Carl Icahn On How He Recovered After Blowing Up His Account And What It Takes To Be Successful On Wall Street

Very few people today know that when legendary investor and chairman of Icahn Enterprises LP IEP started trading and investing, like millions of others he too ended up blowing his account in 1962.

Icahn was on Wall Street Week recently, where he discussed how he recovered from his first big loss and what it takes to be successful on Wall Street.

The Learning

“You have to go through the pain, you have to go through it,” Icahn said. “The market is not a gambling casino and too many people in this type of market, too many people think it is and especially now with low interest rates. So, it’s really a dangerous place today.”

Recovery

Icahn was asked how did he built himself back up after blowing his account. He replied, “I had a few bucks left, very little and I said, ‘I got to learn something’. So, I read a lot about Puts and Calls and in those days that was really the Wild West, the Puts and Calls and you had all these option brokers […] and they were fleecing everybody.”

“So, I was the honest broker, so to speak…and I built this thing up. By (19)68, I was making $7-800 thousand a year, which was like today $10 million-$20 million.”

Obsession Needed

On what it takes to be successful on Wall Street, Icahn said, “You have to really have an obsessive nature and whatever it is you want to do. You want to be a great tennis player; there are guys that are more talented maybe than McEnroe or something like that. May be his brother they say was more talented, but McEnroe worked at it. McEnroe loved it, I guess, he was obsessive, he worked [all] the time.”

“Talent is not enough, you got to do both,” Icahn concluded.