix all. Long Island to Cape Cod? Fly private from East Hampton—it’s the only way. It’s summertime, and wealthy New Yorkers who moved to Florida are back North. From East Hampton to Kennebunkport, everyone’s in the same sandbox now. It’s time to compare who has the shiniest bucket: those who decamped or those who stayed. Palm Beach: the best decision ever? Yep, or so they claim. They golf before work and take a dip on Billionaires’ Row beachfront after work. It’s only two hours by speedboat to go bonefishing in the Bahamas. On Worth Avenue, superwealthy Florida transplants can be seen well into June. They linger because they want to, not merely to avoid higher taxes. Photo: Jose More/VWPics/Associated Press But for true Manhattanites, moving somewhere for fishing ease seems positively boneheaded. Asked if he’d ditch New York for enduring sunshine, mega-developer Aby Rosen prefers the big-boy pond. “Wow, gee whiz, how great I’m so free, swimming with kids in the middle of a workweek,” he responded facetiously. “I mean, who does that? I don’t want to putz around. Midweek, I’d rather go to Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center or hear good jazz downtown. Kill me if I have to jump on a boat on a Wednesday evening!” Spending months straight in Florida during Covid changed people’s perspectives. Some had enough sea spray for a lifetime and couldn’t wait for New York to be New York again. Others fell in love with existing in Florida full-time. They changed residency for a mixture of eased pandemic rules, less crime and no state income tax. It isn’t an easy move. A fact pattern must emerge: fewer days in New York than in Florida. All possessions “near and dear” must go South—from framed photos to framed Basquiats. It can take years to prove to New York tax authorities that a second home in Florida is a true residence. They search cellphone locations and credit card receipts with the determination of truffle hounds. People use apps such as Tracking Days to tally their whereabouts because five minutes in Manhattan is considered a whole day. Asked if he’d ditch New York for enduring sunshine, mega-developer Aby Rosen (pictured in 2018) prefers the big-boy pond: “I don’t want to putz around.” Photo: Robin Platzer/Twin Images/Zuma Press Media mogul Barry Diller is a current New Yorker. Twenty years ago, he was carefully maintaining his California residency. One night at 11:45 p.m., he pulled over to wait 15 minutes before crossing from New Jersey to Manhattan on the George Washington Bridge. “I had no more days left in New York state except one. Only one,” he tells me. “I had a meeting the next day. I had to arrive in New York after midnight, so the day before could not count. And I thought, ‘This is not a life to lead.’ So, we jammed over the bridge to the city five minutes before midnight. The next day, I had exceeded the limit, became a New York City resident and never regretted it.” Stalwart Manhattanites believe a high heart rate gives them an edge. If a messenger on an electric bike clips their nose, it’s an opportunity to flip someone the bird, show ‘em you mean business. It gets them pumped up to compete with and crush the next guy who pisses them off. Those who fled the grit and grime of Manhattan repeat a common refrain: If New York doesn’t want to compete with other states on tax rates, people are under no obligation to stay. “Companies and employees can go anywhere to be competitive,” explains Ryan Williams, a consultant and former aide to Sen. Mitt Romney. “If I were a guest in your home and you weren’t accommodating, I would probably leave and not return.” Even after Memorial Day, the well-heeled stayed in South Florida through June’s 17 days of drenching rain. They risked life and Hermès-clad limb for that divine Cajun Chicken at Bilboquet. And with enough days away from New York to satisfy the tax authorities, Florida transplants are staying longer because they want to, not because they have to. At 9 p.m. on a mid-June Friday night outside the posh Buccan restaurant in Palm Beach, four parking valets ran around as if their lives depended on it. One opened the key cabinet to prove wealthy regulars remained. “Look: you got your Rolls, Ranges and Mercedes. Maybe the Bugattis are gone, but others are mostly still here.” The superwealthy may appreciate Central Park’s canopied walkways, but many have stopped and thought, “This one walk costs $40k in income taxes. Why don’t I walk free on sunny sand and do less of this?” Photo: timothy a. clary/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Rich people move in