The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything

Chapter 1

Find the Money

Oregon to Abu Dhabi

From Steve Schwarzman’s corner office 44 stories above Park Avenue, the northern landscape of New York City unfurls before you, Manhattan melting into the Bronx. It calls to mind the old cartoon, “The New Yorker’s View of the World,” where the details of the city quickly give way to everything else beyond. On a clear day, Schwarzman can see both the George Washington and Tappan Zee bridges as the Hudson River snakes northward. Looking west, he can peer deep into New Jersey. In both views he can also pick out a couple of his fiercest competitors and sometime collaborators. Henry Kravis’s office is perched on the 42nd floor of a building on 57th Street, a 10-minute walk from Schwarzman. A five-minute ...