What It Takes
Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence
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Narrated by:
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Stephen A. Schwarzman
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Drew Birdseye
About this listen
From Blackstone chairman, CEO, and co-founder Stephen A. Schwarzman, a long-awaited book that uses impactful episodes from Schwarzman's life to show listeners how to build, transform, and lead thriving organizations. Whether you are a student, entrepreneur, philanthropist, executive, or simply someone looking for ways to maximize your potential, the same lessons apply.
People know who Stephen Schwarzman is - at least they think they do. He’s the man who took $400,000 and co-founded Blackstone, the investment firm that manages over $500 billion (as of January 2019). He’s the CEO whose views are sought by heads of state. He’s the billionaire philanthropist who founded Schwarzman Scholars, this century’s version of the Rhodes Scholarship, in China. But behind these achievements is a man who has spent his life learning and reflecting on what it takes to achieve excellence, make an impact, and live a life of consequence.
Folding handkerchiefs in his father’s linen shop, Schwarzman dreamed of a larger life, filled with purpose and adventure. His grades and athleticism got him into Yale. After starting his career in finance with a short stint at a financial firm called DLJ, Schwarzman began working at Lehman Brothers where he ascended to run the mergers and acquisitions practice. He eventually partnered with his mentor and friend Pete Peterson to found Blackstone, vowing to create a new and different kind of financial institution.
Building Blackstone into the leading global financial institution it is today didn’t come easy. Schwarzman focused intensely on culture, hiring great talent, and establishing processes that allow the firm to systematically analyze and evaluate risk. Schwarzman’s simple mantra “don’t lose money” has helped Blackstone become a leading private equity and real estate investor, and manager of alternative assets for institutional investors globally. Both he and the firm are known for the rigor of their investment process, their innovative approach to deal making, the diversification of their business lines, and a conviction to be the best at everything they do.
Schwarzman is also an active philanthropist, having given away more than a billion dollars. In philanthropy, as in business, he is drawn to situations where his capital and energy can be applied to drive transformative solutions and change paradigms, notably in education. He uses the skills learned over a lifetime in finance to design, establish, and support impactful and innovative organizations and initiatives. His gifts have ranged from creating a new College of Computing at MIT for the study of artificial intelligence, to establishing a first-of-its-kind student and performing arts center at Yale, to enabling the renovation of the iconic New York Public Library, to founding the Schwarzman Scholars fellowship program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
©2019 Stephen A. Schwarzman (P)2019 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- By Atkins on 05-17-22
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Finish Big
- How Great Entrepreneurs Exit Their Companies on Top
- By: Bo Burlingham
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When pioneering business journalist and Inc. magazine editor at large Bo Burlingham wrote Small Giants, it became an instant classic for its original take on a common business problem - how to handle the pressure to grow. Now Burlingham is back to tackle an even more common problem - how to exit your company well. Sooner or later, all entrepreneurs leave their businesses and all businesses get sold, given away, or liquidated.
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Begin with the end in mind
- By D. Hartzell on 02-05-15
By: Bo Burlingham
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The Rule
- How I Beat the Odds in the Markets and in Life - and How You Can Too
- By: Larry Hite, Michael Covel - foreword
- Narrated by: Scott Pollak
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Rule, legendary trader and hedge fund pioneer Larry Hite recounts his working-class upbringing in Brooklyn as a dyslexic, partially blind kid who was anything but a model student - and how he went on to found and run Mint Investment Management Company, one of the most profitable and largest quantitative hedge funds in the world.
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Amazing story of how Larry Hite won at life
- By Amazon Customer on 04-07-22
By: Larry Hite, and others
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Hedgehogging
- By: Barton Biggs
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Abridged
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Rare is the opportunity to chat with a legendary figure and hear the unvarnished truth about what really goes on behind the scenes. Step inside the world of Wall Street with Barton Biggs as he discusses investing in general, hedge funds in particular, and how he has learned to find and profit from the best moneymaking opportunities in an eat-what-you-kill, cutthroat investment world.
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HedgeHotDogging
- By Bob on 10-01-06
By: Barton Biggs
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The Education of a Value Investor
- My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom and Enlightenment
- By: Guy Spier
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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What happens when a young Wall Street investment banker spends a small fortune to have lunch with Warren Buffett? He becomes a real value investor. In this fascinating inside story, Guy Spier details his career from Harvard MBA to hedge fund manager. But the path was not so straightforward. Spier reveals his transformation from a Gordon Gekko wannabe, driven by greed, to a sophisticated investor who enjoys success without selling his soul to the highest bidder.
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Malk Williams does a superb job.
- By Guy Spier on 11-30-14
By: Guy Spier
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The Lost Bank
- The Story of Washington Mutual - The Biggest Bank Failure in American History
- By: Kirsten Grind
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in the autumn of 2008, and its controversial sale to JPMorgan Chase, is an astonishing account of how one bank lost itself to greed and mismanagement, and how the entire financial industry - and even the entire country - lost its way as well. Kirsten Grind’s The Lost Bank is a magisterial and gripping account of these events.
