Lloyd Blankfein

And at times when they lost a lot of money, the firm wanted to disconnect from them because they couldn't bear the losses that had been.

Goldman Sachs, in its view and its partnership culture, was able to look through those short-term things and say, look, over cycle, great business.

You know, and the people who ran those businesses stuck it out.

Maybe they could have done better here or there, but there were other reasons why they stuck it out, and they did.

You know, I think a lot about kind of firm, a lot of the alignment, you know, that you described, you know, even in the shape of our firm, obviously we're much smaller than Goldman Sachs, but I wrote this piece where I sort of drew a distinction between firm over fund.

You know, the objective function of a fund is how do I generate the most carry with the fewest people in the shortest amount of time possible?

And a firm, you know, you have to deliver exceptional returns, which is sort of a prerequisite for doing that well.

But I think the second variable is like, how do you build sources of compounding competitive advantage?

Like, what are your modes?

Again, orienting around not just your individual fund, but around the culture and success of the firm.

Again, you have to put your money where your mouth is sometimes.

How you compensate people.

Totally.

And by the way, people will try to pick off your best people because if you're paying the people who are going through the doldrums,

better because other people are earning more money.

It could be coming at the expense of the people who made more money, and someone will come in and take those.

So you have to, you know, there's a practicality to this thing, so you can't pay everybody the same, you know, through good times and bad times.

You have to do it, but you have to...

You have to mute the effects of the cycle.

It doesn't mean people won't leave and some people are just entrepreneurial and they don't want to be partners and they don't want to subordinate their own interests.