Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
After years of studying French in school, one of my professors said he'd really appreciate it if I didn't take any more French.
I've always been comfortable with people who run things, whether it was the principal of my high school or the president of the university.
My first trip to China was 1990, and that was in a world where there were virtually no cars at all on the road, and everybody had bicycles.
Business is usually a team sport. There isn't one great person sitting there directing things. You can't run an effective business like that.
The Schwarzman Scholars is a program that was designed with Tsinghua University. They asked me to do something in honor of their 100th anniversary.
I'm pretty good on my feet. I'm pretty decent at bobbing and weaving, but there's only so long you can bob and weave when you don't have a good base.
In life, you'll often find that having influence and providing sound advice is a good thing, even if it attracts criticism or requires some sacrifice.
One of the rules I've learned is that struggling to try and think your way into making an investment is usually the best way to not have a great outcome.
Preparing youth for employment requires training that is demand-driven to meet the needs of companies and ensure that young people are taught marketable skills.
For future geopolitical stability and global prosperity, we need to build a culture of greater trust and understanding between China, America and the rest of the world.
China on the world stage, in terms of interaction with the rest of the world, has been relatively very new due to the long isolation period until Deng Xiaoping's times.
Most youth are lacking critical life skills that make them employable and, most importantly, able to keep a job - things like teamwork, decision-making, and time management.
When you lose control of risk at a financial institution, you do a variety of unfortunate credit extensions or purchases - and all of a sudden, you've blown up your business.
Sleeping at night is not a specialty of entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur who is sleeping soundly, something bad is happening to that person; they just don't know it's happening yet.
I was in an interdisciplinary major - which was a new thing then - which was psychology, sociology, anthropology, and biology, which is really sort of the study of the human being.
Deals really have to do with the overlap of what one side wants and the other side wants, and it's really just the discovery of where that overlap is and how you decide to get there.
I'm concerned with China growing at double or triple the rate of the West, that there will be tensions. One needs to do something to start addressing misunderstandings and frustration.
I've lived through periods of illiquidity before. Asset prices come down. The economy slows or even goes into recession. Then the cycle re-starts. We buy at lower prices with less leverage.
This country, of course, needs fundamental reform of our financial regulatory system, as I, and many other financial institution executives, have publicly advocated for a considerable period.
Don't go into something you actually don't know much about, in the hopes that you're going to get really financially successful and rewarded... even though people think you're, like, terrific.
Ironically, when a bunch of very smart people are sitting around a table for hours trying to figure out whether they should do something, that tends to not necessarily lead to the best results.
As the world has become more predatory and aggressive, my impression is that the investment banking business has moved from being relationship-oriented to being increasingly transaction-oriented.
What you find when you live in the United States, you live in the West, is that when somebody fails, it's never their fault. They always like to blame somebody other than themselves for a failure.
I chose to start Schwarzman Scholars because I saw the potential for the world to become focused and unhappy with China, in large part because of the populism that was growing throughout the world.
We need sobriety, rationality, and civility in the discussions on the regulation of financial institutions so that the banks can return in a robust manner to their central role in funding the economy.
In the Catholic schools, they spend much less money than the public schools, and they get amazing results. Private schools spend much more money than the public schools, and they get remarkable results.
The biggest mistake I've seen people make with their careers is, when they're good, after two or three years - and they happen to be smart - they announce that they're going out to start their own firm.
When society starts moving in a way that becomes very negative, whether it's in the West or any other place, I've always found that it's very useful to have people around who actually know what's happening.
I don't feel like a wealthy person. Other people think of me as a wealthy person, but I don't. I feel the same as when I was a fifth-year associate trying to make partner at Lehman Brothers. I haven't changed.
I like being in warm weather. I find that relaxes me. I like being near water. I like sitting on a beach and sort of hearing the water, watching waves break, looking at the shimmering. I find that really relaxing.
We need to be able to identify and support young people who demonstrate interest and aptitude in entrepreneurship and business creation and give them tools to follow this path throughout their educational experience.
I'm doing my sit-ups and watching CNBC. Suddenly, somebody starts talking about me on television... The business has gone into a weird zone of visibility. For those of us who have done it for a long time, it's strange.
I love picking people. I started Blackstone, and we had no people, and now we have with our portfolio companies about 750,000 people all over the world. Everybody who is at a senior level has ultimately been picked by me.
In a financial crisis, only the Fed, as the lender of last resort, might stand between our economy and financial catastrophe. We must leave the Fed with the flexibility to provide liquidity in order to stop a financial panic.
I can't micromanage what anybody pays or doesn't pay. But the concept that half of the public isn't involved with the income-tax system is somewhat odd and I'm not saying how much people should do, but we should all be part of the system.
The concept of fair value accounting is correct and useful, but the application during periods of crisis is problematic. It's another one of those unintended consequences of making a rule that's supposed to be good that turns out the other way.
What I've found in being around political people is they're willing to negotiate their ideology somewhere around 5 percent. They believe that's really stepping out. And it's really hard to do business when you only move 5 percent from your ideology.
When I was much younger, I realized that when I was handling something very large, and I was on my own doing that, that my breathing rate would increase, and that would affect my ability to think as well as I normally would. So when that starts happening, I slow down.
Today, whenever I'm under pressure to make a decision on a transaction but I don't know what the right one is, I try desperately to postpone it. I'll insist on more information - on doing extra laps around the intellectual parking lot - before committing. I take the same approach with people, too.
Doing a me-too business, because it's you - the only person who cares about that is you. The market doesn't care if it's you. The market is pretty much being served. You better have something that the world doesn't have, because even then, you might screw it up through your own ineptitude and inexperience.
I have a saying: There are no brave old people in finance. Because if you're brave, you mostly get destroyed in your 30s and 40s. If you make it to your 50s and 60s and you're still prospering, you have a very good sense of how to avoid problems and when to be conservative or aggressive with your investments.
Part of China's strategic planning is to make their universities among the top level of the world, and I think they understand you can't do that without the adoption of some of the principles of the great universities in the West; one of those is the ability to have free expression and discussion in the classroom.
Every year, I speak to our new associates and give them this advice, although in my own words. 'This isn't like school,' I tell them, 'where you want to get your hand in the air and give an answer quickly. The only grade here is 100. Deadlines are important, but at Blackstone you can always get help in meeting them.'