Tony James

So I want people coming in there

working really hard to have great investment and great thought processes.

And part of those catches, those little things, is sending a message.

Someone's watching.

You're paying attention.

You got to be flawless.

And also, for a firm like Blackstone, it's investment committees that are the cultural crucible of what defines the firm.

Say more about that, yeah.

Well, how we think, how we talk to each other, how we think,

Our analytical rigor, frankly, the lessons we learn from our failures and our successes, all that is transmitted from senior management, me and the partners, let's just say to the junior people, through investment committees.

And so if you're not able to hold your own in those, if you're just presiding over them or you're not engaged or you haven't done the work, you lose a lot, in my opinion.

So, and I could go on and on.

There are lots of, lots of principles that for me work well in an elite investment organization, but they might not work in another organization.

Well...

That's true in that instance, but there are times when you're not on that side of it, of course.

But I would say in general, when a deal committee comes in –

I don't want them coming into, when a deal team comes in to the committee with a recommendation, they better want to do it.

Otherwise, what are we doing next, right?

So if they're coming in with a conviction to do it, almost by definition, I'm going to challenge them.

And I'm going to try to find the weakness or the things they haven't thought about or whatnot.