- Executive Director, Goldman Sachs

Hello everyone.

No newsletter next week as I’m away on holiday in Cornwall. We like St Mawes, Rock and Polzeath for the surf. Eating at The Tresanton, The Idle Rocks, The Mariners and St Enodoc Hotel. For now, enjoy the market wizardry of Paul Singer…

Back bigger than ever in September - let’s go!

This week’s newsletter: Ken Griffin toasted at Leopold’s wedding, Chris Hohn backing Italian luxury, Paul Singer’s legendary Argentina move and why everyone wants ‘social assets’.

The Hedge Fund Manager Who Took On Argentina...And Won

Paul Singer was owed money by Argentina, so he captured one of their warships.

Here’s the unbelievable true story of money, power & reputation…

In 2000, Paul Singer’s hedge fund Elliott Management bought $600 million worth of Argentine bonds for just $100 million.

Soon after, Argentina plunged into an economic depression.

A few years later, the Argentinian President urged bondholders to accept deeply discounted repayment terms, as little as 25-cents on the dollar.

92% of bondholders took the deal.

Paul refused.

He took the fight global, suing Argentina and attempting to seize their assets - from central bank reserves to pension funds - in order to get the debt repaid in full.

It wasn’t working.

So Paul made an audacious move...

When an Argentine naval vessel called ‘The Libertad’ approached a port in Ghana, it was met with an unexpected standoff.

Paul had secured a court order to seize the ship.

His hedge fund was demanding a $20 million payment from Argentina before it was released.

News of the seizure sparked outrage across Argentina.

Their Minister of Economy called it “an affront to national sovereignty”.

The Argentine President said: “They can keep the frigate, but not the dignity of the Argentine Republic!”.

Paul remained silent throughout the ordeal, but just prior to the stand-off had publicly stated:

“Sovereign nations must be held to the same standards as individuals when it comes to repaying debts.”

The ship was eventually released, but the move sent shockwaves through bond markets.

Just over 15 years after his initial $100 million investment in Argentinian sovereign debt, the government finally agreed to settle and paid $2.4 billion to Paul’s firm.

Paul guards his privacy fiercely and gives very few interviews, but a journalist once asked him if these kinds of legal skirmishes were fun...

He stopped, raised his eyebrow, then turned to the journalist:

“Fun? Skiing is fun...this is work!”

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Finance Culture

• Investors went crazy this week buying up ‘social assets’ - AI defensive moves perhaps? Jeff Bezos is buying part of Liverpool FC, Apollo is lending to the NY Yankees and Josh Kushner and Bob Iger are trying to buy the LA Lakers. Oh, and EQT is buying an Aussie Rugby League team in their foray into sports investing.

• Apparently Ken Griffin was personally thanked in the toasts at Leopold Aschenbrenner’s wedding - which took place days after the Situational Awareness founder sold the bulk of his public assets to the Citadel mogul in a fire sale. Somewhere in America, Michael Lewis is writing a book about this.

• Market genius Sir Chris Hohn is making an interesting play into luxury Italian hotels, loaning them cash through a third party private credit vehicle he is on the IC of.

• Ray Dalio bet the entire Bridgewater business and his life savings on one single trade - and lost. I created a 2-min video on Instagram here. The page now has 100,000 views.

• Last year I went on TBPN (before they sold to OpenAI for $100m-200m…) and talked to John and Jordi about meeting Ray Dalio and host of other senior investors. Here for the clip.

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• Paul Singer rarely gives interviews, so check this one out with Nicolai from NBIM. Or here for the original BBC article of the ARA Libertad’s homecoming in 2013.

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Joseph Cass

- Senior Vice President, Citi

Hello everyone.

Tom Keene added me on Linkedin this week, which was quite surreal.

I’ve been trying desperately to buy a specific Brooks Brothers shirt - this one - with no luck. Brooks Brothers UK went into administration in 2020 due to COVID and the apparent lack of interest in suits, so the site redirects to an EU version which doesn’t stock the shirt.

The search goes on…

This week’s newsletter: Ray Dalio in Ibiza, your friendly new AI investment analyst, Jamie Dimon’s smart PR move, GLP-1’s at Bank of America, Ken Moelis’ relationship masterclass and what you need to know about “Y’all Street”.

The Power Of A Personal Network

Ken Moelis quit his prestigious, well-paid job in finance to start his own firm. No one thought it would work, but one unbelievable deal changed everything…

In 2007, Ken Moelis was at the top of his game.

He was driving record profits as President of UBS Investment Bank and was known as Wall Street’s most powerful dealmaker - a ‘master of the universe’.

But he was tired.

Tired of corporate bureaucracy. Tired of being part of the machine…

Determined to build something new, at 48-years old Ken did the unthinkable.

He quit.

Ken left UBS and began plotting the creation of a new firm to provide strategic advice on M&A: ‘Moelis & Company’.

No-one believed it would work.

In fact, his own company were so confident he would fail, during his garden leave Ken was allowed to meet old colleagues to discuss a business plan! He recalled: “UBS were so unconcerned that while I was on gardening leave they let some of my team work up a business plan with me.

Ken had no start-up experience, no office, no employees and the global economy was on the brink of collapse.

The outlook was grim.

However, Ken had a secret weapon – relationships.

Between leaving UBS, Ken wasted no time, building a small team and secured backing from 10 of the largest US institutional investors through his network of relationships built over decades.

Incredibly, just days after Ken’s contract with UBS expired, his brand new company landed its first ever advisory mandate: the enormous $26 Billion sale of Hilton Hotels to the Blackstone Group.

The Hilton-Blackstone deal put Moelis & Company firmly on the map - just days after it was founded. More deals followed, including mandates advising Yahoo and Anheuser-Busch on multi-billion dollar deals.

Today, Moelis & Company is a global investment banking powerhouse, with over 20 offices worldwide and billions in annual revenue.

Ken remembered the skepticism he faced in the early days:

“Do you know how many people told me we were going to go bankrupt?

Eve-ry-one!”

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Finance Culture

• Ray Dalio celebrated his 77th birthday this week by clubbing in Ibiza until 4am in UNVRS. Some smirked at the thought, but I imagine we would all love to be able to ‘do a Dalio’ coming up to our eighth decade on the planet.

• Every summer, Jamie Dimon and a bunch of senior exec’s from JP Morgan jump on a tour bus and visit offices, sites and clients across America. Last year they toured through southern States and this year California was the destination of choice. Most CEO’s already do this sporadically, but it’s a smart idea to brand it the ‘bus tour’, great photo opp’s and also travelling by bus goes against the typical view of finance CEO’s flying private. Jamie know’s his stuff, and he continually shows why he’s in charge.

• Apollo announced that they are choosing Texas as the location of their second global HQ. This isn’t a one off. Texas is steaming ahead of other US states on newly added finance jobs since COVID. In Liars Poker, ‘Equities in Dallas’ is described as Wall Street’s version of Siberia. Imagine trying to explain the below chart to a Salomon Brother’s banker from the 80’s.

  

• Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management are teaming up with Anthropic to create an AI analyst. Both parties insist that the human risk analyst overseeing the AI will have the final call.

• BofA CEO Brian Moynihan said that the firm are spending $250m a year on GLP-1 drugs for their employees. Brian said: “our view is that because of the long-term health benefits, plus there may be more short-term health benefits...it's a good investment.” In the very near future, peptides benefit will be a line item in job adverts.

• I set up an Instagram page two weeks ago and it’s had 80,000 views. Check out the story of Mike Bloomberg’s Nightmare Sales Pitch.

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• I met Ken in a social setting - surprisingly humble and sharp as ever. He even said he’s seen me on Linkedin - though I imagine he was just being polite! Lol.

• Ken rarely gives long interviews outside of markets, but check out the first 20mins of this lecture from 2015 - well worth your time.

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Joseph Cass

- Citi, Senior Vice President

Hello everyone.

Thanatos - the god of death - was said to approach silently, touch your shoulder and cut a small lock of your hair. He was gentle, unhurried, inevitable. You never saw him coming, until his hand grazed your shoulder. Only at that last second - did you know it was your time.

A few days before his wedding, Leopold Aschenbrenner felt the soft, gentle metaphorical hand of the market on his shoulder. It was time to sell. I’ve written a lot about the unbelievable career of Ken Griffin, and have been lucky to speak with him for an hour. What happened with Situational Awareness is the most Ken Griffin thing in the history of Ken Griffin.

This week’s newsletter: Amanda Staveley’s pen and paper secret, John Zito from Apollo gets existential, Ken’s $30Bn private jet trip and the smartest pitch in Goldman’s history.

The Wall Street Pitching Expert

Goldman Sachs had to win the pitch - so Kathy Elsesser came up with a genius idea to get the attention of the most popular CEO in the world…

In 2007, Kathy Elsesser was a senior banker at Goldman Sachs responsible for helping fast growing companies raise money, attract investors and go public.

