AviateHistory · CC0

Carl Icahn built Icahn Enterprises by taking large stakes in companies and pressuring their boards into changes he believed would benefit shareholders, pioneering what came to be called shareholder activism — his hostile takeover of TWA in the 1980s made "corporate raider" a household term. The strategy, controversial at the time for prioritizing shareholder payouts over management's own plans, is now mainstream practice at hedge funds across Wall Street. He stopped managing outside money in 2011, continuing to invest only through his own public holding company.