Quote · All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Dan Loeb: The Lost Art of Short Selling, and Why Stock Picking is Back
Where this was said
Investor journey: From message boards to a multibillion dollar hedge fund
At 1:39 · chapter starts 0:34
Chamath Palihapitiya opens the conversation by noting that Loeb was 'in WallStreetBets before WallStreetBets existed,' prompting a rich origin story. Loeb describes the early internet's chat boards — Yahoo, Silicon Investor, and others — as a genuinely novel technology for idea exchange: anonymous, chaotic, but full of substance. He wasn't just browsing; he was actively posting, trolling fraudulent companies, and profiting from short positions as he taunted management. Asked if he was the Original Troll, Loeb laughs and accepts the title without hesitation. He frames the era as a golden age for short sellers because so many companies in the 1990s were outright fraudulent and largely unsupervised — and uncovering them was, in his words, simply 'fun.' [1] — Dan Loeb "Long before Reddit, Dan Loeb was anonymously trolling fraudulent companies on Yahoo and Silicon Investor — and making money doing it. The W…" 00:34
Long before Reddit, Dan Loeb was anonymously trolling fraudulent companies on Yahoo and Silicon Investor — and making money doing it. The Wild West of early internet chat boards was his first investing laboratory, where he learned to detect fraud, taunt management teams, and ultimately prevail on the short side.
Actrade was one of Loeb's earliest short victories: a repeat fraudster running a factoring company dressed up as a tech innovator, trading at five or six times book value. The 'special technology' turned out to be repackaged factory securities financing refrigerators.
Third Point has grown from minimal startup capital to nearly $30 billion in assets under management across hedge fund, credit, CLO, private credit, and insurance businesses.
