Bloomberg Podcasts Sep 20, 2026
With Bill Ford, CEO of General Atlantic
General Atlantic is 46 years old, runs 19 offices and puts more than half of its investing activity outside the United States.
Elevated geopolitical risk is normally the argument for bringing capital home. Bill Ford's reading of the same facts is that global trade and cross-border capital flows have not actually fallen, and that supply chains are being rewired rather than unwound.
"Now it might be a reglobalization or a rewiring of global supply chains, but there really has not been a significant decline in global trade and even capital flows around the world."
Bill Ford, CEO of General Atlantic, on Bloomberg Podcasts, has invested through the PC, internet, mobile and cloud cycles and is now allocating into AI. He runs a firm that began as the family office of Chuck Feeney, the entrepreneur behind the duty free shoppers business, and he says this is one of the best environments for growth investing he has seen in thirty years.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 6 arguments that matter.
Key Takeaways
The best environment for growth investing in his thirty years, and the innovation behind it now sits in Latin America, India and China as well as the US
The Gulf's development path is derailed by the conflict rather than abandoned, and he expects capital formation to resume once it is settled
AI's next targets are education, health care and legal services — industries he says technology had barely made more productive
An IPO is one way to raise capital, not a plan with a date; the insurance and wealth channels are what have needed the money
Investing in a Chinese company now carries a test that did not exist before: will it still have access to the markets it wants to sell into
Globalization is being rewired, not rolled back, and he says trade and capital flows have not meaningfully declined
Every technology cycle he has invested in produced a moment of overvaluation, and he puts AI's safety problem in the same class as railroads and electricity
1. A Short-Term Gulf Setback
The segment was recorded at the Qatar Economic Forum's UNGA special edition in New York, with the interviewer framing it around the Federal Reserve's rate increase that week. Asked where he sees opportunity globally, and specifically in a Middle East that has had a difficult six or seven months, Ford moved the question up a level before answering it.
Thirty years in, he calls this the best time he has seen to be a growth investor
Well, it's actually, we're a growth equity firm, and it's one of the best times of my thirty years to be a growth investor.
Bill Ford
The reason he gives is where the new companies are being started. Innovation is no longer concentrated in one country or one technology.
The supply of entrepreneurs is now global, and it is not confined to AI
Entrepreneurship is now a global phenomenon, and it's happening not just in The US, not just in AI, but all over the world, including The Middle East. Latin America, India, and China are all really hotbeds of innovation right now.
Bill Ford
On the Gulf, Ford separated a decade of policy from the past few months of conflict.
A decade of development work, interrupted by the war
And The Middle East was really on a terrific path over the last decade with a focus on economic development and innovation. And I think it's been a bit derailed by what's happened with the current conflict. But I have a lot of optimism. Once that gets resolved, it'll return to growth, and it'll be a place for more capital formation, more investment.
Bill Ford
Earlier in the program the show had spoken to the chair of the region's investment authority, who treated the conflict as a short-term blip against a longer-term bullish case. The interviewer put that to Ford and asked whether he saw it the same way or was rethinking the region altogether.
He takes the blip reading, not the rethink
Absolutely, the former. I think this is a short term issue. They've really been on a growth and development path consistently with very enlightened leadership for at least a decade.
Bill Ford
He does not expect the conflict to leave a residue for foreign investors. Once it is resolved, on his account, there will be no significant barriers to reentering the region or being active in it.
2. AI Hits the Slow Industries
Asked how attractive the US looks to a growth investor right now, Ford split what AI is doing into two things. The first is the creation of new markets, which is where most of the attention goes: he named autonomous vehicles and robotics as the markets AI is accelerating.
The second is the part he spent more time on. Some large service industries have absorbed decades of technology without getting much more productive, and he says AI is now going at those.
AI is going after the industries technology had failed to make more productive
But it's also attacking industries like education, health care, legal services that have been somewhat impervious to productivity gains and improvement through technology.
Bill Ford
His time horizon for that is long, and he gave it twice in the segment.
The payoff is a ten- to twenty-year proposition
So I think over a ten, twenty year view, there's gonna be tremendous opportunities related to AI.
Bill Ford
3. The IPO Is One Option
General Atlantic has been exploring a public listing, and the interviewer asked for a timeline. Ford did not give one. He answered by describing what the capital is for rather than where it comes from: the firm has been building an insurance channel and a wealth channel, and both have absorbed money.
An IPO is one route to the capital, and there are others
And an IPO is something we've considered, and it's one way to get that capital, but there are other ways.
Bill Ford
What he put in place of a listing plan was a claim about the companies he is being offered.
He says the founders coming through are the best he has seen
The quality of the entrepreneurs has never been better, and it's global.
