Dan Loeb says the only way to 'get good' at AI is to start using it now

2 days ago 18

Dan Loeb, the founder of New York-based hedge fund Third Point, says he underestimated how quickly AI would disrupt some businesses.

Speaking on Thursday's episode of the "Invest Like The Best" podcast, Loeb said while Third Point had made successful bets against some companies affected by AI, the firm also misjudged AI's ability to upend parts of the market it had expected to be more resilient.

"But where we've made the mistake is that, we're controversial, but we thought we knew better that AI wasn't really going to, you know, affect this part of the infoservices business or these guys had proprietary information," Loeb said, adding that this has been a key "investment lesson" over the past year.

One way he's helping his team deal with the uncertainty around AI is by encouraging them to use it firsthand, Loeb said.

"Yeah, I mean, first of all, we all have to just, you know, start using it. The only way to get good at this is just to use it," Loeb said.

He added that employees at his firm have varying levels of technical expertise and experience.

"We have experts that we have brought on that are native computer scientists that are kind of coming at this as expert AI people who are working on specific projects. They're coaching the team, but we're also encouraging everyone to use AI and find as many applications," he said.

He said the push to adopt AI reflects a wider effort to help employees keep learning and adapting.

"You know, I'm obsessive about continual improvement both at individual level and organizationally," Loeb said.

He pointed to Anthropic's Claude as a tool that rewards effort and can help employees improve themselves.

"It makes you very autonomous and like, your ability is sort of like, it'll give you back whatever you put into it, if you put a lot of time and energy and effort into it," he said.

As part of encouraging his team to embrace AI, Loeb said employees regularly exchange best practices and share how they're putting the technology to use.

"You know, some people are running agents overnight and using tons and tons of tokens. Other people are probably more like me, just using it more for queries and things, but you know, we're all very involved with it," he said.

Many other companies are also pushing employees to experiment with AI tools.

In July 2025, Business Insider's Ashley Stewart reported that Microsoft was considering incorporating AI usage into employee evaluations.

"AI is now a fundamental part of how we work," Julia Liuson, who oversees the Microsoft division responsible for developer tools, wrote in an internal email. "Just like collaboration, data-driven thinking, and effective communication, using AI is no longer optional — it's core to every role and every level."

In August 2025, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said he fired some employees who resisted the company's push to use AI.

"I went rogue," Armstrong said.