But, one deal was heaped with pressure.

Athleisure clothing brand lululemon was looking to go public, and their CEO Bob Meers was the most popular man on Wall Street. He took calls every day from bankers desperate to be involved in their upcoming IPO. Presentations, pitches, promises - everyone wanted a piece of the deal.

But, all the offers looked identical.

Kathy had a pitch meeting arranged with Lululemon. The pressure was on, so she proposed something unusual…

Weeks before the meeting, Kathy rounded up a group of Goldman’s senior bankers and suggested they show up to the pitch in full Lululemon activewear. Lycra, vests, yoga gear, leggings, headbands. If it was on the Lululemon website, her team would wear it.

The team agreed - they would go for it.

On the day of the pitch, the entire Goldman team arrived head to toe in Lululemon gear. Including a younger David Solomon - now CEO of Goldman - who tastefully paired a maroon blazer with baggy Lululemon jogging bottoms.

Kathy also had her team write down and share their professional and personal goals in the meeting, mirroring the exact same approach Lululemon staff adopted at their company HQ.

“I wanted to show them that we really respected that,” Kathy said.

Bob and his C-suite team loved the enthusiasm and originality. And despite intense competition, Goldman won the deal. The story became folk lore on Wall Street, and a template for how to connect with clients beyond a slide deck presentation. Conversations on “how can we Lululemon this?” became commonplace.

After over 30 years building client relationships and winning deals, Kathy reflected on what made her successful:

“What’s really important is understanding that it’s less about the actual deal - it’s more about the connection.”

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Finance Culture

• Amanda Staveley - one of the pre-eminent middle eastern financial dealmakers in the world, friend to UAE Sheiks, PIF and a boat load of Geordies - has put together an investor consortium to try and buy a 25.1% stake in West Ham United football club for £150 million. When she brokered a multi-billion pound deal for middle eastern sovereign wealth funds to invest in Barclays in 2008, she had no support staff - taking flights back and forth armed only with a pen, paper and large sheets for hand written models and proposals.

• If you want to get freaked out, check out what John Zito, Co-President at Apollo Asset Management and all round credit wizard, had to say recently about AI’s potential impact on credit markets - and everything else.

• Moving back to Ken, I posted a video on my instagram account about how he chartered a private jet full of Citadel employees to Enron’s HQ in Houston in the middle of their bankruptcy - a move that ended up making him $30 Billion. If you have Instagram, follow me here.

• To finish this weeks edition off, please enjoy AQR founder Cliff Asness’ description of what it’s really like receiving a call from Ken Griffin when you are the verge of being margin called:

  

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• Kathy doesn’t do many interviews, but she was hired to the Board of Lazard last month.

• For more on Amanda, check out this interview filmed recently - but prior to the West Ham bid.

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Joseph Cass

- Blackstone Managing Director

Hello everyone.

It’s time for short on the sides and curly on top, suit trousers that sit against the ankle, brown shoes, pink shirts, thin lapels and AirPods worn when not listening to anything. That’s right - it’s intern season.

I was never an intern as I came in the side door to finance, but one has to respect the hustle of these young people. That is, unless they’re the offspring of a senior MD. Saying that, I once got my godson an internship so who am I to talk. My tip: offer to buy a round of drinks and don’t wear a Hermes tie. Godspeed, youngsters.

This week’s newsletter: Steve Schwarzman’s $400m super yacht, how legendary investor John Rogers Jnr beat Michael Jordan in a 1-on-1, influencers are obsessed with Jon Gray’s Hampton’s general store and Jensen’s great escape.

The Secret NVIDIA Bailout

In 1996, NVIDIA was on the verge of bankruptcy - but one secret meeting with an unlikely CEO saved the company…

In the mid-1990s, Jensen Huang and his co-founders were running out of time.

NVIDIA was a young chip company in Silicon Valley, lagging behind its rivals and burning cash. Its first major product had failed. An early graphics chip called the 'NV1' was incompatible with Microsoft’s DirectX standard.

But there was one last hope…the video console company SEGA.

NVIDIA spent nearly a year trying to build the graphics chip for Sega’s upcoming Dreamcast console.

But they failed…again.

NVIDIA couldn’t deliver what Sega needed in time, and it was highly unlikely they would be paid their $5 million fee. Jensen had to do something extreme to save the company, so he set a clandestine meeting with Sega President Shoichiro Irimajiri.

He told Shoichiro the truth: NVIDIA technology wasn’t good enough. But, straight after his apology, Jensen asked for the final $5 million payment the contract owed - not as a fee, but as an investment.

He framed the investment as a Hail Mary - one last throw of the dice.

NVIDIA was going out of business, if Sega had an equity stake at least there was some chance of an upside.

“The chance of returning the money was close to zero,” Jensen said.

Sega appreciated Jensen’s honesty, and agreed to convert their final $5 million payment into a stake in NVIDIA. Jensen immediately re-assigned every remaining engineer on a single product: a new graphics chip designed the right way.

In 1997, NVIDIA released the RIVA 128 chip. It worked. Sales exploded, and the company survived.

When NVIDIA went public in 1999 at a $300 million valuation, Sega sold its stake and moved on, grateful to exit.

That same stake today would be worth around $1 Trillion.

Reflecting on that time, Jensen said:

“Greatness comes from character, and character isn't formed out of smart people. It is formed out of people who have suffered.”

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Finance Culture

• The best basketball player (and arguably best athlete) of all time - Michael Jordan - used to host a networking, business and sports summer camp for over-35 year olds. At the end of every camp, he would invite any camp member to play him 1-on-1. For seven years straight, camp members tried and dismally failed. Until, in stepped John Rogers Jnr. John founded Ariel Investments at just 24-years-old, and is a noted value investor who boasts Warren Buffett as a friend. However, before all this, John was the star player for the Princeton Tigers. Once the best of three 1-on-1 started, John gave Jordan a few shimmy’s - and beat him. The best part? The WSJ was on site that week filming, and got the whole thing on camera. Check it out below. Listen out for Michael saying ‘oh no!’ when he realises John’s final shot is going in to beat him. Marvellous.

• Steve Schwarzman’s new boat is ready. I say boat, but I actually mean $400 million yacht. It’s now sitting in the port of Gibraltar. For a full breakdown of the new yacht, including a peek inside the niche world of superyachts - check out this guys astute breakdown on YouTube.

• I posted a couple of real life finance stories on my newly minted Instagram account. One of them did OK and was seen by 35,000 people. One person commented that I was ‘lucky’, another person espoused a wild conspiracy theory about Blackstone I’d never heard before. But there were a few normal people on there too. If you have Instagram, follow me here.

• Everything Blackstone President Jon Gray touches seems turns to turn to gold - even the small village shop he and his wife bought during the pandemic. The Sagaponack General Store has become a hub for influencers this summer, and locals haven started kicking off about the noise. Should we really be surprised it’s a hit given it’s in the hands of one the most successful commercial real estate investors ever? This is the guy who flipped EOP for a $26 billion profit before the 2008 crisis. I’m sure he can handle some Tik-Tok dancers.

• To finish, read this awesome story told by Wall Street legend Jim Rogers:

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• For a deep dive into the psyche of Jensen, watch the full fat Joe Rogan 2.5 hour session here.

• If you’ve got 5 minutes, watch Jensen personally thank SEGA for saving his bacon here.

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Joseph Cass

- Blackstone Managing Director

Hello everyone.

It seems like the European financial culture of taking huge chunks of time off in summer is seeping into London. Add a healthy dollop of 35 degree/95F heat with barely any air conditioning, and you could actually be in Europe.

Quite a few new subscribers in the past week. Welcome! Tell your friends. But only, like, if they’re in finance, and cool. Like us.

This week’s newsletter: Private group chats of wildly successful hedge fund CEO’s, Steve Schwarzman’s on how to scare the crap out of yourself, Howard Marks $70m holiday home and Jamie Dimon’s dramatic firing.

The Executive Retreat From Hell

Jamie Dimon was brutally fired by his lifelong mentor on an executive retreat. Here’s the unbelievable true story of ambition, power and betrayal…

Fresh out of Harvard Business School in 1982, Jamie became Executive Assistant to finance legend Sandy Weill at American Express. When Sandy left American Express and acquired Commercial Credit, he invited Jamie to become his new CFO.

The pair were inseparable.

On Sunday mornings, Jamie’s Volvo could be found in Sandy’s driveway as the two brainstormed. Together, they built a financial empire, buying up businesses to create Citigroup - the largest financial services company in the world at the time.

At only 35, Jamie was seen by Wall Street as the heir to Sandy, and the next CEO of Citigroup.

However, this strong relationship was about to collapse - in a very big way.

Tensions emerged over Jamie’s growing influence. The New York Times ran an article in which Citigroup board member Joe Califano said: “Jamie runs the place”. Accompanying the article was a picture of Jamie front and center, with Sandy in the background.