clusters around the globe. They gather, they listen, they copycat and they charm. The money game in Florida is more efficient; with laxer regulations, deals close faster. Sinking a putt on a random Tuesday might impress your partner enough to get your “hundo” ($100 million) into an otherwise closed fund. Carl Icahn and Ken Griffin are among the major machers who have planted stakes on the Palm Beach-to-Miami axis. Investment firms building Florida outposts or headquarters include Millennium Management and Elliott Management, as well as private-equity giant General Atlantic. “Many young real estate guys, all here to capitalize on the booming market, have moved down,” explains Dylan Reiff, a 24-year-old licensed sales associate at the Corcoran Group’s office. “Palm Beach is the perfect place to put our feet in the water. Development moves at lightning speed compared with Manhattan. the West Palm region is a developer’s dreamland.” To boot, it’s a taxpayers’ haven. The superwealthy crowding Worth Avenue are saving cash they don’t need to save. Why? Avoiding higher taxes often has more to do with ideology than financial considerations. They appreciated Central Park’s canopied walkways, but they stopped and thought, “By being in New York today, this one walk costs $40k in income taxes. Why don’t I walk free on sunny sand and do less of this?” Media mogul Barry Diller, a stalwart New Yorker, with his fashion-designer wife Diane von Furstenberg on June 5. Photo: angela weiss/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Big Apple loyalists counter that paying taxes is a duty to the city where you made all that cash in the first place. “Without the overall financial ecosystem and infrastructure, I would not have been a fraction as successful. I feel I owe a big debt to New York,” says Roger Altman, founder and senior chairman of Evercore and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. “The city is like Dickens, a tale of two cities, constantly under stress. It needs all the help it can get.” I tried the “tax-as-duty” concept on a bulldog lawyer fresh off a cushy Palm Beach back nine. “I owe the city more taxes? Absolute f—king bulls—t. I paid millions and millions of dollars in real estate and income taxes to New York. I didn’t use the public school system or public health once. I called 311 every month: It took the city five years to cut down a dead and dangerous tree in front of my f—king home!” You can take the guy out of New York, but you can’t take New York out of the guy. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novel “It Happens in the Hamptons.”

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "How the Super-Rich Signal..." at the WSJ By Holly Peterson Illustration by Carl Godfrey September 20, 2024 11:00 am ET Sturdy red curtains cordon off the lives of plutocrats at play. To better hide their gilded world from the 99.9%, the super-rich avoid high-end labels, favoring “quiet luxury” and “stealth wealth.” When this affluent army enters our world, they camouflage themselves with earthy-colored cashmere and luxurious suede. Yank back those curtains, however, and a quandary emerges for the highest of high-net-worth individuals. How to signal to each other where they rank on the totem pole? Today, especially with talk of new wealth taxes heating up on the campaign trail, gauche display is out. A subtler set of cues and signifiers is required. The most straightforward symbols start with watches. One Wall Street macher explained, “You see a gold Rolex Daytona, that’s one thing. You see a Patek Perpetual and you say to yourself, OK, this guy’s playing a different game .” It’s not enough to go to St. Barts. Your friends need to know how you arrived. Photo: Sean Pavone/iStock For women, it’s about the jewelry. These days, gemstones are too go-go 1980s and flashy. Instead, it’s about the weight of gold, so they favor chains thick enough to secure a bike to a lamppost. Hefty charm necklaces from Foundrae are purposely designed to hang coins and medallions on separate links up the collarbone. The message is clear. Exclusivity brings you up a notch. “You want the thing that has only 10 in existence,” explains Plum Sykes, it-girl Vogue contributor and author of the recent novel “Wives Like Us.” “In England, with Range Rovers, the company invites people to buy them, like a Centurion Card or a table at the Met Gala. The highest limited edition of 10 is the bespoke SV Burford Edition. You could actually live in it.” Pretending to play down your wealth while emblazoning your net worth in neon requires a lightness of