Heroes in Business - David Rubenstein, CoFounder and CoExecutive Chairman The Carlyle Group, Author The American Experiment

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

How to create wealth. David Rubenstein, CoFounder and CoExecutive Chairman The Carlyle Group (world’s oldest and largest private equity firms), Author of The American Experiment, and an Original signer or The Giving Pledge is interviewed by David Cogan, founder of Eliances and famous celebrity Host of the Eliances Heroes Show.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Alliances Heroes. Alliances is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in,id cogan founder of alliances that's right and that's me and again i have got the best job in the world why because i get to interview some of the most amazing people ever learn about their story share their story with you uncover the secrets of what made them successful and how they are building the community. They are making their mark in the world and you can too. And thank you again for the feedback we had when

I had on the president of the Federal Bar Association. So please make sure that you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.s.com why because it's the only place where entrepreneurs align all right are you ready for this i'm excited super excited about our next guest he is the co-founder and co-executive chairman are you ready for this the carlisle group which i'm sure all of you know, it's the world's oldest and largest private equity firm. He's also chairman of Board of Trustees, JFK Center for Performing Arts, and the original signer for the Giving Pledge. You can reach him at davidrubenstein.com. David, welcome to the show today. Thank you very much for having me. I got to tell you, your background is just absolutely phenomenal. But what I want to do is I want to take a step back.

I know that your father worked at the post office. What kind of lessons did you learn from your father? Well, I guess I learned that education is important. My father dropped out of college or dropped out of high school and never went to college. And he never really went back and got his high school degree after he came back from World War II. And I think he was really plateaued as a postal worker. And so I realized that if you're going to get anywhere in life, you probably need to have an education. So I was really determined to get a college education and a professional degree as well. And I probably learned that from my father. He always said, get an education. I didn't get one. You should get one.

Now, as you were growing up and stuff, I mean, your family, you know, they didn't have the type of wealth, for example, of what you have in that. What kind of things were instilled with you? And what was the motivation for you then to go out and say, you know, I want to do something really big? Well, I guess my parents, I was their only child. And when you're an only child, you probably are having more parents' parental attention. But I just read a lot about people who had achieved something in life. And I believed in the American dream. I thought that you could come from modest circumstances. I always believed that you could work your way up. And so I thought I would try that.

And that's what I did. Great. All right. Now let's talk about your new book, The American Story, which is conversations with master historians and those well-known in different areas in current American history and so on and stuff. Now, what was the motivation though, to, you know, write this book? Well, that book, The American Story is a book about America as told through the great historians of our country. And I have a series, which I started at the Library of Congress, where I interview great historians in front of only members of Congress.

I host a dinner for members of Congress once a month. And they basically like to come and they can sit with people from the opposite party and the opposite house and they learn something about it. And after that book, I then wrote another book called How to Lead about leadership, that people are the great leaders in our world. And now I just wrote, most recently, I have a new book coming out called The American Experiment, which talks about the evolution of our country as an experiment in representative democracy and how we've done well in some areas and not as well in other areas. And I know you've met, you know, so many people throughout your career in that. Is there, who stands out the most to you of who you met? Well, I did meet Nelson Mandela at one point,

and obviously an incredible person. I've been fortunate to meet a number of presidents of the United States and work with a number of them. George Herbert Walker Bush was associated with my firm for many years and an extraordinary individual for no doubt about it. And so I've met a lot of people I quite admire over the years. There's too many probably to talk about. But one person who was in my firm who had an incredible track record was Jim Baker, former Secretary of State, former Secretary of Treasury, White House Chief of Staff, an incredible person who really dominated Washington for many years because of his abilities.

It's amazing. I mean, again, your background is just absolutely phenomenal and what you're doing. Do you ever like look back and just go, wow, I mean, the life that you have led and continue to lead is extraordinary. Well, I'm not sure it's that. There are many people who have greater lives than me and have done more than me, but I'm very pleased that my parents were able to see what I had achieved. My parents died a few years ago. And one of the great pleasures of my life is being able to honor my parents when they were alive and also to let them see what I had achieved as a result of their good parenting. So I think anybody that's a parent knows that when you put a lot of your energies into a child

and you really hope the child will work out reasonably well. And I hope my parents felt that I did. All right. Excellent. Well, let's talk about the new book again, The American Experiment. Talk to us more about that. Well, what happens is this country came together in the early part of our history and came up with the idea of a representative democracy. And it wasn't it wasn't a common thing to kind of create a new country out of whole cloth. And we came up with this famous sentence in the Declaration of Independence, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men

are created equal. That's the creed of our country. And over the last 230 years, we've tried to give everybody a chance to be equal, but obviously we haven't really been able to do so. We had slavery for a while. We had other kinds of things that inhibited people from reaching their potential. We've had many stress tests in our democracy, and I would say that we've survived them in part because we have genes as Americans that enabled us to get through these things. The genes are the belief in equality, the belief in the right to vote, the belief in the separation of powers, the belief in civilian control of the government, the belief that there is the American dream, you can work your way up, the belief in diversity, the belief in immigration. These are parts of our genes. And they came together, I'd say,

