Steve Schwarzman Delivers Welcome Remarks to Blackstone’s New Analysts

most of you vast majority of you just graduated from college I remember when I graduated from college back in the Middle Ages and um you know I was qualified for nothing and and part of the reason that you know I I think at least so far uh you've had a pretty good experience you know was it two days of orientation and and and 3 weeks of actually you know ostensibly uh learning something uh that might be practical uh all occurs because that never happened to me uh I was hired directly out of undergraduate at a firm that doesn't um exist now called Donaldson lkin General rat uh and they gave me an office and they gave me a secretary I'd never had an economics course I didn't even know there was something called accounting I didn't know there was anything called common stock I had never heard of a bond EX except the US savings bond because that's what we did back back then we bought savings bonds which I think yielded 4% or something like that which looks good today uh and um and I just sat in my office and hoped that no one would discover me and unfortunately they did discover me and I didn't know what the hell to do and I lasted about uh seven eight months and I went into the Army Reserves and it was during Vietnam and the first thing I did when I got out as I went to Harvard Business School I said I got to learn something and having people in a professional environment who were untrained is so terrible for you for the people that when we started uh black sound U back in 1985 I said if I accomplish anything I'm not going to have anybody feel bad and anxious I think I was the biggest deodorant consumer uh on the east side of New York uh it was it was just appalling uh and you know so so we really try hard you know to to have you trained and know what you're doing and uh so when when you go to each of the groups you know you you you'll learn even more so so you know you're you're all out there now so Blackstone is a winning team and why are we a winning team we want to be successful as people we want to associate with lovely people we want everybody to be helpful to be open to be honest to be uh transparent in a good way uh that um you know if somebody needs help uh our job is to help them this is internally and it's your job too right because you'll soon move out of this status and then you'll be seconde people and then there'll be other people like you no no one's like you but you know just as a as a concept and then you're going to help them and and that's the way you know we grow we we deliver things on time we um are unfailingly objective right and and we're straightforward uh as uh as people uh and we always try to be the best in the world at whatever we're doing and and you know there's a knowledge base that we share and grow uh and we always try and find new things to do and everybody at the firm is part of the team you know you know we we want everyone to win at every level uh of the front uh and so it's very positive uh culture and it's exciting every day is exciting and we have a uh really fascinating way of making decisions here which you will enjoy uh and if you don't enjoy it you're at the wrong place but you will enjoy it so so so what we do is is we have some type of table doesn't have to be a giant one like this uh where we have usually you know sort of eight people around sometimes we do it in a whole group like this and the job of the people at the table is is to discuss those risk factors and make sure the team that brings that analysis is is challenged intellectually uh so and and what happens if you get like eight really smart people it's so much better than one smart person you would not believe it because they all have different life experiences they all have different professional experiences and what they do is they go through each one of these variables sometimes it gets a little boring so they'll just do one as opposed to everybody doing each one and um the team defends sometimes the team doesn't know the answer right which is okay because we don't make a decision based on one meeting so what happens is we always learn more things then we send people back to answer the questions that that you know the sort of group has and they got to do write it up again no bullshitting right you know give us day or two so we can read the thing now what's nice about this system and then I will shut up and ask you for questions is that the team who brings the deal is sort of responsible for it but not really the go noo decision is made by all of us sitting at a table figuring out what the risks are what the likely outcomes are and everybody can participate if you disagree on on part of that decision just speak up if you're you know sort of cognitively powerful you should be able to convince people of what you believe if if if you can't people will explain why they think your your assessment is is not quite on the mark usually there ranges of outcomes not just not just a point the great thing about the system is the team itself doesn't end up getting blamed if something goes wrong we we all own that and and so it it takes a normal environment where people are under this excruciating pressure we remove the pressure it's not you how can you blame any one group of people for something that's complex and we all try and do the best we can and and so we have very very little turnover at the front because it's a you know it's our lifetime commitment to you and you know if things don't work out you don't like this kind of work it's your first job or you know for some of you it's your second based on resumés what do you know anyhow at your age right it's a little bit of a tasting manual uh you know sort of going to work the first time seriously and um for most of you and you know sometimes there'll be great fits and sometimes a little less fits and if you're going to go someplace else afterwards we'll help you you're like lifetime friends and colleagues uh and that that's that's sort of you know uh The Firm

Channel: Blackstone

Views: 62,821

Keywords: private equity, Blackstone, Schwarzman, steve Schwarzman, Stephen Schwarzman, talent, finance, career advice, corporate culture, real estate, credit, lending, hedge funds

Id: O-efnbj1nGY

Length: 7min 57sec (477 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 04 2019