touch. You can’t say it outright, but you want it crystal clear. It’s extra tricky in Manhattan, where you can’t employ the usual clues of estates and automobiles. Here, people live in apartments many stories up from the sidewalk and out of view. They tend to interact at restaurants and galas, and they never drive. In Manhattan, where you can’t use the usual clues of estates and automobiles, everything depends on attitude. Photo: Lanna Apisukh for WSJ So everything depends on attitude. You must act like big things in life are, well, no biggie. When you can wrangle people to your abode, serve a tub of Ossetra caviar with Lay’s potato chips. Place it out like guacamole on the coffee table. Verbal cues confer insider status. High-rollers in the art world now refer to the most rarefied paintings as “pictures.” Thus, for a would-be bidder, a $40-million Abstract Expressionist canvas by Rothko is not a “masterpiece painting” but a “picture.” For most people, a picture is what your 4-year-old paints with a thick brush and primary colors for Mother’s Day. Travel may be the most efficient way to establish one’s place in the plutocratic pecking order. This month, for instance, couples fattened up by too much lobster and Hamptons rosé head to European mountain spas to “shed a few” for a week. They frequent the naturopathic Lanserhof or the VivaMayr in Austria, leaving with this huge takeaway: You have to chew better. Of course, how you travel is essential. As a former Wall Street bank chairman told me, “OK, so you went to St. Barts. So what? That tells me nothing. How’d you get there? That is key.” To telegraph that you flew private over commercial, those fluent in the language of wealth-speak have created new verbs. People say, “We NetJetted into Aspen. We just had to.” Pause. “Because of the dogs.” Transporting “the dogs” is somehow a constant justification for private travel. Owning your own jet is a huge notch up on the totem pole. The effort to be blasé about your new Gulfstream G650 can be positively tortured. To signal that your NetJetting days are over, you might drop into conversation with a sigh, “We’ve got to find a new pilot.” This should be said in the same tone as a wearied parent complaining about needing a new babysitter. ‘The Asprey,’ a Patek Philippe perpetual calendar chronograph, pictured before it sold at Sotheby’s for $3.88 million in 2018. Photo: denis balibouse/Reuters Arriving at the private terminal, avoid too much luggage with zippers because when you fly private, you don’t even need to close your bags. Anything you like can be placed on an empty seat or in the back area. Pack as if loading your station wagon for a weekend trip: a few garment bags and lots of stuffed tote bags. For a slam-dunk move, bring a farmstand tray of petunias you grabbed on the way. That will fortify your I-do-this-all-the-time status. Once seated in your jet, it’s all about projecting casual insouciance. The goal is to appear as cozy and familiar as in your living room. Maybe you go barefoot or lean back casually with hands clasped behind your head (try that on the Delta shuttle). Then you order a Diet Coke or beer and munch on pretzels. Real habitués don’t treat liquor and food on a private jet as if at Versailles. Not everyone is eager to drop hints. I know one elegant banker who owns his jet and has more fun hiding it than showing it off. When acquaintances dig for clues on his transport and ask when he’s leaving, he responds, “Flight leaves at 3:05 or 2:50,” the sort of irregular times that commercial airlines use. Language codes are crucial on the water, too. How to describe your floating palace? The uber-rich will call a seafaring vessel longer than a tennis court my “boat” (a word that conjures up fishing with buddies for most of us). For example, one might hear, “Would you like to spend a few days on our boat on the Amalfi Coast?” In reality, if there is an onboard pizza oven, screening room and a large crew in starched white polo shirts placing magnolias in your Tequila Sunrise, that’s a “yacht.” It’s important to treat travel on your Gulfstream G650ER like relaxing in your living room. Photo: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News For the beyond megawealthy, smaller “chaser boats” follow the big yachts stuffed with toys like helicopters, Jet Skis and mini-submarines. One yacht in Ibiza this summer had a boulangerie and chocolatier in tow. As an invitee, never act like a startled tourist in Teva sandals and a fanny pack. Know the rule about putting your shoes in a basket when you get on. After changing into your Orlebar