Tony James

Your learning accelerates, everything accelerates.

Your confidence accelerates maybe to an excess, but it feels really good.

And your expectations are low.

So when you start winning business, it's always a positive surprise.

If you lose, well, that's par for the course.

So you got a very positive feedback loop.

We ran DLJ, ultimately it was renowned for its culture.

People just loved working there.

And that created a really nice environment.

And you spent so much of your career or your life in your office.

That was fantastic.

And we grew DLJ from essentially nothing to the fifth largest securities firm.

We grew it at over 15% for 25 consecutive years.

That's kind of one of your tech companies.

And I love that.

And every few years, the business changed and my opportunity set changed radically.

The big turning point, I would say, was 1980 when KKR did a LBO for Houdai Industries, the first big public company that was taken private.

And I said, wow, you can buy these huge companies with almost all debt.

And...

It struck me that DLJ at the time was competing with dozens of other firms that had more of everything than we did.