The next day, Sandy barged into a meeting and reportedly yelled: “Who the **** told Joe Califano to say that? And who chose that photo!”.

On top of this, Sandy’s daughter Jessica was hired into a senior role under Jamie’s supervision. Over time, Jamie excluded her from key decisions, citing poor performance. Jessica eventually resigned. Sandy took this as a sign of disrespect, allegedly roaring at Jamie: “You insulted her!”

Everything came to a head during a Citigroup executive retreat.

After 15 years of loyalty, Sandy called Jamie into a private room. Jamie thought it might be to discuss a new promotion. Instead, he was told to resign immediately.

Jamie was stunned: “I was totally surprised…it was a hell of a run, but he fired me”.

Blindsided and humiliated, Jamie faced professional collapse. But instead of retreating, he joined Bank One, quickly turned the company around and set the stage for his spectacular rise as CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Looking back on that time, Sandy confessed he “made a very bad decision.”

Jamie summed up his experience of being fired: “You gotta keep going. Being fired impacted my net worth, not my self-worth.”

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Finance Culture

• You might be planning a summer break to Mallorca. Whilst there, why not check out these two side by side villa’s that Oaktree legend Howard Marks has just put up for sale for a combined $70 million. Howard is obviously in the mood to cash out of his vacation homes, as a few months back he also put his Malibu mansion on the market for $38.5 million.

• A few weeks ago I wrote about Ken Griffin paying for the US Soccer Football coach Mauricio Pochettino aka Poch. Apparently, I’d massively overlooked the influence of Diameter Capital Founder and credit impresario - Scott Goodwin. Bloomberg reported that Scott was in a group chat that included a few ex-US players and Sean Feeney, the ex-Goldman credit trader turned restauranteur. The potential bill to hire Poch: $20 million dollars. When presented with the figure, Scott said: “Wow, that’s more than I expected. Can I have a phone-a-friend?”. The friend was…Ken Griffin. The pair got it done, and Poch became US Head Coach.

• This week I asked a friend who works at Barbour about their ‘Icons’ jacket you see everywhere. They’ve sold out of nearly every style. The biggest buyers: women who work in the City of London. BizStory readership is apparently 98.3% men, so if you want to buy a gift - here is one of the few left (unsponsored link).

• A live streamer you might have heard of and probably hate - iShowSpeed - was in the VIP box for the Spain vs France World Cup game. At one point, Speed was called over for a selfie by none other than Ana Botin - Executive Chairman of Banco Santander, who pitched her worth by claiming Santander are like “The JP Morgan of Europe”. Full clip below.

• When Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson quit their jobs and formed Blackstone in 1987, they took out a full page advert in the New York Times to announce it to the world. I guess the equivalent today is posting a 1-minute splashy video on Linkedin about how your start-up is ‘Uber for (insert sector here)’. Interestingly - after they started Blackstone, Steve and Pete sent out 500 hand written letters to people they knew. Strong relationships they’d built from decades working in finance. No-one replied. Steve said: “if you want to scare the crap out of yourself, send out 500 letters to people you know well - and see what comes back”.

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• Jamie shot an interview with Wilfred Frost (son of David Frost), if you have an hour spare it’s worth your time.

• If you’ve got 7 minutes, watch Jamie recount the crazy Executive Retreat story here.

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Joseph Cass

- Goldman Sachs VP

Hello everyone.

I’ve spent most of this week at my kids end of school year events: Prizegiving Day, Speech Day, drama performances, an end of year party hosted in a billionaire’s back garden. None of which fully prepared me for my youngest’s birthday party at the weekend, which I dressed up as…well, you’ll see below. Also, apologies if you received 2 separate emails last week - bug fixed.

This week’s newsletter: Henry Kravis’ incredible art collection, how to buy a vintage Hermes tie, Jon Gray’s #1 piece of advice and Ken Griffin’s Hawaiian surprise.

The Ken Griffin Story You’ve Never Heard Before

Ken Griffin is the Billionaire Founder & CEO of one of the world’s most successful hedge funds - Citadel.

Here is the little known story of how he reacted when his executive assistant fell gravely ill…

In 2012 Susan Warmerdam - executive assistant to Ken at Citadel – was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.

Despite having never smoked in her life, the condition was described by doctors as “untreatable and incurable”.

The diagnosis was devastating.

Upon hearing the news, Ken offered his private jet for her “to go anywhere in the world for 10 days.”

Susan couldn’t bring herself to take him up on the offer right away, but after two years of successful treatments including surgeries, clinical trials and chemotherapy, she was miraculously given the all clear and declared cancer free.

Upon hearing the news of Susan’s full recovery, and knowing her 50th birthday was nearing, Ken offered the jet to Susan again...

She accepted and took her entire family on vacation to Kauai – “the Garden Island” in Hawaii.

“He was so happy I was going,” Susan said.

The family posed for a picture creating letters that said Mahalo or ‘thank you’ in Hawaiian and sent it to Ken.

It’s not the first time Ken has offered employee’s unique opportunities and perks.

He has been known to rent entire movie theaters for employees and their families, to ship in special frozen milkshakes for the entire office from Wisconsin.

He also sends employees who have recently become parents gifts such as cashmere blankets and reading chairs.

Ken is frequently asked in interviews the secret behind how he has grown Citadel from his college dorm room to global investment giant so quickly, to which he typically replies:

“Our people are our greatest asset”.

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Finance Culture

• Are you a finance man of taste? Well, you’re probably not when compared to Henry Kravis. After making a boat load building KKR in the early 1980’s, Henry reportedly worked very hard to be known as a “man of wealth and taste”. He kept upgrading KKR’s offices to the most plush, prime real estate in NYC and San Francisco, then packed them full of rare oil paintings, ‘oriental’ carpets and $825 cashmere cardigans. At one point, Britain’s Princess Margaret (younger sister of Queen Elizabeth) made a stop off at the KKR office on one of her U.S tours, just to admire their art collection.

• Give yourself 10 seconds to scan the below picture, then scroll down…

  OK - now who is the first person you recognise in the Royal Box. Martin Freeman? Benedict Cumberbatch? Louis Theroux? Virgil Van Dijk? All wrong. The correct answer is Venkat - CEO of Barclays. The aura of James Bond, and the only person delivering a proportionate response to the point. Venkat does not sit in the Royal Box. The Royal Box sits around Venkat.

• Blackstone President Jon Gray gave his annual speech to their summer intern class, with one small change. Usually an internal meeting, this year Blackstone invited a member of the press to join, taking quotes from Jon’s speech and creating a full write up in Business Insider. Usually behind a paywall, the article has been made free to read for everyone. Intriguing. Blackstone is light-years ahead of most finance firms in terms of media, communications - and growth, so it’s noteworthy they are making an internal meeting, external. In the speech, Jon emphasised how important it is to respond quickly: “responsiveness is a habit you can learn”. Anyone who knows Jon can attest that he is incredibly quick at replying. Given his career trajectory and insane achievements, this is probably something we should all copy.

• Vintage Hermes Ties have been all over finance social media this week. There are some beautiful examples. Now that barely anyone wears a tie anymore, why not pick some up on eBay. Most are sub-$100, go with most white/light shirts and importantly - won’t also be worn by Keith from accounting.

• Lastly, I won something! Kind of. Favikon creates an annual Top 200 Business & Finance Reporters on LinkedIn Worldwide. Obviously, they need to make the title catchier, but let’s ignore that as they’ve kindly put me in 7th place. Full list of 200 is here. The only snag is I’m not American, and not a reporter.

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, so let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• If you have 30mins, this Ken interview is great. If you have 2mins, check this out.

• I started an X/Twitter account and an Instagram account and will be posting short videos about finance culture. Give it a follow, if you like.

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Joseph Cass

- Goldman Sachs VP

Good morning, everyone.

Coming to you this week from a ‘heatwave’ in London, that wouldn’t actually be considered a heatwave if we had air con. The Lamb Tavern in Leadenhall Market is a sea of white shirts, blue trousers and summer dresses. Broadgate Circle is similar - just with more brown shoes and pink shirts. It’s still quite cruelly referred to as ‘Back Office Circle’.

This week’s newsletter: Michael Milken’s lawyer speaks out, Sam Altman targeting investment bankers, my meeting at Apollo HQ and the dyslexic window salesman who became President at Goldman Sachs.

From Window Salesman to Goldman Sachs President

Gary Cohn - a dyslexic window salesman, was told he should be happy “if he becomes a garbage man”. Here’s the story of how one taxi journey propelled him to President of Goldman Sachs...

Growing up in Cleveland, Gary was told by a teacher he’d be lucky to “become a garbage man” due to his severe dyslexia.

After college, he became a salesman selling window frames.

One Friday, Gary took the afternoon off to observe a trading floor in the World Trade Center, hoping to break into the industry.

After watching for hours, a chance elevator encounter changed his life:

Trader: (talking to a colleague)“I gotta run, I’m going to the airport.”

