The son of a dry goods store owner, Stephen Schwarzman founded private equity firm Blackstone with fellow billionaire Peter Peterson in 1985. Initially a boutique merger-and-acquisition advisory business, Blackstone grew into the world’s largest buyout firm, with $538 billion in assets. While Peter Peterson (d. 2018) retired shortly after Blackstone’s 2007 IPO, Schwarzman still presides over the business as chairman and CEO. Schwarzman got his start on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers; he writes in his 2019 memoir about mistakes by management at that firm. He started his first business, a lawn-mowing operation, at age 14, employing his younger twin brothers to mow while he brought in the clients.
18 Stephen Schwarzman Quotes And Lessons In Pursuit Of Excellence
1. “Time wounds all deals.” – Stephen Schwarzman
2. “it’s as hard to start and run a small business as it is to start a big one. You will suffer the same toll financially and psychologically as you bludgeon it into existence. It’s hard to raise the money and to find the right people. So if you’re going to dedicate your life to a business, which is the only way it will ever work, you should choose one with the potential to be huge.” – Stephen Schwarzman
3. “If you ever felt overwhelmed by work, I said, pass on some of your work to others. It might not feel natural. High achievers tend to want to volunteer for more responsibility, not give up some of what they have taken on. But all that anyone higher up in the firm cares about is that the work is done well. There is nothing heroic or commendable about taking on too much and then screwing it up. Far better to focus on what you can do, do it well, and share the rest.” – Stephen Schwarzman
4. “Sometimes even gifted people such as yourselves will get knocked back on their heels. It is inevitable that you will confront many difficulties and hardships during your lives. When you face setbacks, you have to dig down and move yourself forward. The resilience you exhibit in the face of adversity—rather than the adversity itself—will be what defines you as a person.” – Stephen Schwarzman
5. “The best executives are made, not born. They absorb information, study their own experiences, learn from their mistakes, and evolve.” – Stephen Schwarzman
6. “You have to be ready for the pain. No entrepreneur anticipates or wants pain, but pain is the reality of starting something new. It is unavoidable.” – Stephen Schwarzman
7. “So if you’re going to dedicate your life to a business, which is the only way it will ever work, you should choose one with the potential to be huge..” – Stephen Schwarzman
8. “That’s how real life works. If you’re faced with a problem, you don’t panic and declare immediate catastrophe. You call for quiet and give everyone time.” – Stephen Schwarzman
9. “We wanted to be spoken of in the same breath as the greatest names in our industry.” – Stephen Schwarzman
10. “We train our professionals to distill every individual investment opportunity down to the two or three major variables that will define the success of our investment case and create value.” – Stephen Schwarzman
11. “I was never going to settle on offices that were less than perfect. The rewards of having a beautiful space that attracted the best people and gave our clients greater confidence in our abilities would far exceed” – Stephen Schwarzman
12. “You’ve got to sell your vision over and over again. Most people don’t like change, and you have to overwhelm them with your argument, and some charm.” – Stephen Schwarzman
13. “As a baby boomer, I had grown up seeing only growth and opportunity. Success seemed a given. But working through the economic ups and downs of the 1970s and early 1980s, I had come to understand that success is about taking advantage of those rare moments of opportunity that you can’t predict but come to you provided you’re alert and open to major changes.”– Stephen Schwarzman
14. “But learning the way I did, I saw the intricate ways in which deals can be structured, the subtleties that must be negotiated. Mastery like that takes experience, endurance, and tolerance for pain. And it yields the greatest rewards.” – Stephen Schwarzman
15. “And my exit from Lehman had shown me Wall Street at its worst, everyone for themselves.” – Stephen Schwarzman
16. “The harder the problem is, the more limited the competition, and the greater the reward for whomever can solve it.” – Stephen Schwarzman
17. “To be successful you have to put yourself in situations and places you have no right being in. You shake your head and learn from your own stupidity. But through sheer will, you wear the world down, and it gives you what you want.” – Stephen Schwarzman
18. “If you’re going to commit yourself to something, it’s as easy to do something big as it is to do something small. Both will consume your time and energy, so make sure your fantasy is worthy of your pursuit, with rewards commensurate to your effort.” – Stephen Schwarzman