Brown trunks or caftan from that darling shop in Capri, go to the stern and dangle your feet over the edge like Tom Sawyer on a rickety dock, enjoying a summer day. But all is not carefree in this rarefied world. There are stressful days. Sometimes the rules of the game make the game itself no fun. Imagine the finance guy at Manhattan’s 34th Street heliport. He’s just taken delivery of his AgustaWestland AW139 copter. Since “tricking out” one’s copter is key, he’s turned a tight 14-seat space into a super-comfy eight seats. He’s still miffed his buddy was offered the Hermès invite-only leather seats. He wasn’t, but, hey, it’s OK. It’s great to have your own AgustaWestland AW139 helicopter, but how you ‘trick it out’ is key. Photo: arnd wiegmann/Reuters Takeoff time is delayed, and the guy can’t express his frustration or his wife will thrash him with her weighty chains. Agita reverberates inside him, so he takes some deep breaths. It gets worse. He’s supposed to be happy in his spanking-new marvel, but finally buckling up, what he sees out the window makes him blow his top. Just as the blades begin to whir that rat-tat-tat beat, a rival hedgie-bro has driven up to the heliport, mere seconds too late to see who owns the copter. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novel “It Happens in the Hamptons. ” Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Appeared in the September 21, 2024, print edition as 'How the Super-Rich Signal Their Wealth to Each Other'.

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "Of Course I Want to Know..." at the WSJ By Holly Peterson Illustrations by Diego Blanco October 31, 2024 9:00 pm ET No matter where you socialize, there are two types of dinner party guests: those who want to know the guest list ahead of time and others who prefer the serendipity of a naive encounter. Though attitudes on this issue differ, everyone agrees on one party foul: You cannot ask who else is coming before committing to a dinner. And if your host is the helpful type who discloses some or all of the attendees as the event approaches, no canceling because you find one of them annoying. “It is arrogant to ask,” says Gahl Burt, who perfected her entertaining chops as Nancy Reagan’s social secretary. “Plenty of people have their staff call, and I respond, ‘I’m still working on it.’” In other words: Ask not what the party can do for you. Ask what you can do for the party. The actor and comedian Larry David has other ideas. “The thing about the dinner party is you don’t know who’s going. That’s what really bothers me about it, that it’s such a f—king secret as to who you’re inviting. Why can’t I know? ” he recently pleaded on the Shameless podcast, a theme he has reprised in his TV show. I’m on team Larry. I love giving and going to dinner parties. Knowing something in advance about the other guests lets me size them up better in person, which is half the fun. That way I know that the guy droning on about the history of Sunni secularism is a self-obsessed bloviator and not the former U.S. station chief in Jordan. I say that giving your guests an idea of who will be there is downright good hosting manners. Having at least some attendee information lets us know what to expect, so we walk in feeling our best. We all have crater-sized holes of ignorance. You know what they say: The more you don’t know, the more you know you don’t know. Recently in Paris, my dinner partner dissected the blockbuster Surrealism exhibition at the Pompidou Center. He then paused, “You follow my work, right?” Way too proud to say, “Actually, no.” Instead, I answered, “Oh, yeah, sure, yeah, read you often.” He was too snooty to provide a life raft, so I dug myself deeper into the muck and offered platitudes that might engender hints. “Didn’t I hear you on…” or “Didn’t I read it in…” I then took an indelicate gulp of vintage Bordeaux to quell my stress of faking it. What’s worse than not knowing who your dinner companion is? Mistakenly assuming they are someone they are not. Many years ago, I had the glamorous bad-boy photographer Peter Beard as my dinner partner. A most regrettable placement by the hostess. I chattered about my favorite recipes because I thought he was the renowned, portly chef James Beard. Yet these risks of flubbing it or flunking it don’t scare off half the people I surveyed. In both Europe and the U.S., many consider free-flowing kismet much more amusing. “Ruins everything to know. If I know who’s coming, it feels like an advertising party, and my head of sales is taking me around with a crib sheet,” says Lauren