What It Takes

The best book on Business, I would suggest to read this book those who are interested to build large scale businesses and build best talents and culture in the organization. 39B dollar deal with SAM and the way it handled to sell most of it on deal closing day itself is outstanding smart work. Worth to read and re-read.

Rags to riches is an adage. When the economy or business cycle takes an unexpected and swift downturn, as often it happens, we have stories of riches to rags. The story of Blackstone, cofounded by Stephen Schwarzman is about building great institutions that can not only survive, but also thrive with every challenge. Schwarzman shares with us this fascinating story, with candour and courage, deep insights, and personal notes, with lessons on learning, leadership, love, and a legacy to be proud of.Schwarzman belongs to a middle-class Jewish family in suburban Philadelphia, brought up in 1950’s, absorbing the core values of integrity, straightforwardness, and hard work. As a kid, he was paid ten cents per hour for folding handkerchiefs at the family’s linen shop. Unhappy with his pay, he once asked his grandfather for a raise to twenty-five cents an hour. “What makes you think you’re worth twenty-five cents an hour?’’ came the reply. There was no entitlement to higher wages just because the family owns the business.Steve’s keen interest in athletics earns him a seat for undergraduate study at Yale. The story of Coach Armstrong training the team even in harsh winter, and Steve’s kind gesture in gifting a pair of Adidas spikes to his relay teammate Bobby, who could not afford to buy one, are clear examples of leadership, teamwork and the spirit of giving and sharing that are exemplary virtues.Schwarzman builds Blackstone on the solid twin principles of Excellence and Integrity. Excellence for him is giving 100 percent on everything. A five percent underperformance could mean a hue setback to investors in a hypercompetitive and uncertain business environment. Integrity is the true middle-class values of honesty, hard work, respect for others and always doing what you say you will. This requires courage. In the real estate business, there are multiple ways of presenting property values, depending on whether it is to the investor, or tax authorities or to someone else. Blackstone puts an end to this dubious practice and always presented the one true value. Yet, it emerged phenomenally successful in the real estate business that is plagued by nefarious practices throughout the world. Truth alone Triumphs.Hiring the best people is a non-negotiable at Blackstone. Mediocrity and complacency are prescriptions for disaster. Blackstone’s management team has been with them for eighteen years on average and the tenure of senior managing directors is ten years or more. “Such longevity is rare in the financial services industry”, says Schwarzman.The final chapters are about giving back to society. “I have long believed that education is a passport to better lives. A good education has the power to affect whomever it touches for the better” he says. His liberal donations to Tsinghua University, Yale, MIT, and Oxford are aimed at creating a better world for the next generations through quality education cutting across continents, cultures, and technologies.In the spring of 1987, when Schwarzman and his co-founder Pete Peterson went to MIT to raise seed money for Blackstone, the only person whom they could meet was the janitor. “Oh. It’s Friday. They have left a while ago,” he said. Steve and Pete came back empty handed and fully drenched in the unexpected heavy rain.October 2018, MIT Campus. It was final day of MIT’s three-day event to launch Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing covered by CNBC for global live streaming.As Schwarzman leaves the stage, Rafael Reif, President of MIT leans in: “Wow, I’ve never seen that before in my almost thirty years at MIT.’’Schwarzman: “What was that?”.Reif: “A standing ovation.”Fortunately, Steve was denied twenty-five cents an hour by this grandfather. He was destined to build a fortune, with Excellence and Integrity.

The book gives you a peek into the life one of the stalwarts of the industry. It has portrayed all the major events of his life and how he went about handling them. Enjoyable read.

Schwarzman explains how he learned from his mistakes and grow the worlds largest manager of alternate assets. The way he does is going through inflection points and the lessons it taught him. He mixes this with values like loyalty and integrity. Primary motto he developed for Blackstone is simple yet very effective: Never lose money. Many of lessons from this book useful to anyone who wants to succeed in modern life. For example how to remove obstacles and expand your area of work. He shows how to see the interconnections which we may not have noticed before and to understand quantity the cycles to identify how close you are to a market top or bottom. For lazy ones he summarizes his lessons to 25 points in the backpages.This is not a self-help book Or just a chronicle of random events. Rather doyen in the industry illustrates how these events are instrumental in shaping a great organization.He reminds us that organizations are more fragile than we think and we need to seek ways to reinvent them and improve constantly.

This is one of the best books to read. Every Investor should buy and pass on this book to the next generations. The book was received in excellent condition. The seller also sent a complimentary book on population. Get one request : Please send these books in cardboard packing and not basic paper packing as they are hardcovers and might get damaged during transit. Thank you very much.

It was really insightful and motivational tbh. The language used is easy to understand. It is really good book for anyone interested in the sphere of business.The only negative I felt is that sometimes the author seems to be boasting too much about his achievements. It's really uncomfortable to read those a few pages.

The book I received had a lot of dust on its cover and inner pages. I had to wipe it off and there were small white spots on the front cover of the book.While I cannot speak on the contents of the book, the tangible quality of the book from this e-seller was not good.

I had heard Mr. Schwrzma only once on the Standford GSB talk show before I started chose to read this book. But that one talk show was enough to inspire me to read his book.I find his journey of business spectacular and inspiring to young entrepreneurs. I am happy to have learned many of the principles of Mr. Schwarzman.

Livro muito interessante para quem gosta de biografias de executivos e profissionais do mercado financeiro.Varias lições de alguém que trilhou um caminho de sucesso.

Absolute pleasure when reading this masterpiece!

Non recensisco il libro, per questo ci sono altri siti. Prodotto conforme, consegna Amazon ottima, nessun problema.

Vibrant, colorful, humble life story of S Schwartzman. Impossible to put down.The best account I have read so far about the journey of an entrepreneur… painful, frustrating… but for those who embrace resilience and strong values infinitely rewardingWhat a life !

If you’re interested in finance, investing or private equity this will be one of those books that are hard to put down. The book is much better than King of Capital and serves as the biography of Steve Schwarzman. As such, there is quite a lot of time spent on his political involvement and philanthropic efforts that may not be as fascinating to all. Other than that, as the name implies it has a lot of lessons on excellence and how one should never settle for average.