
King of Capital
The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone
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Narrated by:
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George K. Wilson
About this listen
The financial establishment---banks and investment bankers, such as Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley---were the cowboys, recklessly assuming risks, leveraging up to astronomical levels, and driving the economy to the brink of disaster. In King of Capital, David Carey and John E. Morris show how Blackstone (and other private equity firms) transformed themselves from gamblers, hostile-takeover artists, and "barbarians at the gate" into disciplined, risk-conscious investors. This is the greatest untold success story on Wall Street. Not only have Blackstone and a small coterie of competitors wrested control of corporations around the globe, but they have emerged as a major force on Wall Street, challenging the likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for dominance. And since it is sitting on billions of dollars that can be invested at a time when the market is starved for capital, Blackstone is now ready to break out once again.
Insightful and hard-hitting, King of Capital is filled with never-before-revealed details about the workings of a heretofore secretive company that was the personal fiefdom of Steve Schwarzman and Peter Peterson. A great human interest story, as well, it tells how Blackstone went from two guys and a secretary to being one of Wall Street's most powerful institutions---far outgrowing its much older rival KKR---and how Schwarzman, with a pay packet one year of $398 million and $684 million from the Blackstone IPO, came to epitomize the spectacular new financial fortunes amassed in the 2000s.
©2010 David Carey and John E. Morris (P)2010 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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In 2006, hedge fund manager John Paulson realized something few others suspected - that the housing market and the value of subprime mortgages were grossly inflated and headed for a major fall. Paulson's background was in mergers and acquisitions, however, and he knew little about real estate or how to wager against housing. He had spent a career as an also-ran on Wall Street. But Paulson was convinced this was his chance to make his mark. He just wasn't sure how to do it. Colleagues at investment banks scoffed at him and investors dismissed him.
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Better Books Now Available
- By David on 05-02-11
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The Private Equity Playbook
- Management's Guide to Working with Private Equity
- By: Adam Coffey
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Private equity firms are on the rise and rapidly changing the game. Today, more than 5,500 PE firms own tens of thousands of companies, so it is essential for CEOs and senior management executives to understand exactly how private equity firms operate. This invaluable resource can help you devise a winning PE game plan for your own company that offers you greater freedom and financial success.
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Beyond basic
- By M on 05-15-20
By: Adam Coffey
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A Colossal Failure of Common Sense
- The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers
- By: Patrick Robinson, Lawrence G. McDonald
- Narrated by: Erik Davies
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now: What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers - right from the belly of the beast. In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals, the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done.
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First take: Tale of the narcissist
- By Susan Hayden on 07-28-09
By: Patrick Robinson, and others
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Den of Thieves
- By: James B. Stewart
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart shows for the first time how four of the biggest names on Wall Street - Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine - created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions - until a team of downtrodden detectives triumphed over some of America's most expensive lawyers to bring this powerful quartet to justice.
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Awesome book
- By Lars Tackmann on 10-23-17
By: James B. Stewart
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Private Equity Deals
- Case Studies of Dealmaking from Capital Allocators
- By: Ted Seides
- Narrated by: Ted Seides
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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There’s no more important sector of institutional portfolios or the global economy to understand than private equity. Private equity owned businesses are everywhere around us and touch every aspect of our daily lives. In Private Equity Deals, Ted Seides gives you an insight to the conversations that typically happen behind the closed doors of institutional investors and private equity managers. Through a series of case studies , Private Equity Deals shares the dynamics of deal making, companies, and ownership that make private equity a force in the world.
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“Inside baseball” on PE deals from the Sponsor’s perspective
- By Joel Katz on 02-20-25
By: Ted Seides
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The Bond King
- How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All
- By: Mary Childs
- Narrated by: Mary Childs
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. Ten thousand dollars and countless casino bans later, he was hooked, so he enrolled in business school. The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino.
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Being a good writer does not make you a good narrator
- By John Mallory on 05-14-22
By: Mary Childs
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Mastering Private Equity
- Transformation via Venture Capital, Minority Investments and Buyouts
- By: Claudia Zeisberger, Michael Prahl, Bowen White
- Narrated by: Nick Gallagher
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Mastering Private Equity was written with a professional audience in mind and provides a valuable and unique reference for investors, finance professionals, students, and business owners looking to engage with private equity firms or invest in private equity funds. From deal sourcing to exit, LBOs to responsible investing, operational value creation to risk management, the book systematically distils the essence of private equity into core concepts and explains in detail the dynamics of venture capital, growth equity and buyout transactions.
By: Claudia Zeisberger, and others
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Risk Game
- Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur
- By: Francis J. Greenburger
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Francis has mastered the "risk game." Now, with Rebecca Paley’s gripping prose, he takes us behind the scenes in Risk Game and reveals firsthand how he has become a self-made force in the competitive world of New York real estate—and a champion for nonprofit organizations in the fields of art, education, and, most recently, social and criminal justice.