Gary: “I just overhead that you are going to the airport, is it LaGuardia? Can I share a taxi with you?”

Trader: “Sure, by all means.”

Gary recalled: “I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. But here’s my shot - I’ve got 45 minutes in traffic to convince this guy that I’m hireable and need a job.”

By the end of the ride, the trader asked Gary to come back Monday for an interview on their options desk.

The problem?

Gary knew nothing about options.

That evening, Gary bought ‘Options as a Strategic Investment’ - a 1,000 page bible of options trading. Despite his dyslexia, he read it four times over that weekend. The following week, Gary interviewed and got the job.

After a few years trading commodities, Gary joined Goldman Sachs in 1990, becoming President in 2006. He’s now Vice Chairman at technology powerhouse IBM.

Gary summed up his journey nicely:

“The one trait a lot of dyslexic people have is our ability to deal with failure is very highly developed. And so we look at most situations and see much more of the upside than the downside.”

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Finance Culture

• A few weeks ago I created a short video on Torsten Slok, Chief Economist at Apollo. It only received 1,000 views but one of those views was Torsten himself. He invited me to visit him at Apollo HQ in New York. I bought a few caps and a World Cup football from the FIFA store in the Rockafeller, and we got this photo! He took me to Apollo’s ‘Contrarian Cafe’ for a drink, we spoke about finance, media and how the Linkedin algorithm works. Super smart guy, full of ideas. Sign up to his daily email here.

• OpenAI is hiring for a “subject matter expert” for investment banking to “help define what excellent AI-assisted banking work looks like and turn that standard into better models and products”. The role is based in San Fran and you only need 2+ years of IB experience. The pay: $185k-$250k + equity. Cue a new IB AI-replacement platform in 2027 called “Gekko” or “Bateman”.

• Alts manager Bramshill Investments fired a member of staff for not abiding to their RTO policy. The problem? The person they fired was William Nieporte: Co-Founder and Partner of the firm, which he formed alongside two high school friends. The same two friends sent him a termination letter for failing to report for in person work. He is now suing various parties for more than $30m. I’ve seen RTO being used to snuff out bad actors, but this is next level.

• Mohamed El-Erian - Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, ex-CEO at PIMCO and all round good guy in finance - was crushed after his native Egypt were knocked out of the World Cup by Argentina in the most brutal way possible.

• Mike Milken’s lawyer from the 1980’s, Richard Sandler, has given a sit down interview with American VC/Podcaster Joe Lonsdale.

• Someone on eBay is selling what looks like a genuine ‘Mike Milken We Believe In You’ cap.

• David Tepper’s hedge fund Appaloosa Management gained 32% in H1, mainly funded by huge bets on AI memory chip stocks. If you don’t know David, he was a Goldman, got frustrated after continually being passed over for promotion, set up his own hedge fund, made billions, bought his old bosses house, knocked it down and rebuilt an enormous new mansion on the same plot.

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, so let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• Gary doesn’t do many long-form interviews, but here’s a good, recent-ish interview where he discusses his career and overcoming bumps in the road.

• I started an X/Twitter account and an Instagram account and will be posting short videos about finance culture. Give it a follow, if you like.

If this week’s edition was interesting, forward on to one person who might also like it.

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Joseph Cass

- Goldman Sachs VP

Good morning, everyone.

Whilst in New York last week, I met with finance CEO’s, had lunch with bankers and dinner with PR firms.

I got the burger at Tavern On The Green, and the club sandwich at The Plaza’s Champagne Bar, making frequent stops in grimy sports bars to catch World Cup games, before risking my life at the Jelly Cat Diner in FAO Schwarz.

It’s funny. The Financial District is becoming increasingly quiet as an area. Wall Street is sparsely populated now, even mid-week, with a ton of large banks, hedge funds and asset managers upping sticks to Midtown. Such an iconic area, with The Charging Bull, The NYSE, loads of cool spots - but just doesn’t seem in favour at the moment.

A friend from school who works in the City managed to somehow get tickets to the England vs Panama game at the MetLife. He said we could go, but only on the condition that we dressed as Knights of The Roundtable…

This week’s newsletter: Jamie Dimon doing Jamie Dimon things, Mike Bloomberg at the World Cup, CNBC turns into The Soprano’s, and is a CFA really worth it?

Jamie Dimon’s Guide To Killing Bureaucracy

Jamie Dimon thought JP Morgan was running flawlessly - but one frantic phone call from his wife exposed a secret…

In the mid-2000s, Jamie was at the top of his game.

Newly installed as the CEO of JP Morgan after their merger with Bank One, respected across Wall Street, and building one of the strongest banks in the world.

Dashboards were green, and reports were clean.

But one afternoon, he received a call that changed everything…

Jamie's wife Judith had gone to Walgreens, and wanted to take some cash out of an ATM.

But - the ATM was faulty.

Judith called Jamie and told him about the error.

Jamie passed the complaint to the correct team internally. A staff member called him back immediately and said: “Don’t’ worry - it’s working.”

Problem solved.

But then Judith called again: “Jamie…it’s still not working.”

Jamie called back the executive, and they again replied: “No, no, please don't worry – it’s working fine.”

Jamie told the executive:

“Can you do me a favour? Get in your car and drive out there!”

The exec immediately drove to the exact ATM to check it out. When he arrived, he saw instantly that it was broken. The screen was squiggly, the system or screen was faulty. You couldn’t use the machine or any of its services, and you couldn’t take any cash out.

Jamie asked the team to investigate what happened.

It turned out JP Morgan were outsourcing ATM tracking to an outside vendor, who were making frequent errors that no-one was checking. When Jamie found out, he was furious: “Fire the vendor. And I want to be paid back for the last six months!”

JP Morgan now efficiently tracks ATM’s with their own internal system.

Jamie summed up his approach to leading from the front:

“You gotta kill bureaucracy. Get out there and see things for yourself - you can’t run a business sitting behind a screen”.

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Finance Culture

• 30% more people took the CFA Level 1 exam this year versus last year, the pass rate has dropped to 39%. This might sound controversial, but is the CFA certification still a valuable asset in 2026? If you have zero finance knowledge then yes, but if we agree that AI is going to commoditize knowledge to some extent, then what is the point of spending 3-4 years and thousands of hours on that very knowledge. Unlike an MBA, there doesn’t seem to be a built-in network. My bias here is that I don’t have a CFA. Am I wrong here?

• JP Morgan’s new office on Park Avenue is epic. It’s enormous, and looks like something from Sim City 2000. They have a 55-seater British Pub on the 13th floor for employees only, called “Morgan’s”. When it first opened, pints of Guinness used to include an imprint of Jamie Dimon’s face on the foamy top. Jamie caught wind of this and apparently told them to stop it immediately. If i ever get an invitation to Morgan’s, you’ll be the first to know.

• Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham went on CNBC last week to talk about his fund, but instead found himself on the end of a scolding from co-host Joe Kernan. Joe layed into Jeremy about his bear-ish views over the past decades, Jeremy layed into Joe about Bitcoin. It all ended in an ugly mêlée, when Joe said that his co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin was the person who wanted Jeremy on the show, not him, and the interview was just a promotion for Sorkin’s new 1929 book. Pretty intense, but it made me stop what I’m doing and watch the entire thing. See for yourself below.

• Finance World Cup: Mike Bloomberg saw France Vs Sweden at the Metlife New York/New Jersey stadium, and SkyBridge Capital Founder and long-time Bitcoin bull, Anthony Scaramucci, saw England vs Panama. I know that the World Cup is being shown in a bunch of finance offices in midtown, on trading floors across New York. I’m less sure if anyone on the floor is actually paying attention…

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, so let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• Check out this internal JP Morgan management seminar Jamie gave that they published on YouTube. So many great stories and lessons.

• I now have an X/Twitter account and an Instagram account. Hardly any followers yet, but I did notice one or two Bloomberg reporters have started to follow…

Why Is Wall Street “Going Direct”?

• Silicon Valley hotshots have adopted a new way of getting themselves out there. And Wall Street CEO’s are just starting to catch-on. Here’s what is really happening…

If this week’s edition was interesting, forward on to one person who might also like it.

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Joseph Cass

- Goldman Sachs VP

Good morning, everyone.

I’m in New York this week. The World Cup buzz is huge - much bigger than I’d expected. Everywhere you look there’s a TV screen with the football on. I was in a bar last night off Wall Street where a cluster of 20-something Croatian’s were drinking and singing with a 77-year-old Panama fan.

I spoke to Paul McNamara, one of the head honcho’s at ITV (British TV network). Paul has set up an incredible outdoor studio for their World Cup footage in Brooklyn, which I wanted to see in person. In the most British excuse known to man, he told me their Health & Safety had banned any future visits.

I’m going to Keen’s Steakhouse tonight. Send any NYC bar or restaurant recommendations my way!