in most recently in the stress test we had over a recent election. And I think they produced the result, which kind of showed the American genes prevailed. How does one, you know, with the books that you've written and the amount of things that you're involved with, activities, things that you volunteer, how do you stay focused when you start writing a book? Well, you have to learn how to, you know, get everything out of your mind for a while. So the best thing to do is have quiet and be in a quiet place. I'm not on a lot of social media, so I don't have to respond every two seconds of social media. I try not to watch too much television other than news. And so you have to stay focused and you have to find quiet times to write a book.

Writing a book, as you may know, is not something you can do when people are talking to you all the time. So it takes some time and reflection to do that. So we've had some listeners send in some questions. One of these questions says that you're a multi-billionaire. And the question that they're asking is quite here is, they want to know how. How does one achieve such wealth? Well, my wealth is modest compared to Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, but obviously I've made enormous amount of money by normal human standards. I built a company that became very successful, went public, and as a result of being a founder of it, I own a lot of stock in it.

But mostly I'm giving away my money. I signed the giving pledge, one of the first 40 people to do it, and I resolved not to give away half my money, but to give away all my money. And I'm in the process of doing that. I'm involved in a lot of philanthropic organizations, and I am in the process of trying to remind people of American history and do other things. Among things I'd like to do is what I call patriotic philanthropy, giving back to remind people of the history and heritage of the country. So fix the Washington Monument, fix Monticello, fix Mount Vernon, or fix the Custis Lee Mansion at Arlington Cemetery, or preserve historic documents like the Declaration of Independence or the Magna Carta. Those are the

things I'm trying to do to remind people about our history and heritage. Absolutely amazing. And with the amount of hours that you work, what do you do in your free time? Well, I try to do podcasts. I respond to podcasts. I don't have a lot of free time, but I'm trying to do what I call sprinting to the finish line. I recognize when you reach my age, I'm now 72. Many people my age are retired, but I want to keep getting things done. So I'm not slowing down. I'm not looking back. I'm trying to recognize that at some point the brain or the body will collapse, and I want to keep going until something bad happens to my body or my brain. So David, is it true that you read 100 books a year? I do, but let me tell you the trick. The trick is I don't read books on things I don't know that

much about. So if I was reading physics textbooks or chemistry textbooks, I wouldn't get through very far. I read books about history, biographies, business, politics, things I know something about so I can get through the books reasonably quickly. And the other secret is this. I read books where I'm often interviewing the author. I have a number of programs where I'm interviewing authors. And so when you have something over your head, a time deadline, you feel like you got to get this book read. So you tend to find times to read it. And when you're on a plane or alone, you can find time to read. But I always feel that if I'm interviewing somebody, I want to read their books. So I tend to do that. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah,

absolutely. It's phenomenal. And again, you have such a long history of a career and stuff. At what point was there the turning point where you were like, yes, this is what I do. This is what I love to do, want to do. How did you, where was that? And how did you find that? Well, I loved working in the government. I worked in the White House for President Carter. I thought that was the greatest thing in the world. I was 27 years old and working in the White House advising a president of the United States, but we lost the election in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. So I had to go back and remake my life. And I realized I wasn't a good lawyer. So I started a private equity firm that took off and did well. And in the end, I guess

the greatest pleasure I've gotten out of it is being able to give away the money that I was able to create. And also having my parents see what I was able to do was something that was a great pleasure as well. Now I have my own children and I'm trying to do what I can to help them get their way in the world. And hopefully they will make me proud as they already have. In fact, share with us some of the secrets advice that you give to your children. Well, one, don't count on a lot of money from me. You have to do it on your own. Hard work helps. Read, learn how to share the credit with other people. Don't be afraid of taking a chance. Don't be afraid of failing. Do something that is different. Try to figure out a way to make your existence on the face of the

earth warranted. What have you done? I would say to them all the time that makes people feel that you've done something useful with your life and didn't just come from a wealthy family. Do something that people will remember that gives back to society. Those are the kind of things I try to tell my children. Maybe they listen, maybe they don't. That's amazing. Again, and just, you know, really appreciate you taking the time and being here today with the wealth of information that you have, the things that you can share. And again, where can we get your book? Can we get it on Amazon? It's on Amazon and any bookstore. It came out two days ago, The American Experiment, and I hope people enjoy it. Wow, amazing. Well, David two days ago, The American Experiment. And I hope people want to... Wow, amazing.

Well, David, you know, you share the American story, how to lead and propel our United States, the world to a brighter future. That's a hero, David Rubenstein. You can reach him at davidrubenstein.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show.

Thank you.