Businessman, investor and philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarzman never had trouble working with smarter people; he recognised rather early on that though he had a good sense of judgement, in matters of raw intelligence, he could not match up to many others.
Mr. Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of global private equity firm The Blackstone Group, was sharing anecdotes and insights from his recently released book, What It Takes – Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence , at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay campus in Powai.
In conversation with Unique Identification Authority of India founding chairman and Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani, Mr. Schwarzman spoke candidly about being the ‘least smart smart kid’.
Mr. Schwarzman said, “I was 17 years old when I found myself on the waiting list at Harvard. I called up the Dean of Admissions, thinking I could convince him that they had made an error by not admitting me. He, however, told me that I could not simply call him up, and had to go to Yale instead. Years later, I met the same man, who told me that he had been following my career graph over the last 30 years, and said that sometimes bad decisions are taken, which result in the right people not getting admission.”
Today, Mr. Schwarzman is an investor in several universities worldwide, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Oxford. “The reason I’ve invested so much in Oxford is because they are really focusing on ethics along with artificial intelligence (AI). They have the best humanities department. MIT, on the other hand, is more technology-centric, and hence I have only focused on boosting their infrastructure,” he said.
Mr. Schwarzman credited his foray into the AI industry to a chance meeting with Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba. The two tycoons met on a bus, where they got talking. “We had a long conversation about how AI is already so big in China and how it is only going to grow in the coming years,” Mr. Schwarzman said.
‘Being up to date’
Mr. Nilekani too recalled his experiences, highlighting the need to always be abreast of technological advancements so as to not be rendered obsolete. This, he said, helped him sustain a multinational corporation.
Mr. Nilekani also harked back to the time when he was setting up Infosys. “When you dream big, people just prefer to let you live in your fantasy world,” he said.