This week’s newsletter: The new black trainer trend, John Paulson gets his AMEX reward points back, Warren Buffets favourite story and Lloyd Blankfein day trading from his iPad.

The Investors Route To Heaven...or Hell

When faced with questions on valuation, Warren Buffett tells a story passed down by his mentor Benjamin Graham...

It’s the story of an oil prospector who dies, and meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

When told his occupation, St. Peter said: “Oh, I’m really sorry...”

“You seem to meet all the tests to get into heaven. But we’ve got a problem...”

“See that pen over there? That’s where we keep the oil prospectors waiting to get into heaven. And it’s packed - we haven’t got room for even one more.”

The oil prospector thought for a minute.

Then he said: “Would you mind if I just said four words to those folks?”

“I can’t see any harm in that”, said St. Peter.

So the oil prospector cupped his hands, took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his lungs:

“OIL DISCOVERED IN HELL!”

Immediately, the oil prospectors broke the lock off the door and stampeded out, on a mission to reach hell as fast a possible.

“You know, that’s a pretty good trick”, St. Peter said.

“Come on in! The place is yours - you’ve got plenty of room in heaven now.”

The oil prospector paused...

He scratched his head, then said:

“No. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go along with the rest of ’em. There may be some truth to that rumour after all!”

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Finance Culture

• Big controversy on investing Twitter this week as a shipping exec called working from home “white collar fraud”. Near unanimous sentiment from all quarters that this is nonsense. I really like Ryan, but strongly disagree with his take. Watch his clip below and see what you think:

• Ex-Goldman Sachs CEO and all round banking superman Lloyd Blankfein was asked about his personal portfolio as a retired man. He’s heavily invested in “risky assets”, 95% of his personal book is in equities, with the vast majority in single stocks. He trades every day, usually from his iPad.

• Hedge Fund billionaire John Paulson won a case against his old business partner, who now has to pay him $48 million. As part of the fee, Paulson was also paid back “$112,936 connected to American Express rewards points that the arbitrator found were improperly retained.”

• Ex-UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was wearing this pair of On Cloud trainers on stage with Goldman Sachs International Co-CEO Anthony Grutman this week. As a trend, I’ve noticed that dress shoes seem to be on the way out. The majority of senior finance figures now opt for comfortable black running trainers with a suit, no tie. We’re not talking fancy $1200 Loro Piana trainers. I mean actual running trainers - black ASICS, black AllBirds, black Saucony’s. On stage, in the office, everywhere. It’s like there’s now a positive correlation between seniority and black running trainers.

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, so let me know what you think.

Recommendation

• Check out this recent interview with Warren, 94-years-old but as sharp as ever. I found the exact 1985 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter where Warren re-tells the oil prospector story.

• I have started an X/Twitter account, with 25 followers, and have no idea what I’m doing. Follow me here.

The King of Charts

• Torsten Slok at Apollo was given one of the most valuable things you can get in finance this week - and he got it for free. Here’s what happened…

2,000+ smart finance executives subscribe to BizStory - from Wall Street CEO’s to London Hedge Fund Managers to Japanese bankers. If you know someone smart who would enjoy it, forward it on.

But be selective.

Joseph Cass

- Goldman Sachs VP

Good morning, everyone.

I’m writing this from Soho Farmhouse. After 5 years living the the Cotswolds I finally bowed down and bought a Schoffel. Tons of Cityboys in London are wearing the new Barbour pastel Icon jacket now. They’ve sold out of nearly every colour and size, with some on eBay for a 100% mark-up.

Heading to New York next week.

This week’s newsletter: Private school worries at Apollo, Ken Griffin’s $6m World Cup gamble, Michael Bloomberg’s meeting from hell and Paul Tudor Jones at the Knicks.

The Humiliation of Michael Bloomberg

Mike Bloomberg was humiliated - but before he could apologize, his colleague pulled off one of the greatest moves ever in a sales meeting…

In the early 1980s, Michael Bloomberg was starting over.

After being fired from Salomon Brothers, he took his severance and bet everything on a complex new machine he had invented: a real time information system for financial markets.

For years, the company worked in near obscurity, doing nothing but building and rebuilding the product - slowly eating into Michael’s life savings.

Finally, the machine was ready.

If early pitch meetings failed, the company would be finished before it even started. But, one meeting almost derailed everything…

An early Bloomberg employee, Glen Wolyner, was scheduled to pitch the machine to the head of a major global bank. It was a rare, high-stakes meeting that had taken months to secure.

In those days, the Bloomberg machine was a collection of large, heavy boxes that needed to be carried in, lifted into place and wired together correctly. For the demo to work, you needed a cathode ray tube, a computer, a keyboard and of course - a power supply. The senior bankers watched in silence as Glenn wired everything together. Then, Glenn stopped suddenly. He turned to Michael and said:

“Darn it - I forgot the power cord!”

Michael froze.

After years of work, they were about to lose the room - and possibly the company - because of a missing cable. Michael was fuming and started panicking, “I wanted to take a swing at him!” he later admitted.

But Glenn was relaxed.

Glenn opened his briefcase and pulled out printed copies of every single screen the Bloomberg system could produce. Page by page, he explained what it did, why it mattered and how the bank could actually use it. The room calmed, the bank executives started laughing at the forgotten power cord, and went on to order some Bloomberg terminals on the spot to try out.

Michael never forgot Glenn’s composure under pressure:

“In business, I learned that you need to hire people smarter than you – then get out of their way!”

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Finance Culture

• Apollo has picked it’s new second HQ outside of New York…and the location seems to be driven by private schooling. The NYP reported that Marc Rowan and team have opted for Austin, Texas over Miami, mainly due to the scarcity of private schools in the latter. Younger Gen Z staff allegedly wanted Miami, but senior partners with families overruled their request due to a fear of not getting into elite institutions like Ransom Everglades. There is the infamous story of the large, well known investor who wanted to relocate…juniors spent 12 months with consultants on appropriate sites, budget, facilities, fire exits, toilets, private offices - everything. They presented it to the partners. Within seconds, one of the partners said none of the options worked for his commute and they needed to look at locations within a few hundred metres their existing office. Back to the drawing board!

• AI ALERT: A private banker at UBS announced he was leaving by uploading an AI video of himself on Linkedin ‘half jumping’ over their entry gates. Kind of unusual, but also funny. The post is already the most engaged thing he’s posted in the past 9 years.

• Ken Griffin has bought up hundreds of condo units opposite his enormous, not yet finished, new Citadel HQ in Miami. The plan isn’t to house employees though. Ken has been slowly buying all the apartments in the block - in cash - and will probably look to knock the entire building down and incorporate it into the new Citadel mega site. New York hasn’t exactly been welcoming to Ken recently.

• Sticking with the Citadel founder, and in honour of the World Cup kicking off, you may not know that when the US football/soccer team needed to hire a new coach, their budget didn’t stretch to no1 choice - Premier League manager Mauricio Pochettino aka Poch. So Ken went ahead an contributed a “significant” amount to Poch’s ongoing $6m a year salary. Diameter Capital Founder & CEO Scott Goodwin also chipped in. Patriots.

• On the SpaceX IPO, Elon agreed to a Greenshoe provision (15% increase in IPO allocation to underwriters if demand is strong) only if they created and wore custom green shoes to mark the occasion. Goldman and Morgan Stanley obliged.

  

  

• Great that the camera operator at the Knicks game thought to give some airtime to Paul Tudor Jones. Long overdue.

  

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, so let me know what you think. I’m not interested in doxxing anyone. Unless they slag off West Ham.

Recommendation

• Nicolai from NBIM interviewed Mike Bloomberg about 6 months ago and it’s excellent. Click here to watch it, if you have a spare 30 mins.

The Banker Botox Trend

• Someone you work with is getting botox on their lunch break. I explain what exactly is going on, and where this trend will take us…

2,000+ smart finance executives subscribe to BizStory - from Wall Street CEO’s to London Hedge Fund Managers to Japanese bankers. If you know someone smart who would enjoy it, forward it on.

But be selective.

Joseph Cass

- Blackstone Managing Director

Good morning, everyone.

I’m writing this sat in the cafe of Daylesford. The crowd is a mix of patriarchs paying, and influencers hoping not to pay. There are groups of New Yorkers downing £5.50 ‘immunity’ shots, out-of-town Londoners talking about how Annabels is now awful and middle-eastern families with more hired help than parents.

This week’s newsletter: Ken Griffin cold calling college professors, the banker botox trend, Goldman’s secret IPO sauce and Steve Schwarzman’s new $400m super yacht.

The Origin Story of Ken Griffin

At 17, Ken Griffin had built a real company - but there was one problem that could destroy it instantly if customers discovered the truth…

Back in 1985, Ken Griffin was President of the Math Club at Boca Raton Community High School. In his spare time between playing soccer and the Atari, he and some friends used to meet up to create computer programs on the school’s IBM PC.

Computing came easily to Ken.