Zalaznick, who ran a division at NBCUniversal. “If I’m invited to a friend’s house, it’s a club I’m a member of, and no need to ask. If I’m not a friend of the person, it’s a one-time commitment. If I say yes, it’s my decision, and I’m a big girl.” Comtesse Isabelle d’Ornano made a Mon Dieu! expression at the mere question. At 87, the French iconoclast—who combines the style of Catherine Deneuve with the command of Christine Lagarde—still oversees divisions at the Sisley cosmetics empire she co-founded with her husband. She told me that asking for a guest list is “pas tellement dans les habitudes françaises.” This is a titled woman’s way of saying, “No friggin’ way can you ask.” She continued, “Once, the president de la République was coming, and I didn’t even tell anyone in case he was too busy to show.” A good thing she didn’t invite me to that one: I might have confused a chef d’État with a chef de cuisine. Whether your guests know who’s who or what’s what, do arrange your dinner party with other key considerations in mind. Remember the “bucks or f—ks” rule. More politely said, people like to make money or make whoopee. So place people with either endgame in mind—or, I guess, both. No matter how successful your seating plan, also remember that nobody wants or needs three courses. Serve one course family style and move about for dessert. Ninety minutes is too long to talk to just the two people you’re sandwiched between. If dinner is over in half that time, it feels like the teacher let everyone out for recess early. Especially with New York’s high-octane achievers, chances are good you’ll be sitting next to someone with a healthy sense of self-regard. We all know the type: They won’t ask you one question, then wrap up saying, “Fascinating discussion!” The host may then make the whole table listen to this person. “Oh God, that is the worst of anything in the world. And, thankfully, they only do that in America,” exclaimed coveted British guest and decorator Nicky Haslam. He responded so emphatically that I had to turn the phone volume down. “You know,” he mimed with fake pretension, “‘So and so, please say a few words about Harvard or Elon Musk .’ These bloody communal subjects ruin a dinner party.” My aforementioned pride kept me from admitting to Haslam that I do this all the time. If you do have a one-conversation tradition, please ask a woman to expound, not a man. I can’t be alone in thinking that men have exceeded their dinner party lecture time limit in life. Worse, men play a game of “keep away,” throwing high-arched policy questions at each other to display their expertise. I’m very much an extrovert, but I go silent in these exchanges because I can’t pontificate about, say, the approaching cryptocurrency utopia or apocalypse. I usually offer, “How about we tackle the topic in a way where everyone has something to add?” Hereafter I will stop the dreaded clinking of my glass to get everyone’s attention for remarks. Haslam is right—it always feels like forced grandeur, like I take myself for Pamela Harriman. As Larry David puts it, “I’m golden ruling it.” I will host unto them as I want them to host unto me. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novel “It Happens in the Hamptons.” Copyright © 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Click here to download the PDF Click here to read "MAGA Madness Descends..." at WSJ Blue-blood locals don't know what to make of all the blockades, Cybertrucks and glitz. By Holly Peterson Photographs by Saul Martinez for WSJ January 10, 2024 11:04 am ET Beyond the discreet gates of frou-frou hotels and patrician country clubs, a tsunami swells from Mar-a-Lago’s gilded lobbies. The flotsam includes MAGA partyers in rinse/repeat celebration mode and a stream of Black SUVs for Donald Trump and his entourage. These centipede-like motorcades shut down traffic instantly, regularly and without warning. New security measures, introduced after the assassination attempts over the summer, have made travel by air, land and sea in Palm Beach a testing affair whenever Trump’s in town. The president-elect now crosses blockaded bridges like Brezhnev’s Soviet convoys speeding through Moscow’s emptied thoroughfares. For blue-blood locals who have crafted an otherwise frictionless existence here, these daily disruptions are maddening. Hell hath no fury like a blue-haired lady in a magnolia Lilly Pulitzer dress insisting on order. Illustration: Peter Arkle “The number one topic at any meal is parking and traffic,” says Tom Quinn, a partner at the Venable law firm in Washington, D.C., and a