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Good read for encouragement
- By Doug Kirk on 01-29-25
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The Quants
- How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It
- By: Scott Patterson
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In March 2006, the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes. At the card table that night was Peter Muller, who managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT. With him was Ken Griffin, who was the tough-as-nails head of Citadel Investment Group. There, too, were Cliff Asness, the sharp-tongued, mercurial founder of the hedge fund AQR Capital Management, and Boaz Weinstein, chess “life master” and king of the credit-default swap.
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perhaps the best book on the Quants
- By D. Littman on 04-14-10
By: Scott Patterson
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All the Devils Are Here
- The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis
- By: Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers? According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy.
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Excellent!
- By Euri on 11-19-10
By: Bethany McLean, and others
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Up Close and All In
- Life Lessons from a Wall Street Warrior
- By: John Mack
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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From John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, an intimate personal memoir and riveting business story, recounting how he helped grow the company from 300 to 50,000 employees over four decades, transformed a notoriously competitive culture into a successful and collaborative one, and lead the company through the 2008 financial crisis. With humor and honesty, Mack shares advice on both business and life: how to create a culture of team players, how to keep perspective during crises, how to make difficult decisions when all eyes are on you, and more.
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Great bio of Wall Street legend with leadership lessons
- By Timothy J on 05-14-24
By: John Mack
What listeners say about King of Capital
Highly rated for:
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- Brandon
- 10-23-24
Great inside look at PE life
Enjoyed the inside stories and the variety of content in each chapter. The reader was good as well.
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Overall
- Zachary Gidwitz
- 02-03-15
Fair and informative
This was exactly what I was hoping: a solid and well researched history of the company and industry with enough details to make it informative but without an excess of unexplained jargon.
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- John McGuire
- 09-09-16
How the World works
Wether you like it or not this is the story of how our world is organized.
Understanding this makes a lot of what you see every day make sense.
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- Mathew
- 05-01-16
Schooled
Learned a lot in regards to Private Equity! Clarified questions in regards to the industry! Lengthy, and you will be using the 30 second loop button.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Philo
- 12-08-15
Informative, crisp, a no-frills ride
I like this better than I expected to. I got a lot of comprehension about this intensive modern capitalist business. The opening obligatory and silly description of Schwarzman's luridly crassly materialistic showy 60th birthday party is quickly finished and we get down to crisp deal points, what worked and what didn't, across the history of the firm and players up through this publication date. There is enough overview to get a good feel for the kinds of deal and finance structures and competition that were there, and we get enough color and history about the personalities (meaning not too much). There are subtexts about organization governance, booms and recessions, and recent evolution of capitalism itself, woven seamlessly in and out of the individual stories of the deals. The effects of big recent historical events on this business (dot com bust, 9/11, 2007-2008, etc.) was a pleasing constant as it moved along. And yes, that lurid birthday party did turn out to be material, as it attracted lots of political heat in the run-up to Blackstone's IPO that generated a lot of distraction. The narrator is clear enough and even enough in tempo but moves slowly like some sleepy old guy driving constantly 10 miles below the speed limit. A quick switch to fast speed on my device made it move along nicely. I plan to study more in this area, which is the best endorsement I can give. But if you are looking for entertainment, "business lite," this probably isn't your pick.
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1 person found this helpful
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- NM
- 08-30-18
Too much deal review
Overall a good overview of private equity, specifically the history of Blackstone.
However, this book is a few hours too long due to unnecessary review of deals, buyout values, and other M&A commentary. It feels like it lacks anecdotes of what the people were doing. I get it's necessary to review some deals and buyout values in a book about private equity, but this seemed like overkill and made the book a little dull.
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- Mike Martin
- 05-07-12
Can't make it through
Would you try another book from John E. Morris and David Carey and/or George K. Wilson?
I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to have the reader for this book, but it was an incredibly bad idea. This will an audible first for me, but I've decided to not continue wit this book because I just can't follow the reader. He speaks in an incredibly slow cadence like he's telling some kind of fairy tale. He should not be narrating business books.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Ben
- 10-14-13
Very complete story of Blackstone vs. rest of PE
If you could sum up King of Capital in three words, what would they be?
Inside private equity
What did you like best about this story?
The details about how many of the deals were structured and the thought processes behind them.
What about George K. Wilson’s performance did you like?
Indifferent to Wilson's performance, but I can say that I listened to it on 1.5x and I have no complaints on his style.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes.
Any additional comments?
A great read for anyone who wants to learn more about Schwarzman, Blackstone, and private equity in general.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Louis P.
- 10-05-16
Private Equity 101
This book not only paints a good portrait of the rise of Blackstone as a company but also sheds light on the often misunderstood realm of Private Equity.
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- Marc
- 04-23-13
Great Story Ruined by Monotone Reading
What did you like best about King of Capital? What did you like least?
I think the story of Blackstone and more broadly LBOs and the evolution of finance is a great story and very interesting. The writing itself is crisp but sometimes veers off.
The largest issue I have with this is the narration. While the narrator is talented, I think he is ill equipped for this kind of book. He has a monotone voice that drones along from development to development. I find it so bad that it is difficult to get through the book.
What did you like best about this story?
The subject matter and the perspective.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of George K. Wilson?
Anyone.
Do you think King of Capital needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
No I think it does a fine job of covering the subject thus far.
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5 people found this helpful