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

Stephen Schwarzman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone, one of
the world's leading investment firms with over 530 billion dollars
of assets under management. He is one of the most successful
business leaders in history, all from humble beginnings back in
Philly. I recommend his recent book called What It Takes that tells
stories and lessons from this personal journey. Support this
podcast by signing up with these sponsors: - ExpressVPN at
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https://masterclass.com/lex EPISODE LINKS: What It Takes (book):
https://amzn.to/2WX9cZu This conversation is part of the Artificial
Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more
information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or
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YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these
conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on
Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here's
the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be
able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 -
Introduction 04:17 - Going big in business 07:34 - How to recognize
an opportunity 16:00 - Solving problems that people have 25:26 -
Philanthropy 32:51 - Hope for the new College of Computing at MIT
37:32 - Unintended consequences of technological innovation 42:24 -
Education systems in China and United States 50:22 - American AI
Initiative 59:53 - Starting a business is a rough ride 1:04:26 -
Love and family