Decades-long tenure at a single company was once considered a mark of distinction. In an era of frequent layoffs and job-hopping, however, employee loyalty has grown increasingly rare. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman believes that cultivating loyalty remains well worth the investment.

His hedge fund, Pershing Square, which manages approximately $35 billion in assets, extends generous benefits to its roughly four dozen employees — including broad equity ownership and a degree of workplace flexibility that is uncommon on Wall Street. The approach stands out in an industry where hedge funds of comparable size typically concentrate compensation among investment professionals and where turnover at even well-established firms is common.

"There's not a person at Pershing Square that doesn't own multiple millions of dollars of stock in the company — whether you're cleaning the space or at the front desk or another role in the company," Ackman told Fortune's Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell during a recent episode of Fortune's Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast. "We believe in taking care of our people."

Ackman's retention strategy extends well beyond financial incentives. While Pershing employees are required to work from the office five days a week — a mandate that has become increasingly standard among major Wall Street firms — that policy applies for only 10 months of the year. During July and August, employees enjoy flexible arrangements, with the investment team relocating together to the Hamptons — either in rented or owned homes — to continue working.

"We look after people, and so that when you operate that way, people don't think about going anyplace else," Ackman said.

Pershing also invests substantially in employee health and well-being, offering healthy meals in its cafeteria, gym access, and comprehensive healthcare coverage. With a staff of just 48, the firm has not experienced a single "undesired departure" — a notable benchmark in an industry where analysts and portfolio managers frequently move between funds.

"I think everyone here feels accurately that they're a big contributor to our success, and the result is we can accomplish an enormous amount," Ackman added.

Building Pershing Into a Multibillion-Dollar Firm With 'People You Want to Hang Out With'

Ackman grew up in New York and graduated from Harvard with his bachelor's degree in 1988, followed by an MBA in 1992. That same year, he co-founded Gotham Partners with fellow Harvard graduate David P. Berkowitz. The investment firm ultimately failed, partly due to unsuccessful bets on private companies.

In 2004, Ackman launched Pershing Square Capital Management, an activist hedge fund — a category of investing in which funds acquire significant stakes in publicly traded companies and advocate for strategic, operational, or governance changes intended to increase shareholder value. Since its inception, Pershing has taken major stakes in companies including Chipotle, Universal Music Group, and J.C. Penney. The firm went public on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 2014.

Beyond workplace culture, Ackman attributes much of Pershing's recent success to his deliberate approach to team-building.

"[I'm a] big believer in only hiring people of the highest character, human qualities — people you want to hang out with, spend time with," he said, noting that because employees devote so much of their lives to work, he has prioritized hiring colleagues people genuinely enjoy being around.

"There are a lot of super talented people, but when you combine a super talented person with great human qualities, that's a great base to build a great culture."

AI Puts World-Class Intelligence Within Everyone's Reach, Ackman Says

Throughout his career, Ackman has built a reputation for taking unconventional positions and backing them with conviction — whether through bold investment bets or by weighing in on contentious public debates. Looking ahead, the 60-year-old believes artificial intelligence will serve as the next major competitive advantage, not only for companies but for individual workers willing to embrace it.

Earlier this year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos argued that AI-driven productivity gains could eventually create a labor shortage and that lower-income Americans should pay no income tax. Ackman said he agreed, calling Bezos' argument a "powerful case" for the technology's long-term economic impact (X post by Bill Ackman).

Ackman expects AI to reshape industries including education and healthcare, noting that advanced models can already help people better understand complex medical issues while making expert knowledge significantly more accessible.

"This is the era in which you can learn anything, and you don't actually have to read books now," Ackman said. "You can just ask your AI to teach you whatever it is that you need to learn."

For Ackman, one of AI's greatest promises is making world-class expertise available to anyone with an internet connection.

"We're in a world in which intelligence — very high level of intelligence — is available basically for free," he told Fortune. "It's a pretty amazing world."