Bill Ford
4. A Family Office at 46
Asked what sets the firm apart from other growth investors, Ford went back to its founder. General Atlantic started as the family office of Chuck Feeney, whose business was the duty free shoppers chain, and who Ford says cared about three things: entrepreneurship, globality and philanthropy. That brief is what pushed the firm offshore early.
More than half the investing activity is now outside the US
And today, more than half our investing activity is outside The US. And we have 19 offices around the world.
Bill Ford
Forty-six years on, he says the founder's three priorities still run the place
Forty six years later, it's still at the heart of the firm, and it's exciting for us.
Bill Ford
5. Rewired, Not Rolled Back
The interviewer asked whether an inconsistent tariff landscape makes it harder to decide where to put money. Ford agreed the risk level has gone up and then rejected the conclusion usually drawn from it.
Risk is higher everywhere; the direction of travel has not reversed
Geoeconomic risks are elevated across the board, but I think we still believe in globalization.
Bill Ford
Trade and capital flows have not fallen away
So, yes, it's getting rewired. Yes, it's reglobalizing. It doesn't look like it did ten years ago, but I don't think we're rolling that back.
Bill Ford
Where the tariff regime does change his work is in a specific underwriting test. Many Chinese companies want to sell worldwide, so the question of whether they will be allowed to is now part of the investment case.
Market access has become a risk to be underwritten, and it used to be free
And you have to put a filter on and say, will market access be fully available for that company? That becomes an investment risk that has to be assessed. So that's different. We didn't have to worry about that before.
Bill Ford
He then made the argument for why a global firm is better placed to pick winners in a fragmented market. Robotics was his example: to know who wins it, you have to watch China, Europe and the US at the same time.
Being in all the major markets is the edge, and complication does not remove it
So that globality gives us a real edge. Now it's more complicated, but it's still an advantage.
Bill Ford
6. Every Cycle Overshoots
The last question was whether the safety debate and the talk of existential risk around AI will cause capital allocation to pause or scale back. Ford answered with the record of the four cycles he has invested in before this one.
Overvaluation is a feature of every cycle he has been in, and none of them stopped
Every tech cycle I've invested in, the PC cycle, the Internet cycle, the mobile cycle, the cloud cycle, and now AI, there's always moments of over capitalization and overvaluation. But over a ten, twenty year period, there's plenty of opportunity.
Bill Ford
On safety he did not dismiss the risk. He compared AI to industries that had to be made safe as they scaled, and called for a mix of industry self-regulation and government rules.
He puts AI's safety problem alongside railroads, electricity and the internet
I think what's happening now is a very thoughtful moment to say, this industry, like railroads, like electricity, like the Internet, has some safety risks. They have to be addressed. They should be addressed by some degree of industry self regulation and some government regulation. But I don't think that stops the development of what's happening or the impact of AI.
Bill Ford
The bullish case survives the safety debate
So I remain long term very positive and very bullish about it. But we'll have to have these moments where we'll reflect on how do we make it safe in the future.
Bill Ford
Bonus Insights
Ford opened by teasing his interviewer
Asked to start with the Middle East, Ford interrupted his own first sentence to make a joke at the questioner's expense before widening the answer out.
David's always asking really low level questions. Let's take us up a level.
Bill Ford
The room was louder than the interview
The conversation was taped on set at the Plaza Hotel in New York while the main program was about to begin and the audience was filing in. The interviewer apologized twice for the announcements audible behind them, and Ford's closing answer was delivered over what the interviewer called the din of the room.
The Fed was the framing, not the subject
The segment was introduced as a conversation with investors digesting the Federal Reserve's rate increase that week and trying to make sense of the path forward. Ford was not asked about the rate decision itself and did not raise it.
Ford's bottom line is that the geopolitical noise has changed the underwriting rather than the case: supply chains are being rewired instead of retired, market access is now a risk to price rather than an assumption, and a technology cycle that will overshoot in places is still worth a ten- to twenty-year allocation.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
General Atlantic (His firm. A growth equity investor, 46 years old, 19 offices, more than half its investing activity outside the US, and exploring but not committed to an IPO)
DFS Group (The duty free shoppers business built by founder Chuck Feeney, whose global footprint is where Ford traces the firm's habit of investing outside the US)
Autonomous vehicles and robotics (The new markets he says AI is accelerating; on robotics he argues you cannot pick the winner without watching China, Europe and the US at once)
The Federal Reserve (Its rate increase that week was the framing the show gave the segment; Ford was not asked about the decision and did not raise it)
Listen to the full episode
🔴 YouTube
Watch the full episode:
More Bill Ford interviews and podcast appearances
If this was worth your time, send it to someone who has to have a view on this.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: