Brad Gerstner
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bradley Thomas Gerstner (born May 4, 1971) is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He is Founder, Chairman and CEO of
Altimeter Capital Altimeter Capital is an American investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts and Menlo Park, California. The firm focuses on technology investments in both public and private markets globally. Background In 2008, Brad Gerstner founded Alt ...
. Gerstner appeared on the 2022 ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
''
Midas List The ''Forbes'' Midas list is the annual ranking by ''Forbes'' magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors. Described by Kara Swisher as the "Oscars for venture capitalists in tech," the Midas List uses parameters ...
after his firm's successful investments in
Snowflake A snowflake is a single ice crystal that has achieved a sufficient size, and may have amalgamated with others, which falls through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. ...
and Grab.


Early life

Gerstner was born on May 4, 1971, in Goshen, a city in Elkhart County, Indiana. His father was Thomas Gerstner and his mother was Martha Burt. He attended
Wabash College Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cu ...
from 1989 to 1993 and graduated '' summa cum laude'' with a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science. He also studied abroad at the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
from 1991 to 1992. From 1993 to 1996, Gerstner attended Indiana University Maurer School of Law and obtained a Juris Doctor degree. He did
day trading Day trading is a form of speculation in securities in which a trader buys and sells a financial instrument within the same trading day, so that all positions are closed before the market closes for the trading day to avoid unmanageable risks a ...
to help pay for his law school fees. After graduation he practiced
securities law Securities regulation in the United States is the field of U.S. law that covers transactions and other dealings with securities. The term is usually understood to include both federal and state-level regulation by governmental regulatory agencies ...
as a lawyer at Ice Miller LLP and served a term as Deputy Secretary of State of Indiana. In 1999, Gerstner returned to school and attended Harvard Business School where he graduated in 2000 with a
Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accoun ...
degree. After graduating, Gerstner was a founding principal of General Catalyst, worked at several
travel website A travel website is a website that provides travel reviews, trip fares, or a combination of both. Over 1.5 billion people book travel per year, 70% of which is done online. Categories Categories of travel websites include: ;Travelogues and blo ...
startups and then worked as a Portfolio Manager for PAR Capital from 2005 to 2008.


Altimeter Capital

In 2008, Brad Gerstner founded Altimeter Capital in Boston, Massachusetts. It was launched with less than $3 million from Gerstner's friends and family during the
financial crisis of 2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...
. In January 2016, Gerstner and the firm fought with United Continental Holdings to change the company's board of directors. Gerstner put out a statement that stated investors were very disappointed with the poor performance and decision making of the company in recent years. United Continental Holdings eventually gave in and changed its board of directors. In October 2022, Gerstner wrote an open letter to Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. In the letter, Gerstner criticized the company stating it had too many employees and was moving too slowly to retain investor confidence. He recommended reducing the headcount expense by 20% and limiting
Metaverse In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usa ...
investments to $5 billion per year. A few weeks later, Meta laid off over 11,000 employees.


Personal life

Gerstner married Michelle Boyers on September 30, 2007, at Martha's Vineyard. The two of them met at Harvard Business School. Gerstner is an amateur pilot.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerstner, Brad 1971 births Living people American hedge fund managers American money managers Harvard Business School alumni Indiana lawyers Indiana University Maurer School of Law alumni People from Elkhart County, Indiana Wabash College alumni