Business didn’t.

He became obsessed with one question: how could this skill become a business?

So, during his senior year he founded “EDCOM” - a software company.

Working with his high school guidance counsellor, Ken created educational programs from scratch, and miraculously managed to get them verified by the United States National Education Association, meaning professors across America could legally use them in classrooms.

Suddenly, he had a real product. But - there was a big problem…

Ken was only 17, and he had no idea how to sell.

A high school kid who created computer programs for fun had to somehow convince tenured college professors that he was a mature, credible, businessman with a legitimate product.

To overcome this, Ken threw himself into sales.

Ken would cold call professors relentlessly, pitch them his discount software and try to get a sale. After countless rejections, it became a crash-course in selling - transforming him from computer expert to closer. All while being careful to avoid revealing his age. Ken joked: “Do you think anyone would trust their entire product line to a 17-year-old kid?!”

The EDCOM business grew, and he carried it over to his freshman year at Harvard right up until the point where his interest shifted to trading and markets. And the $50 billion dollar Citadel empire followed soon after.

But Ken never forgot this initiation in sales, and regularly repeats his mantra to Citadel staff across the world:

“If we're all going to eat, someone has to sell.”

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Finance Culture

• The trend of finance exec’s getting lunchtime ‘tweakments’ like botox is now so big the FT is writing about it. I was surprised to read that men account for around 40% of clientele. The FT blames the trend on a slow jobs market and a fear of ‘looking too old’ for your role. This is partly true, but not the full picture. If we assume that AI will scoop up a meaningful percentage of back office white collar roles, combined with the accessibility of tweakments, then how you look will - whether we like it or not - probably become significantly more important. I know for a fact that this hunger games of looksmaxxing (ask your intern…) has already begun in some major finance firms.

• Steve Schwarzman has a bought a new super yacht, reportedly costing $400m. To date, it’s unnamed (“Project 1014”), which is traditionally bad luck. Some potential names: ‘Too Big To Sail’ or ‘Blackfoam’, but he’ll probably go down the obvious route and name it after his wife.

• Ultra secretive hedge fund DE Shaw (Jeff Bezos ex-employer) have created a new equity fund exclusively for employees. The catch? There’s a 45% performance fee, and a 4.5% management fee. Citadel insist that staff invest 50% of their bonus above a pre-set threshold into the firms flagship Wellington fund, but charge a measly 20% performance fee. Ken is known within the industry as being incredibly generous, and crazy with it. One afternoon he had thousands of specialty high end milkshakes delivered to his employees…from 200 miles away.

• The SpaceX IPO is pinging around group chats this week. What you might not know, is that banks are redecorating their entire lobbies to make a good first impression. It’s been too long since we’ve had genuinely interesting competition for IPOs. Goldman has historically been the master of this dark art. For Lululemon’s IPO in 2007, a senior GS banker had the entire team (including David Solomon) join the pitch in sweat pants and head bands. I wrote about it here. Surprise, surprise - they won the deal.

• Last week I asked you why you attend big finance conferences, results below. Are you at Super Return this week? Was it Super? Did it bring you Returns? Reply to this email with one word that summed the conference up.

All replies to this newsletter are confidential, so let me know what you think. I’m not interested in doxxing anyone. Unless they slag off West Ham.

Recommendation

• Interesting recent interview with Ken Griffin here, where he spoke with NBIM at their annual conference. Aside from an insane ability to make money, Ken is an easy watch because of how direct he is.

The Investors Hiring Reporters Trend

• Big finance firms like Blackstone and Apollo are suddenly rushing to hire news reporters. And I think I know why…

2,000+ smart finance executives subscribe to BizStory - from Wall Street CEO’s to London Hedge Fund Managers to Japanese bankers. If you know someone smart who would enjoy it, forward it on.

But be selective.

Joseph Cass

- Blackstone Managing Director

Good morning, everyone.

I’ve moved BizStory to Substack! It should be a lot better in terms of readability and format. If you have any issues, let me know.

I went to The Bell in Charlbury this week, and am reading The Predator’s Ball - the gung-ho era of Mike Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert. I’ve met a bunch of people who worked at Drexel, some of the stories are…insane.

This week’s newsletter includes: Larry nearly quitting BlackRock, cold emailing Bill Ackman, Blackstone hiring reporters and what you really think of conference season.

The Deal That Nearly Ended BlackRock

Larry Fink was invincible – but instead of playing it safe, he gambled everything on one deal that nearly destroyed BlackRock and ended his career…

In the early 2000s, Larry Fink was unstoppable.

BlackRock was growing fast, admired on Wall Street, and run with precision.

With a couple thousand people, Larry still knew most employees by name. But, he was about to take the biggest gamble of his career…

Merrill Lynch Investment Management came up for sale – one of the largest asset managers in the world. Winning it would catapult BlackRock into the big leagues.

Larry went all in - and got it.

But once the ink dried, the celebrations stopped cold.

Almost overnight, Blackrock’s headcount exploded from 2,000 to 16,000 people across the globe. Different cultures. Different systems. Different playbooks. The kind of complexity that crushed firms far bigger than BlackRock. For the first time since founding the company, Larry felt something unfamiliar:

Fear.

He couldn’t walk the halls of 30 offices simultaneously. He couldn’t check in with 16,000 people about their work, their families, their ambitions. It was overwhelming. He admitted: “my management behaviours had to change, or I couldn’t be CEO anymore…it was the most difficult time in the firm’s existence.”

Larry was desperate. But then - a turning point.

He recalled visiting the HQ of a well-known company. In its grand lobby, carved in marble, were their ‘10 Principles’. He read them top to bottom - and immediately realised the company didn’t live a single one.

In that moment, he realised something vital. He couldn’t be everywhere at once, so if BlackRock was going to survive, management had to lead by example. Larry became obsessed with leadership setting the right example. Do as I do. Act as I act. "That is the secret sauce of BlackRock" he said.

BlackRock survived the chaos, absorbed further acquisitions, and became one of the most successful firms in financial history.

Reflecting on the lesson that saved the company, Larry said:

“Principles shouldn’t be etched in marble – they should be lived.”

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Finance Culture

• JP Morgan fired one of their exec’s after he expensed a $642 deli platter for a SuperBowl party at his house. The exec said it was a pre-approved party that included clients, and the court agreed. JPM have been ordered to pay the exec $4.25million. Ouch. Feels like there is a pre-emptive tightening of expenses going on. Email me with any examples and I’ll share anonymously next week.

• British quant hedge fund manager Suneil Setiya was revealed as the buyer of the “most expensive home in the world” for £270 million. The London home is close to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, and was previously owned by property guru Nick Candy who bought it for £69 million. Snoop on the pictures here.

• File under ‘trend no-one is talking about but should be’: big investors hiring reporters and presenters. In March, Blackstone hired ex-CNBC anchor Courtney Reagan to translate “complex market themes into clear takeaways for business and financial audiences”. Apollo is hiring for an Editorial Director to “run a live editorial operation”. Hiring for presenting skills is one thing, but hiring for social media distribution is the natural next step. Silicon Valley has already started doing this with ‘creator-investors’.

• In addition to seemingly having his own personal Star Trek transporter given his Linkedin travel pics, Apollo’s enigmatic Torsten Slok claimed this week that there is “Zero evidence of AI-related job losses”.

• A freshman from the University of Oregon created an X post on his 19th birthday begging Bill Ackman to work for him. It worked. Bill saw the post, and replied. Cold outreach in finance is enormously underrated. When I finished university, I cold emailed 200 people to get a job as an equity broker. Ain’t no shame in the cold outreach game.

  

• A bunch of finance conferences coming up that you may be thinking about - SuperReturn, FII Europe, Global ABS, FT Bond Summit. Why do you attend these? Vote below and I’ll share results next week.

Want to share something anonymously that the BizStory community would find interesting? Respond to this email.

Recommendations

• Larry gave a little heard 30min interview with the BBC earlier this year that is worth a listen.

• Check out my video below on the story of Paul Singers investment into Argentina in 2001, leading to one of the craziest scenario’s in financial history.

Paul Singer Annexed An Argentinian Warship

Paul Singer lent Argentina money, but the country immediately collapsed. So he took one of their warships hostage to get his money back…

2,000+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass

Good morning, everyone.

I met Matthew McFadyen last week in London. At the end of our convo, like the utter fanboy I am, I asked for a selfie: “Sorry - no, I don’t do them, but thank you very much for asking.” Gutted. I felt like the real life Cousin Greg.

This week’s newsletter includes: Mohamed El-Erian’s family dilemma, David Solomon’s AI prediction & the preferred football team of Blackrock Portfolio Manager’s.

Why PIMCO’s CEO Walked Away

In 2014, Mohamed El-Erian quit one of the most prestigious, well paid jobs in global finance as CEO of PIMCO...

At only 56, Mohamed was still a young buck, especially considering his seniority and status in the global finance community.