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Sad and Angry by Turn
- By Johnnie Walker on 07-24-12
By: Kirsten Grind
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Mastering the VC Game
- A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-Up to IPO on Your Terms
- By: Jeffrey Bussgang
- Narrated by: Ramon De Ocampo
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Finding the right venture capitalist to back your start-up is a challenge. Even if you manage to get backing, you want your VC to be a partner, not some dictator who will undermine your vision and take control of your life's work. Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a very few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. Now he draws on his unique perspective to offer high-level insights, colorful stories, and practical advice. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partnership that works for everyone.
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slow in beginning but gets really good
- By Diana on 04-11-19
By: Jeffrey Bussgang
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King of Capital
- The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone
- By: John E. Morris, David Carey
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Great Story Ruined by Monotone Reading
- By Marc on 04-23-13
By: John E. Morris, and others
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Smart People Should Build Things
- How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America
- By: Andrew Yang
- Narrated by: Tim Paige
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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In Smart People Should Build Things, this self-described "recovering lawyer" and entrepreneur weaves together a compelling narrative of success stories (including his own), offering observations about the flow of talent in the United States and explanations of why current trends are leading to economic distress and cultural decline. He also presents recommendations for both policy makers and job seekers to make entrepreneurship more realistic and achievable.
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Smart doesn’t mean smart.
- By Will on 03-21-20
By: Andrew Yang
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The Greatest Trade Ever
- The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History
- By: Gregory Zuckerman
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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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 Firm
- The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business
- By: Duff McDonald
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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A behind-the-scenes, revelatory history of McKinsey & Company, America's most influential and controversial business consulting firm, told by one of the nation's leading financial journalists. In The Firm, Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts. With unrivaled access to company documents and current and former employees, McDonald reveals the inner workings of what just might be the most influential private organization in America.
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Warning: Non consultants should avoid
- By R. Jaeger on 11-04-13
By: Duff McDonald
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Confidence Men
- Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, New York and Washington, learned how to manufacture it - until August 2007, when that confidence began to crumble. Ron Suskind here tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in "a new era of responsibility".
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Insightful, but...
- By Ray on 10-29-11
By: Ron Suskind
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Not perfect, but worth a listen
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The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything takes the listener behind the scenes of these firms: their famous billionaire founders, the overlapping stories of their creation and evolution, and the outsized ambitions that led a group of clever bankers from small shops operating in a corner of Wall Street into powerhouse titans of capital. This is the story of the money and the men who handle it.
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Detailed if a little dull
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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
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Self-made billionaire Sam Zell consistently sees what others don't. From finding a market for overpriced Playboy magazines among his junior high classmates, to buying real estate on the cheap after a market crash, to investing in often unglamorous industries with long-term value, Zell acts boldly on supply and demand trends to grab the first-mover advantage. And he can find opportunity virtually anywhere - from an arcane piece of legislation to a desert meeting in Abu Dhabi.
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Excellent story, but ....
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Real Estate Titans
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Fresh out of college, Erez Cohen set foot in an investment banking firm. Whether through luck or fortune, he was assigned a position with the real estate group. He was handed a book that soon birthed his love affair with real estate that continues to this day. In Real Estate Titans, Cohen draws on his personal experiences wherein he became a teacher and research assistant to his mentor, Dr. Linneman. During that time, he met, talked, and heard stories from distinguished real estate titans, such as Stephen Ross, Barry Sternlicht, Sam Zell, Steven Roth, et al.
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Not perfect, but worth a listen
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Excellent story, but ....
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The Dealmaker is a frank and honest account of how a severely dyslexic child who struggled at school went on to graduate from Oxford and become a serial entrepreneur. It describes Guy Hand's career in private equity, first at Nomura and then as head of his own company, Terra Firma. It looks in detail at the huge deals that Terra Firma has done over the years, involving everything from cinema chains and pubs to waste management, aircraft leasing and green energy.
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Very Interesting, rather self involved
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Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Competition was more intense than ever, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company’s history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger - think global - and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets.
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Joins “Shoe Dog” as required biographies.
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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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What do the most successful investors have in common? David M. Rubenstein, cofounder of one of the world’s largest investment firms, has spent years interviewing the greatest investors in the world to discover the time-tested principles, hard-earned wisdom, and indispensable tools that guide their practice. Rubenstein, who has spent more than three decades in the hypercompetitive world of private equity, now distills everything he’s learned about the art and craft of investing, from venture capital, real estate, private equity, hedge funds, to crypto, endowments, SPACs, ESG, and more.
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Only get the audio book
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The Hidden Trillion Dollar Industry of Private Equity
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Welcome to the trillion-dollar world of private equity. What started as a $70,000 investment in 1957 has ballooned into one of the largest industries on Earth, and it’s just the beginning…
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I started on my journey.
