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Bradley Jacobs

Former Executive Chairman, XPO INC

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, chairman and CEO of QXO and founder of Jacobs Private Equity, appeared on Morgan Stanley's "Hard Lessons" podcast on August 27, 2026, in conversation with Eli Gross, the firm's Global Co-Head of Investment Banking. During the episode, Jacobs discussed his career spanning more than 500 mergers and acquisitions, including the founding of eight billion-dollar companies such as United Rentals and XPO. He reflected on a past financial loss of approximately $500 million, stating, "I wouldn't have bet the ranch on it. Well, we didn't bet the whole ranch... So we could afford it, but barely!" Jacobs also shared lessons on leadership, emphasizing the importance of meeting with key executives at target companies and asking them whether they would pay billions for the business with their own money. Jacobs also discussed his approach to communication, saying that early in his career he focused on "selling" to employees, investors, and vendors, but later learned to "keep it real" by sharing both positive and negative information. He said, "Stop selling. Just make it happen, and tell people exactly what you're working on. Don't tell them just the good, that's selling. Tell them the good, tell them the bad, and tell them what your plan is." The episode highlighted his focus on shareholder returns and organic revenue growth, with Gross noting that Jacobs' companies have consistently ranked at the top of the S&P 500.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“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 the Iran war finally ends, and it'll end someday and interest rates come down, whic”

“Technology is the number one enabler of synergies. But there's going to be so many synergies here. The cross-selling is a big one. There are some cost savings. When you're a bigger player, we're going to be the second biggest publicly traded building products distributor, we will get, because we deserve, a better price from the manufacturers. I mean, bigger customers get bigger discounts, bigger rebates than the smal”

“We're building a strong, durable, iconic company that's going to be around for decades. And that's what I think we're always thinking about long-term. We're thinking 5, 10 years. We're not thinking about a quarter or the year. If we have a choice on a decision for capital allocation or M&A or investments we barely think about what how's it going to affect this quarter, this year. It's really how's it going to affect ”

“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”

“I think there's some truth in what Stanley is saying I think that but as with most things there's a balance there you don't want to be totally undiversified and put all your chips like in the James Bond movie on like like one one red and then you lose all your money at the same time if you're going to be totally Diversified you're going to get totally boring results you're going to get average results so I think the ”

“I'm trying to make money for shareholders that's what I've always tried to do and so far we've done it and I'm trying to follow the same Playbook that I've done over and over again and not deviate from that very much and that Playbook is find a big industry and Building Products distribution is pretty big $800 billion try to find an industry that grows just by itself organically without me acting as a catalyst and Bu”

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