With a salary that reportedly breached $100 million a year, a loving family and a enormous mansion in Laguna Beach - people looked at Mohamed as someone who had it all.

But, all was not as it seemed.

In 2013, Mohamed’s daughter presented him with a hand written list that illustrated how he had missed 22 separate school events, including soccer games and parents evening.

Not 22 events he missed during her life, 22 events he had missed that year.

As part of the discussion, his daughter included her Year Book, which featured a photo of a class exhibition where Mohamed was visible in the background…writing emails on his Blackberry.
​
His daughter said: “Dad, even when you’re there, you’re not actually there”.

Mohamed was stunned.
​
The next morning Mohamed approached Bill Gross, Founder of PIMCO and legendary bond investor:

“Bill, in the next 12 months I’m going to step down. It’s up to you if that’s tomorrow or a years’ time, but I have to step down.”
​
After Mohamed shared the story of his daughter’s list with Bill, Bill replied:

“That’s bulls**t. You’re going to go and work for a competitor aren’t you?”
​
Mohamed: “I’m a New York Mets supporter, I’m a New York Jet’s supporter. Loyalty is something I believe in. Otherwise I would have found better teams, believe me!”
​
Bill: “Then you’re ill. Have you got cancer?”
​
Mohamed: “No”
​
Bill: “Mohamed, no one walks away from money.”
​
Mohamed: “Bill, I don’t know my daughter...”
​
Mohamed left PIMCO in March 2014 and pursued a portfolio career of part-time positions. This allowed him more power over his schedule, and more time with his family.

Reflecting on that moment years later, he said: “When I look at my relationship with my daughter today - even though it came at some cost - I really think I made the right decision.”

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Finance Culture

• Like a finance version of Forrest Gump - Jon Gray at Blackstone just keeps on running. I see him on my insta, my Linkedin - everywhere. He’s running by himself, he’s running with key note speakers and now he’s running with clients. Some may cringe, but you can bet the amount of new business and opportunities his running content brings through the door is unbelievable.

• Goldman CEO David Soloman aka DJ D-Sol published an OpEd in the NY Times this week about how AI isn’t actually going to create a job apocalypse. Essentially, his argument is that 25% of grunt work will be outsourced to AI, leaving analysts and associates with more time for client meetings. Goldman seem to be doubling down on relationship based roles. As does everyone else.

• You already know SpaceX is going public. What you might not know is that one of the earliest investors was the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, who first invested $200m in the late 2010’s. That $200m is now worth…$4 Billion. Plaudits to Tom Slater & the team.

• Former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is selling his family home - an Upper East Side Townhouse. Yours, for $35 million.

• Janan at the FT says Arsenal is the preferred club of Blackrock Portfolio Managers. From personal experience, this might actually be true. Everyone at Blackrock seems to support Arsenal. In the C-suite of finance, Manny Roman (PIMCO CEO), Blair Jacobson (Ares Co-President) and Aliko Dangote are all fans, Aliko talked about how he tried to buy the club in this interview. As a life-long West Ham fan, let’s not talk about football for a while…

Want me to write about something from finance in particular? Just hit reply. I read every message.

Recommendation’s

• Check out my new video below on the story of Paul Singers investment into Argentina in 2001, leading to one of the craziest scenario’s in financial history.

• Awesome long-form interview with Mohamed El-Erian where he recounts the above story and many more. ​

Paul Singer Annexed An Argentinian Warship

Paul Singer lent Argentina money, but the country immediately collapsed. So he took one of their warships hostage to get his money back…

Joseph Cass

This week’s newsletter includes: the little known true story of how Blackrock was founded.

How To Build A ‘Failure Framework’

In 1989 BlackRock was a failing disaster, but Larry Fink had a secret weapon. What followed was the most important client pitch in financial history…

Almost a year had passed since a 36-year-old Larry Fink and his co-founders launched new asset manager BlackRock, but they still hadn’t raised any money to manage.

No one trusted their unproven startup.

BlackRock were frequently rejected for being too small, too new and too young. Larry said:

“In the beginning we were laughed out of a lot of rooms”.

But an opportunity came in the form of a pitch to manage General Electric’s pension fund assets.

It wasn’t just any old client – GE was a whale, and landing them would put BlackRock on the map.

For nearly a year the BlackRock team pitched GE, refined, and pitched them again. No matter how hard they tried, GE kept rejecting them.

There was a huge problem to overcome...

GE did not trust BlackRock’s ability to handle risk.

On the brink of failure, Larry stopped trying to ‘sell’ BlackRock’s capabilities and used a secret weapon – personal failure.

Larry set up a meeting with GE’s executive team and explained how three years earlier he lost $100Million on a single trade whilst at First Boston. The trade almost ruined him personally and professionally, teaching him the importance of proactive risk management.

He assured GE’s team that he would never position any investment in such a vulnerable way again.

The story instantly resonated with GE’s exec’s and - one year after the initial pitch – they finally agreed to give BlackRock a slice of their assets to manage. BlackRock had its first major institutional client, and with it, the credibility to attract more.

Larry summarized the incredible impact of that pitch:

“The day we signed GE’s pension fund was the day that really launched BlackRock.”

Recommendation’s

• For more stories from Larry about founding BlackRock, check out this interview from 4 months ago. Some interesting Q&A at the end too.

• When I originally found the above picture of Larry and Ralph, I ran a Google Lens search on the cap they’re wearing. I found the cap online and it somehow landed me a meeting with Steve Schwarzman at his private office in New York. Here is the fully story.

500+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass

This week’s newsletter includes: a rare L for the godfather of investing.

Understanding The True Cost

Warren Buffett built an investing empire – but one deal humbled him, destroyed a company and cost $17 billion in lost wealth…

By the early 1990s, Warren Buffett looked unstoppable.

For nearly 30 years he had been beating markets. And with Charlie Munger by his side, Berkshire Hathaway had been transformed from a dying textile mill into one of the most powerful investment machines in history.

In 1993, Warren made what seemed like another masterstroke:

He bought Dexter Shoe.

Dexter was a company admired by investors the world over due to its strong margins and loyal customers. Warren genuinely believed it had “durable competitive advantage”.

But then, a devastating mistake…

Warren didn’t pay cash.

Instead of being paid in cash, the owners of Dexter Shoe wanted to be paid exclusively in shares of Berkshire Hathaway: 25,203 Class A shares - worth about $433 million at the time.

Slowly, cracks started to appear at Dexter.

Overseas competition crushed their domestic sales model. Margins evaporated. The brand collapsed and the company was worth zero. Unfortunately for Warren, the sting in the tail was much worse than just a dud company.

It was how he bought the company.

Those 25,203 Berkshire Hathaway shares he traded - carved out of the crown jewel he spent decades building - would now be worth well over $17 billion...

Warren was speechless: “I gave away 1.6% of a wonderful business…for a worthless business!”

That single mistake cost him more than any market downturn or bad stock pick. A rare and humbling lesson for the world’s greatest investor.

After making the biggest mistake of his career, Warren outlined a new perspective on life and business in a famous shareholder letter:

“Don’t risk what you have and need, for what you don’t have and don’t need.”

Recommendation’s

• A fantastic clip from the 2002 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting when an audience member asked Warren about Dexter...

• Or if you prefer to hear Warren’s views on friendship, and how to know who to trust - check out his answer from the 2024 Annual Meeting.

100+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass

This week’s newsletter includes: the story of Michael Bloomberg getting fired and putting his entire severance pay into his start-up.

Michael Bloomberg and the “Yes, But” Framework

Michael Bloomberg was brutally fired from one of the most prestigious and high-paying jobs on Wall Street. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him...

One hot summer night in 1981, Salomon Brothers’ partners were summoned to a secretive meeting marked:

“Mandatory Attendance: Utmost Secrecy Required.”

At the time, Salomon was one of the most powerful investment banks in the world.

But change was in the air.

Just days earlier, the firm had been acquired by energy trading giant Phibro Corporation, and rumours of layoffs were swirling through the corridors.

Everyone knew that this meeting could end careers.

The atmosphere inside the firm was suffocating.

John Gutfreund, Salomon’s hard-nosed Managing Partner, called Michael into a side room and gave it to him straight:

After 15 years at the firm, his time was up.

No explanations. No negotiation.

Michael was devastated:

“With 15 years of service - it was embarrassing, none of my friends got fired...it was hurtful and unfair.”

One moment, a rising figure at a Wall Street powerhouse.

The next, unemployed.

His career and identity seemed to vanish in an instant.

But instead of retreating, Michael acted.

The very next day, he decided to risk it all...

Michael took his his entire severance pay and invested every dollar into a new venture: putting financial data directly onto computer screens so traders could see it instantly.

From idea - to prototype - to product.

His effort and investment became the Bloomberg Terminal: a revolutionary product that would reshape finance.

From that single decision, Bloomberg LP grew into a global powerhouse spanning media, data, and technology - serving millions of customers worldwide.

