Speaker

Bill Miller

Bill Miller

American fund manager. Former chairman and chief investment officer of Legg Mason Capital Management. Founder of Miller Value Partners. The only fund manager to beat the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years (1991–2005). Author of long-form annual shareholder letters notable for their philosophical range.

Miller’s approach departs from classical value investing on one key axis: intrinsic value is a backward-looking measure, but all value depends on the future. He buys at a discount to what he believes an asset will be worth, not what it is worth on present metrics. This requires genuine comfort with Knightian uncertainty — holding concentrated positions in assets where no probability distribution can be assigned.

Known investments: Amazon (held from IPO; averaged down through 2002; 40–50% of personal portfolio in 2022), Bitcoin (approximately 50% of personal portfolio in 2022), Baidu, MicroStrategy. Suffered 90%+ drawdowns on MicroStrategy from its peak; lost heavily in the 2022 tech and crypto decline.

Career arc: joined Legg Mason in 1981, took sole management of the Legg Mason Value Trust in the late 1980s, ran the famous 15-year consecutive outperformance streak, lost catastrophically in 2008 (concentrated in financials), rebuilt with Miller Value Partners (top 1% on all rolling periods, 2009–2020). Announced retirement from fund management in January 2022, handing day-to-day management to Samantha McLemore and Bill Miller IV.

Intellectual influences: William James (pragmatism), Wittgenstein (language limits), Frank Knight (risk vs. uncertainty), Jesse Livermore (market experience as tuition).

Appearances