Bill Ackman agrees with Jeff Bezos: the best way to help the world is to build something that works

Bill Ackman has spent close to $1 billion on philanthropy over two decades and concluded that capitalism is better at solving problems. “I’ve spent a fair amount of time on philanthropy, and it’s vastly less efficient at solving problems than capitalism,” the Pershing Square founder told Fortune. “You create far more jobs through capitalism than through philanthropy.” Jeff Bezos made the same argument in May: “If I do my job right, the value to society and civilization from my for-profit companies will be much, much larger than the good that I do with my charitable giving.”

The argument is not new, but the pairing is notable. Ackman and Bezos represent a growing faction of elite capital allocators who frame corporate success as the higher form of social contribution. Ackman’s critique of nonprofits is structural: they lack equity incentives, face no market pressure, and can be “taken over” and turned into “political vehicles instead of sticking to their original mission.” Bezos is raising $10 billion for a physical AI lab while simultaneously pledging to give away most of his fortune through a $10 billion climate fund. The tension between building and giving is not abstract for either of them.

What makes Ackman’s version interesting is that he is not abandoning philanthropy. He is redesigning it. His new Brain Research Rehabilitation Institute, seeded with nonprofit capital, is structured to spin out for-profit companies, devices, molecules, and treatments for brain injury and stroke patients, with equity shared among staff. The model mirrors Pershing Square’s compensation structure. The institute targets a specific funding gap: basic science research that is too far from revenue to attract venture capital and too specialised to compete for federal grants.

The institute is partly personal. Ackman’s daughter Lucy suffered a brain haemorrhage in February, which he says reoriented his philanthropic priorities toward neuroscience. The nonprofit structure gives him access to researchers and institutions that will not partner with for-profit entities, while the for-profit spinouts inject the market discipline he says prevents organisations from drifting. Ackman signed the deed on the institute’s Manhattan building the same morning he told Fortune that capitalism beats philanthropy. His answer to the contradiction is that the building itself is designed to prove him right.