Daniel Loeb

The founder of Third Point LLC, Daniel Loeb is Wall Street’s deadly pen—a hedge fund manager whose letters to derelict corporate managers produce spectacular investment returns.

Early years

Daniel Loeb admits that he always had a big mouth: He claims that he even hired a bodyguard to protect him from the bullies he offended at his Los Angeles elementary school. The son of a lawyer and a historian, Loeb began investing in the stock market in high school. He transferred from UC Berkeley to attend Columbia in NY. By the time he was a senior, he’d amassed $120,000 in profits—and then promptly lost the whole amount with one bad investment. (Loeb says it taught him an important lesson in the dangers of over-concentration.)

After working for Warburg Pincus for many years in the late ’80s, Daniel Loeb grew bored and got a job at Island Records where he helped the company’s founder, Chris Blackwell, secure financing. After a few years living downtown—he lived on Avenue D then— Daniel Loeb returned to finance with working at a small New York financial firm and at Jeffries & Co. in Los Angeles. He returned to New York to join Citicorp in the capacity of a junk bond salesman before founding Third Point in 1995 with $3.3 million from family and friends.

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