Bradley Thomas Gerstner (born May 4, 1971) is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He is the 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 founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

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 is large enough to fall through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. 1, pp. 100–107.Hobbs, P.V. 1974. Ice Physics. Oxford: C ...

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 located in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832, by a group of Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, the institution was originally named "The Wabash Teachers Seminary an ...

from 1989 to 1993 and graduated ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' with a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science. He also studied abroad at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

from 1991 to 1992. From 1993 to 1996, Gerstner attended

Indiana University Maurer School of Law The Indiana University Maurer School of Law is the law school of Indiana University Bloomington, a public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. Established in 1842, the school is named after alumnus Michael S. "Mickey" Maurer, an Indianapo ...

and obtained a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree. He did

day trading Day trading is a form of speculation in Security (finance), securities in which a Trader (finance), trader buys and sells a financial instrument within the same trading day. This means that that all Position (finance), positions are closed befor ...

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 agencie ...

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 Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

where he graduated in 2000 with a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

degree. After graduating, Gerstner was a founding principal of

General Catalyst General Catalyst (GC) is a global investment and transformation company that makes seed to growth stage investments and beyond. The firm has invested in 800+ businesses, including global companies such as Airbnb, Anduril Industries, Applied In ...

, worked at several travel website 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

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. 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 Meta most commonly refers to: * Meta (prefix), a common affix and word in English ( in Greek) * Meta Platforms, an American multinational technology conglomerate (formerly ''Facebook, Inc.'') Meta or META may also refer to: Businesses * Meta (ac ...

and its CEO,

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling sharehold ...

. 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 The metaverse is a loosely defined term referring to virtual worlds in which users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D and focused on social and economic connection. The term ''metaverse'' originated in the 1992 science fiction ...

investments to $5 billion per year. A few weeks later, Meta laid off over 11,000 employees. In late 2022, Gerstner and the firm acquired

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

shares despite market pundits predicting a stock market crash. In early 2023, additional shares were purchased even after the stock price soared after

ChatGPT ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and released on November 30, 2022. It uses large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4o as well as other Multimodal learning, multimodal models to create human-like re ...

debuted. Gerstner predicted that an “AI supercycle” was on the horizon.

Personal life

Gerstner married Michelle Boyers on September 30, 2007, at

Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, lying just south of Cape Cod. It is known for being a popular, affluent summer colony, and includes the smaller peninsula Chappaquiddick Isla ...

. 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