In a 2014 essay for Worth magazine, the former CEO of PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management) recalled asking his daughter to do something several times — brushing her teeth, he thought — with no luck. He reminded her she used to listen the first time. She asked him to wait before stepping out of the room and returning with a list.
“It was a list that she had compiled of her important events and activities that I had missed due to work commitments,” El-Erian wrote.
There were 22 items on the list, including her first day at school, her first soccer match of the season, a parent-teacher meeting and a Halloween parade. “And the school year wasn’t yet over,” he added. By that September, the essay had gone viral.
The job and the paycheck he gave up
El-Erian was PIMCO’s chief executive officer and co-chief investment officer. PIMCO was the world’s largest bond fund manager, looking after nearly $2 trillion in client assets. (That distinction now belongs to Larry Fink’s BlackRock.)
In January 2014, PIMCO announced El-Erian was leaving. COO Douglas Hodge would step in by mid-March. PIMCO didn’t say why, and El-Erian didn’t either.
PIMCO didn’t disclose what it paid people, but in 2012, The New York Times reported that El-Erian took home about $100 million the year before, citing an anonymous source familiar with PIMCO’s books. Documents obtained by Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz later showed that El-Erian got a $230 million bonus for 2013, his last full year at the firm.
Why the list wasn’t the whole story
El-Erian’s first reaction was to defend himself. “I felt awful and got defensive: I had a good excuse for each missed event! Travel, important meetings, an urgent phone call, sudden to-dos…” he wrote.
Then it sank in. “As much as I could rationalize it — as I had rationalized it — my work-life balance had gotten way out of whack,” he wrote.
He called that wake-up call “one of the main reasons” he made a major professional change — emphasis on “one of.” A Wall Street Journal report published in February 2014 described a falling-out between El-Erian and PIMCO co-founder Bill Gross that deepened as PIMCO’s returns weakened. A source close to El-Erian also told Reuters he had reportedly let Gross and other top executives know in 2013 that he wanted to leave.
What his days look like now
El-Erian kept working, basically swapping one massive job for “a portfolio of part-time jobs that requires a lot less travel and offers a ton more flexibility.”
In 2014, El-Erian became chief economic adviser to Allianz, PIMCO’s corporate parent. He later joined Under Armour’s board and became the sportswear company’s non-executive chair in 2024. His X profile also lists him as a professor of practice at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