fixture on the Newport-Palm Beach axis, who’s owned a home here for five decades. “Wealthy people are used to paying their way out of travel inconveniences. When they can’t, they blow their top.” Yachts are now foiled by drawbridge delays. Private fliers to Palm Beach will have a painful choice: either submit to a TSA check or divert to another airport. Anyone who insists on having their Maybach drive straight to the Gulfstream steps will find themselves landing in nearby Lantana. One macher explained to me the tragedy of this compromise: “Stepping from car to plane is the number-one sweet moment of feeling like the most legit bigshot of all. You gotta consider that.” Palm Beach sits at the center of a narrow barrier island, 18 miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide at its thickest. Grand estates on some of the slimmest stretches are bookended by Lake Worth lagoon and the Atlantic. Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heiress, magnate, and one-time wealthiest woman in America, built her lavish estate here in the 1920s and named it “Mar-a-Lago,” Spanish for “sea to lake.” Trump bought it in 1985 for $8 million, a song. The two-lane S Ocean Blvd, the island’s north-south artery, separates many palatial homes from the sea. (Worry not: underground tunnels offer easy beach access.) It was bad enough when Tesla Cybertrucks began roaring past the apple green Rolls-Royces that rarely glide faster than 20 m.p.h. Worse, whenever Trump’s around, the Secret Service blocks the section of this boulevard that stretches alongside Mar-a-Lago, effectively splitting the island in two. Elon Musk accessorizes with a black tie and son at the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve bash. Photo: marco bello/Reuters Trump’s centipede-like motorcades shut down Palm Beach traffic instantly, regularly and without warning. Photo: Saul Martinez/Getty Images This means the billionaires with estates within this mile-long zone need a special pass to get home. Everyone else living or working on either side of this zone has to drive over a drawbridge to the mainland, then back over another drawbridge onto the island again. What once took nine minutes can now take an hour, depending on the time of day. There’s a local saying on bumper stickers, “In Palm Beach, We Don’t Honk.” Good luck with that, Tripp and Muffie. Local officials have threatened to shut down Mar-a-Lago or yank the special agreements that allow for parties there. “In my mind, if the road is closed, the Mar-a-Lago Club is closed,” declared Palm Beach Mayor Danielle Moore at an August Town Council meeting. Good luck with that, too, Danielle. Despite the hassles, most everyone here reports that they and their wallets are pleased to know that 45 will soon be 47. The headaches certainly haven’t kept others from migrating like geese and competing, daggers out, for rare plots of pricey real estate. Enterprising developers may soon ensure that skyscrapers outnumber palm trees in West Palm Beach. So the moneyed Misérables persevere—and party hard—beyond the barricades. In these festive pre-transition days, it isn’t uncommon to juggle several cocktail-party invitations a night here, and that’s on weekdays. The local attire is like none I’ve ever experienced. When I invite neighbors for impromptu cocktails and the de rigueur “Palm Beach cheese puffs” at my condo, grown men arrive in pressed button-down shirts and coral-colored pants with embroidered sea turtles. For the women, it’s about achieving the perfect matchy-matchy look, with bamboo and turquoise earrings to reference the bamboo sandals and baby-blue dress. The ambition for everyone, it seems, is to look like an Easter egg. Mar-a-Lago hosts a “disco night” several nights a season, which I’ve experienced for myself. Given talk that the membership initiation fee has been climbing steadily from $200,000 a few years ago, I did not expect the club’s ornate furnishings and oversize vases to look like someone had exploited a going-out-of-business sale on Manhattan’s Seventh Avenue. The local attire is a steroidal variant of preppy. The ambition for everyone, it seems, is to look like an Easter egg. The headaches haven’t kept people from migrating like geese and competing, daggers out, for rare slivers of local real estate. Out on the veranda dining area, well past the metal detectors, we ran right into the Donald himself. In person, he’s King-Kong huge, with the graciousness of a birthday boy at his own party. “Welcome!” he greeted enthusiastically. At the bar, I met a gregarious chap who called himself Mr. Bang