‘The million dollar question is, what is going to happen with offices'

Stephen A Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of Blackstone Group, talks about investment trends and lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic

- POOJA SARKAR

Q Your autobiography What It Takes launched this year. Tell us about your journey.

I started in middle-class America; my father had a small store and I used to work in it. I hated that; I liked playing sports, and being with my friends at school, but I had to learn what it was like to work in a retail store. And I was lucky enough to go to Yale University. And then I went to Harvard Business School. My math skills were terrible, but somebody thought I should go into finance. I just didn’t like doing statistical work; I like dealing with people. And it took a few years to learn the basics, because finance is really about solving people’s problems. It’s very important to listen to what they’re saying, and what they’re not saying, but they’re probably thinking.

I started my own company when I was 37, an age when you know a bunch of stuff but you don’t know everything. And as we grew our business, we became the first investment banking boutique. We did merger and acquisition advice, and started in private equity and expanded into other areas. We started with two people and $400,000, which, in in the world of large corporations, is not much. We now have about $560 billion, and about 3,000 people working at our parent company. With all the businesses and real estate we own, it’s around 500,000 people.

We became the largest owner of real estate in the world. I buy things and operate everywhere. And that’s gotten me involved with politics and philanthropic work to solve problems. So my life is a lot of fun.

Q How have the past six months been?