The harder you work, the luckier you get. I've found that to be true throughout my career.
I didn't have any money when I was growing up. My father made $8,000 a year as a postal worker. That experience of not having money made me want to work incredibly hard.
In private equity, you're not smarter than the market — you have access to things the market doesn't see. That access is everything.
Patriotic philanthropy is the idea that if you've benefited from living in this country, you have an obligation to give something back to preserve its history and institutions.
The best investment I ever made was investing in people — finding talented people and giving them the opportunity to prove themselves.
I was not a great student in terms of grade point average, but I was a good student in terms of learning what I needed to learn to succeed in life.