Bang. His jacket was Pepto Bismol pink and his diamonds were plentiful. He proudly flashed his Cartier panther ring the size of a boulder and a diamond “H” belt buckle. (Authentic Hermès? I’m not so sure.) Down a long marble staircase, past fountains with water-spewing swans, lies a baroque hall-of-mirrors salon, complete with Versailles-inspired gilded molding. The public got a glimpse of this room in the photos of classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago that circulated in 2023. But instead of being piled with boxes, the stage had fluffer dancers in disco outfits to motivate sauced-up guests who needed zero encouragement. Trump loves his music. At the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm, where a Tiger Woods-style peanut gallery is often waiting for him, he has been known to approach the 18th hole with Andrea Bocelli’s “Con Te Partirò (“Time to Say Goodbye”) blasting from the loudspeakers. At Mar-a-Lago, Trump likes to use his iPad to control the club’s playlist. This can make for some unexpected transitions, such as Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2U” followed by a Phantom of the Opera ballad. But at Mar-a-Lago, people don’t question Trump’s choices, tempo or otherwise. Revelers just dance on, gamely if awkwardly. Ryan Williams, left, and Trump-supporter Felipe Calderon pose for portraits in Palm Beach. “Trump turns it up pretty loud,” says Philanthropist Sharon Bush, who lives in Palm Beach and frequents Mar-a-Lago. “Everyone is in such a good mood because we were so afraid he might lose. He always tells me I’m his favorite member of the Bush family.” For New Year’s Eve, Mar-a-Lago hosted a $5K-a-plate bash, complete with a wedding band and white flowers everywhere. Elon Musk, who’s been seen lying around the pool lately, donned a tux and a kid on his shoulders. He was there for Thanksgiving, too, which was when Jean Shafiroff, a philanthropist and socialite known for her glam gowns and long Audrey Hepburn gloves, decided to say hi. “I’m not scared of him!” She says. “I told him it was amazing what he’s done. He’s a genius!” Cybertrucks aside, the famed Worth Avenue still feels like a film set from a more luxurious Truman Show. Giddy shoppers spent the holidays buying vintage Rolexes and velvet slippers while Andy Williams crooned Christmas classics from outdoor speakers. A store called Trillion sells cashmere sweaters—Bernie Madoff reportedly had one in every color—and seemingly every shop carries monogrammed cocktail napkins with stitched little pineapples or King Charles puppies. In Palm Beach one learns that a Bentley can be lipstick pink and a men’s blazer can be pink and green and made from terry cloth (to be worn with swim trunks around the pool, of course). The sartorial choices of longtime Palm Beachers may be a steroidal variant of preppy, but the objective isn’t about “getting attention,” insists Ryan Williams, a Palm Beach insider and former Mitt Romney staffer, who owns four such terry blazers. Rather, it’s about reflecting “the aesthetic and motif of the area that’s existed for decades.” He adds that “there is a fine line between tasteful pastels and garish colors, just as there is a difference between actual style and the kind of over-the-top, sequined dragons on jackets that have been making appearances on the island lately. That’s definitely not the real Palm Beach.” In an atmosphere increasingly crowded with newcomers and hangers on, some take comfort in knowing what was exclusive here remains exclusive. Buccan restaurant co-owner Piper Quinn is one of 20 male “Coconuts,” making him a member of the oldest men’s club in Palm Beach, “a hundred years going.” The Coconut Ball, hosted by this esteemed fraternity every New Year’s Eve, is the most coveted invite of the season. I’ve been told that a number of deep-pocketed men have tried to finance these balls in the hopes of joining the club. But one can’t apply to become a Coconut, Piper explains. “You must be asked. It’s just not one of those clubs that you can join because you’d like to.” Money doesn’t buy everything, apparently. Even in Palm Beach. Blockades around Mar-a-Lago have turned nine minute drives into hourlong journeys. Despite the hassles, most everyone here reports that they and their wallets are pleased to know that 45 will soon be 47. Holly Peterson is a journalist and the author of six books, including the novels “The Manny” and “It Happens in the Hamptons.” Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Appeared in the January 11, 2025, print edition as 'MAGA Madness Descends on Palm Beach'.