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Bradley Jacobs

Cofounder, United Rentals

Search every verified Bradley Jacobs interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Bradley Jacobs, cofounder of United Rentals and current chairman and CEO of QXO, appeared on Morgan Stanley's "Hard Lessons" podcast in August 2026, where he discussed his approach to mergers and acquisitions and reflected on past business setbacks. During the conversation with Eli Gross, Jacobs said he learned to "keep it real" and stop "selling" to employees, investors, and vendors, instead advising that leaders should share both positive and negative information along with their plans. He also described a past deal where his company lost approximately $500 million, stating that while they "could afford it, but barely," the experience was a memorable lesson. Jacobs, who has founded eight billion-dollar companies including United Rentals and XPO, also discussed his practice of meeting with the top 15 leaders of companies he considers acquiring, asking them directly whether they would pay billions for the business with their own money. He noted that being more straightforward earlier in his career would have made him more effective. The podcast episode highlighted his track record of completing more than 500 mergers and acquisitions and his focus on shareholder returns.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I wouldn't have bet the ranch on it. Well, we didn't bet the whole ranch. We probably lost 500 million bucks. It's a lot of money. And you remember that forever. So we could afford it, but barely! We took a write-off on that one. So that was a hard lesson.”

“V mojom podnikaní, vo všetkých mojich podnikoch, boli jediné dve veci, ktoré som nakoniec musel urobiť. Aby som dosiahol skvelé ohodnotenie a vytvoril hodnotu pre akcionárov, bolo potrebné rásť v tržbách rýchlejšie ako konkurencia, rýchlejšie ako trh, získavať podiel na trhu a zvyšovať marže. Ak som urobil tieto dve veci, všetko ostatné nasledovalo.”

“The real factor for building products is mortgage rates. So, mortgage rates when they were 7 and 1/2% was was really bad. Cuz people had 3% mortgages or 3 and 1/4% mortgages, and people just have a problem paying off a 3% mortgage and taking out a 7% mortgage. They're now down a bit, 6 and 1/2% but they got to come down more. So, when when the Iran war finally ends, and it'll end someday and interest rates come down,”

“If a normal person watches television and sees a people's houses getting the roofs being blown off usually you feel bad about that. You feel compassionate. You feel oh wow, it's too bad for them. Yeah. So, there's a distance here because that's really good for the roofing business. So, so one half of your brain is still a human and have compassion and feeling bad for this, and the other SIDE YOU'RE YEAH, GREAT. I GOT”

“The acquisition of Beacon following the acquisition of Kodiak, which is followed now by the acquisition of TopBuild, takes us from 11 months ago where we had no building products revenue, let alone EBITDA, to the second largest publicly traded building products distributor in North America with more than 18 billion dollars in combined company revenue and more than 2 billion dollars of combined adjusted EBITDA. It's a”

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →