Jeff Gramm and the Making of an Activist

This week on our Masters in Business podcast we chat with hedge-fund manager Jeff Gramm about activist investing. He is the author of "Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism."

Gramm, son of former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, discussed looking without success for one of Warren Buffett’s early and unpublished activist letters that had been described in the best-selling Buffett biography, "The Snowball." Gramm wrote to Berkshire Hathaway, asking about it and was surprised to receive a package from Buffett a few weeks later. It contained a copy of the unpublished letter, along with permission to use it in his writing. Something similar occurred with Ross Perot and some of his unpublished letters to General Motors, where Perot was both a director and the largest shareholder at the time. It became clear that a book on activist investing was in the making.