Looking back decades later, Michael smiled:

“Thank goodness they fired me!”

Recommendation’s

• Awesome interview with Michael from 2007 is here. A fantastic quote: “Of all the people on the Salomon Brothers Executive Committee who fired me...6 are now paying customers of Bloomberg - so thank you very much!”

150+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass

This week’s newsletter includes: a 38-year-old Jon Gray at Blackstone making one of the biggest gambles in real estate history…and losing. But then coming back to win in an unbelievable way.

The Hilton Turnaround: From Disaster Deal to $14 Billion Profit

In 2007 Blackstone bought Hilton, but CEO Steve Schwarzman thought it was a catastrophic mistake. What followed was the most dramatic turnaround in private equity history...

Shortly after Blackstone bought the Hilton hotel chain for $26 billion, the 2008 financial crisis hit.

Tourism plummeted.

The hospitality industry was on the brink.

Media commentators branded the acquisition a “disaster”.

At one point, sentiment was so bad that Blackstone wrote down the Hilton investment...by an eye-watering 71%.

Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone’s CEO, said:

“We thought we had made the worst private equity deal in history!”

Jon Gray was Blackstone’s up and coming Global Head of Real Estate at the time.

At just 38-years-old, Jon was pushing hard to make the deal happen. Despite the incredibly negative environment, the young exec was confident in his strategy.

However, there was a huge problem: Hilton’s debt was enormous.

They needed to buy some time, otherwise sky-high debt repayments would destroy the company.

After the acquisition Blackstone immediately negotiated with lenders to refinance, cutting interest costs by buying back its debt at steep discounts.

They invested $800million into the company, and branched out into new, untapped markets like China and India.

Anywhere where tourism was growing, Hilton was there.

New leadership was put in place, with industry veteran Chris Nassetta installed as new CEO & President.

Jon pushed Hilton to invest heavily in technology and customer loyalty, introducing new reward points programs, new digital room keys and automating check-in/check-out processes.

In 2013, Blackstone took Hilton public.

And in 2018, they fully exited the investment...making over $14 billion in profit.

It remains one of the most profitable private equity deal in history.

Jon summarized that manic period and incredible turnaround:

“The deal felt crazy given the financial climate. But sometimes, the most challenging situations lead to the most significant successes.”

Recommendation’s

• If you have 30mins, this interview with Jon is great. Btw, keep an eye out for interviewer John Waldron at Goldman, very impressive individual. If you have 3mins but want to know more about the Hilton deal, check this out.

• BizStory welcomed new subscribers from HSBC, Citi and Amazon! Glad to welcome you all.

250+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass

This week’s newsletter includes: the true story of Garry Tan going from ‘being helpful’ to running one of silicon valley’s most elite communities.

The YC Story: Garry Tan Went From Photographer To CEO

Garry Tan was a struggling founder with no funding and no network – but one act of kindness caught the attention of Silicon Valley’s elite…

In 2008, Garry Tan was stuck.

He had worked at Microsoft and Palantir, but wanted to launch his own company.

The problem?

He had no funding. No network. No traction.

He was desperate for a break.

So desperate, he started taking photography gigs, shooting local hip-hop album covers just to make money.

Then he heard about Startup School.

A prestigious event hosted by Y Combinator (YC), where legends like Jeff Bezos and Marc Andreessen were speaking.

Garry wanted to be useful, but didn’t know how.

So he did something unusual…

He arrived early, sat in the front row, and - unannounced - started taking high-quality photos of every speaker.

No one asked him to. No one paid him. He just showed up and helped out.

Garry raced home, edited the photos, and uploaded them to Hacker News that evening.

He had no idea what would happen next, but when he woke up, his inbox was flooded.

His post went viral and attracted the attention of Paul & Jessica Graham - the founders of YC.

The duo received hundreds of requests for mentorship. But Garry? He didn’t ask for anything.

He just helped.

A year later, Garry stood in the same room - but this time, he wasn’t taking photos.

He was on stage, pitching his company. When YC announced their new batch, Garry’s name was on it.

Paul & Jessica later said that Garry’s act of initiative and kindness was one of the reasons they backed his business.

Then, the ultimate full-circle moment…

After selling his company, Garry returned to YC as a Partner.

And in 2022 Paul Graham called him with an even bigger offer: to become CEO of Y Combinator.

The same organization he once hustled to impress - now had his name at the top.

Garry later reflected on this time:

“If you give first, you’ll be surprised what you get back. What you put out in the world will come back to you ten thousand times over.”

Recommendation’s

• If you’ve got 5mins, check out Garry re-telling this story here. If you’ve got 1hr, a deeper dive interview is here.

• BizStory new subscribers joined this week from Citadel, PIMCO and Blackrock.

• Lots of smart, interesting people are reading Business Story - and you are one of them. Know someone who’d enjoy these stories? Send them to BizStory.co

300+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass

This week’s newsletter includes: Private equity legend Henry Kravis gave some advice that needs to be read by anyone who works in finance.

A Secret Confession From Investing Legend Henry Kravis

Ravi Gupta resigned from KKR and expected hell from Henry Kravis.

Instead, he got a masterclass in leadership and a secret confession…

In 2015, Ravi Gupta was a high-flyer at private equity firm KKR. But he had been approached to leave his well paid, comfortable role and join a scrappy start-up.

Ravi took the plunge and quit his job at KKR.

Henry Kravis - billionaire co-founder of KKR - found out about Ravi’s resignation and summoned Ravi to his office in New York.

Known for ruthless deal making and immortalised in ‘Barbarians at the Gate’, Henry was one of the most powerful men on Wall Street.

Ravi assumed this meeting would be an attempt to convince him to stay at KKR.

Or worse - a scolding from Henry...

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Henry asked Ravi to sit down, and immediately congratulated him on his move.

Ravi was stunned: “Henry wanted to share the story of how he and George started KKR. He said he respected my desire to go help build something.”

But Henry’s masterclass in leadership wasn’t the most memorable thing about their meeting.

As Ravi was walking out, Henry stopped him…

Henry: “How old are you?”

Ravi: “I’m 33…”

Henry: “I would do anything to be 33 again…I would do anything to do it over again.”

Looking back on Henry’s parting comment a decade ago, Ravi recalled: “I didn’t understand it then. I do now.”

The start-up Ravi joined was Instacart, where he held roles as CFO and COO.

Despite an incredibly challenging environment and fierce competition from heavyweights such as Amazon and Walmart, Instacart is now worth $10 Billion.

At 80-years-old, Henry shared his view on starting something new:

“Don’t just talk about it, put both feet in and be dedicated - don’t be afraid to fail.”

Recommendation’s

• Henry gave a good interview spotting opportunities here. Or click here for Ravi’s original blog post about leaving KKR.

• BizStory is a community of smart, influential individuals who work at elite financial institutions. Welcome to new subscribers this week from Goldman Sachs and Jane Street.

• I have 34,000 followers on Linkedin. Follow along here if Linkedin is your thing.

400+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass

This week’s newsletter includes: The Sage of Omaha’s favourite story ever, and my trip to Steve Schwarzman’s personal office.

The Investors Route To Heaven...or Hell

When faced with questions on valuation, Warren Buffett tells a story passed down by his mentor Benjamin Graham...

It’s the story of an oil prospector who dies, and meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

When told his occupation, St. Peter said: “Oh, I’m really sorry...”

“You seem to meet all the tests to get into heaven. But we’ve got a problem...”

“See that pen over there? That’s where we keep the oil prospectors waiting to get into heaven. And it’s packed - we haven’t got room for even one more.”

The oil prospector thought for a minute.

Then he said: “Would you mind if I just said four words to those folks?”

“I can’t see any harm in that”, said St. Peter.

So the oil prospector cupped his hands, took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his lungs:

“OIL DISCOVERED IN HELL!”

Immediately, the oil prospectors broke the lock off the door and stampeded out, on a mission to reach hell as fast a possible.

“You know, that’s a pretty good trick”, St. Peter said.

“Come on in! The place is yours - you’ve got plenty of room in heaven now.”

The oil prospector paused...

He scratched his head, then said:

“No. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go along with the rest of ’em. There may be some truth to that rumor after all!”

Recommendation’s

• Check out this recent interview with Warren, 94-years-old but as sharp as ever. I found the exact 1985 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter where Warren re-tells the oil prospector story.

• Business Story continues to grow and grow. New subscribers this week from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Cambridge University faculty and some west coast VC’s.

• What I’m reading: I’m re-reading Steve Schwarzman’s “What It Takes” this week. Such a fantastic book, tons of advice and practical learnings. I had the chance to meet Steve in his NYC office earlier this year, wild story. I’ll tell it next week!

400+ smart finance and business executives subscribe to Business Story, including senior exec’s from Blackstone, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. If you know someone who would enjoy this kind of content, forward this on to them.

Joseph Cass