Lex Fridman Podcast: #96 – Stephen Schwarzman: Going Big in Business, Investing, and AI

Stephen Schwarzman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone, one of the world’s leading investment firms with over 530 billion dollars of assets under management. He is one of the most successful business leaders in history, all from humble beginnings back in Philly. I recommend his recent book called What It Takes that tells stories and lessons from this personal journey.

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EPISODE LINKS:

What It Takes (book): https://amzn.to/2WX9cZu

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon.

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:

00:00 – Introduction

04:17 – Going big in business

07:34 – How to recognize an opportunity

16:00 – Solving problems that people have

25:26 – Philanthropy

32:51 – Hope for the new College of Computing at MIT

37:32 – Unintended consequences of technological innovation

42:24 – Education systems in China and United States

50:22 – American AI Initiative

59:53 – Starting a business is a rough ride

1:04:26 – Love and family