Good morning. Is the American Dream still about getting ahead, or just about not falling behind? Bill Ackman wants to get back to when success inspired rather than divided people. “When I grew up, if a guy in my neighborhood got a Corvette, no one resented the guy,” the Pershing Square founder told my colleague Jeff John Roberts for a recent feature in Fortune (that I highly recommend you take the time to read). “Everyone was like, ‘Wow, that’s supercool. Hopefully, someday I can be as successful as that guy so I can buy a Corvette, too.’ We want to get back to that version of America.”
They probably still want that Corvette. But many can’t afford to buy a new car as billionaires in Bugattis drive by. The question for leaders is what to do about it.
It’s a topic that has come up repeatedly in my recent conversations with CEOs. The first step? Understand how workers are feeling. In a conversation I recently moderated with Gallup CEO Jon Clifton and Edward Jones chief strategy officer Hasan Malik, they walked through research showing only about one in six U.S. adults feel financially fulfilled. Guardian Life’s 2026 Mind, Body, and Wallet report found just 13% of working Americans feel on track for retirement, the lowest in its 15‑year history, and CEO Andrew McMahon noted that “financial stress impacts physical and mental health” as much as any other factor.
