‘I didn’t just try to sell. I listened’
Don’t underestimate the power of listening in business, says private equity tycoon Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone co-founder and CEO
“The Tropicana deal secured my promotion to partner, and I celebrated by redecorating my office. If I was going to be there twelve hours a day, I wanted it to be a cocoon against all the psychological stresses of my work, cozy, like a beautiful sitting room or library in an English house. I had the walls painted partly in reddish-maroon, the rest covered in the kind of grass cloth I’d seen at Lee Eastman’s place.
I installed a chocolate carpet, chintz chairs, and a partners’ desk from the 1890s. It was exquisite. No one else at the firm had ever done this. It wasn’t how they thought about work. But I didn’t consider myself to be at work. This was my second home, and I wanted it to be beautiful, comfortable, and visually interesting.
Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman on “going big” and learning through failure
When I arrived at DLJ (Donaldson, Lufkin, Jenrette) in 1969, I had my face pressed up against the glass of a life I could only imagine. Nearly a decade afterward, I was living it.