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Jamie Dimon is Wall Street's biggest player. Following the 11h-hour rescue of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan, his profile has reached stratospheric levels. And while the deals and decisions he's made have usually turned out to be the right ones, his journey to the top of the financial world has been anything but easy. Now, in The House of Dimon, business writer Patricia Crisafulli goes behind the scenes to recount the amazing events that have shaped Dimon's career.
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Intriguing
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Filled with wisdom
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For high-schoolers
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Grinding It Out
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Few entrepreneurs can claim to have radically changed the way we live, and Ray Kroc is one of them. His revolutions in food-service automation, franchising, shared national training, and advertising have earned him a place beside the men and women who have founded not only businesses, but entire empires. But even more interesting than Ray Kroc the business man is Ray Kroc the man. Not your typical self-made tycoon, Kroc was 52 years old when he opened his first franchise.
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great book annoying narration
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What It Takes
- The Way to the White House
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An American Iliad in the guise of contemporary political reportage, What It Takes penetrates the mystery at the heart of all presidential campaigns: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that makes a true candidate? As he recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 presidential race, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer comes up with the answers, in a book that is vast, exhaustively researched, exhilarating, and sometimes appalling in its revelations.
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Great political book
- By Hebern on 09-11-20
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Never Enough
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Once a barista in a small cafe making $6.50 an hour, Andrew Wilkinson built a business valued at over a billion dollars by the time he was 36—and yet, his path to success was anything but a straight line. In Never Enough, Wilkinson pulls back the curtain on the lives of the ultra-rich, sharing insights into building a successful business that has been called a “Berkshire Hathaway, but for internet companies,” and a surprising first-person account of what it's actually like to become a billionaire.
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Paying it forward and backward
- By Robert ONeill on 07-28-24
By: Andrew Wilkinson
What listeners say about What It Takes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- StanCan
- 06-06-20
Blackstone sales pitch but a good read.
I’m not sure if 10% or 90% of the book’s purpose was to help Blackstone and bestow admiration on Schwarzman. But I don’t care. High score because it was very interesting, informative and well written. And, ok, Schwarzman is a superstar in the industry with a lot to impart.
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- Hoover070
- 12-20-20
Was pleasantly surprised
I didn’t have any expectations going into this book, since I’m not usually into autobiography but I must say that I was not only hooked by the story but by the actor and author of the story as well.
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- Las Vegas Realtor - Adrian
- 08-19-21
What an amazing life & dedication to become what you want
I was very surprised by Stephen’s life. I wouldn’t have thought that he built his life and company with the conviction that he did. Definitely hard work and intelligence to build what he did.
If you strive to build your own company or have a vision for an organization there will be lots of failures, rejections and unforeseen events. This book gives you an insight of that and how you keep moving forward if your purpose is strong enough.
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- Anonymous User
- 02-08-20
Relatable, interesting and inspiring
I love this book! I am more inspired to pursue what I want, to always be excellent, integrity and to always be intentional!
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- SONNY
- 01-08-22
great lessons for lofe and success
it has alot of applicable lessons about life as well as business and investing...
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- Vik
- 06-23-20
Fantastic read for any business leaders
Definitely recommend to anyone in business. Steve has a remarkable story and everyone can learn from it.
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- Zed Truong
- 12-28-22
Absolutely Captivating
The best audiobook I’ve ever listened to - Steve is an inspiration to students such as myself and his story allowed me to think bigger and find a bigger purpose that I ever could have without knowing about this book.
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- Anonymous User
- 02-09-23
Reach for the stars
I got through the audiobook in a day and a half. I think Stephen is fascinating. What an incredible work ethic, desire to achieve, and willingness to take on massive hurdles in business. A lot of inspiration and several good nuggets to take away from this book.
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- RealDeal
- 10-05-23
Fabulous true story
Stephen once offered me a job around 1990 for about 70 pct of the salary I was getting at Morgan’s stanley. He told me he’d make me rich. I should have taken the job, not because of getting rich, but for the great ride…
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- imran shahzad
- 05-28-21
Overall an Excellent Listen
Overall an excellent listen. Fascinating achievements by Mr. Schwarzman. Lessons are very valuable in this book and title is appropriate for the contents. Some of the details of his deals are too wordy and boring for a person like me who is not in finance or business and is only getting into the game right now but nevertheless I can see how he cannot make a point without those details. On one hand, this gives me a detail and practical understanding of the (predominately White) privilege and enormous opportunities that rich American have in this society where they all go to prestige universities and know each other in their own close network of finance, business and politics etc. On the other hand, it does create a unique perspective for a minority person and an immigrant like me to make a choice between pursuing my ambitions in this land of enormous opportunities or blame the system for placing wealthy individuals at an unfair advantage and finding excuses for my own shortcomings. Choice is clear and America is a land of opportunity and nothing is beyond anyone's reach in this beautiful country if they are willing to do "what it takes" . Thanks for sharing your knowledge, perspective on life, business and beyond.
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