E430: Goldman Sachs’ Michael Bruun on AI, Private Equity & The War for Talent
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Why is talent considered the biggest competitive advantage in private equity today?
It needs to come from the top. The CEO needs to make it well understood by all employees that AI is an absolute must and it's something that will Change the way we do our business, and we embrace that change. There needs to be some experimentation. If humans are not allowed to experiment, it is unlikely that we will get to the most relevant and most creative uh solution. CEOs are also faced, and this might at times be uncomfortable, with the task of deciding whether the rest of their XCOM or leadership team is actually ready for this transformation. The war for talent is bigger than it's ever been. If you could get the right people in with the right changed mindset. They can move so much faster because they are AI enabled.
Michael, you're the global co head of private equity at Goldman where you've been for nearly twenty three years. And when you were earlier on in your Goldman career You were influenced by Lloyd Blinkfein's saying about having skin in the game. Why was that so influential for you?
Goldman Sachs services its clients in a multitude of ways. It provides advice, it facilitates financings, it's a very large market maker in multiple markets, stocks, bonds, commodities, and then it's a principal investor. And I think what Lloyd meant when he mentioned skin in the game was that we can be several things for clients and give an even more comprehensive service. So not only provide advice and provide financing, also at times put our money where our mouth is and invest alongside clients. And that gives a very unique and trusted relationship. And it's something that is unique to our firm. Very few firms can do it. And no other firm does it at the scale of Goldman Sachs. And for those of us who have read his most recent book, Street.
wise you'll see that he specifically refers to this element and some of the unique characteristics of Goldman's axe.
How do you build the right incentives within your team?
Ultimately, we get judged on our investment performance. So it's incredibly important that our incentives are aligned with investment performance. Like most other private equity firms, you receive a combination of annual compensation, and then you have a lot of your ultimate wealth creation or hopeful wealth creation tied to carry in the fund so that we are really aligned. And then we're also asking our investors to invest alongside us in the funds such that again we put our money where our mouth is. This is back to where we started this culture of being a principal both with the balance sheet of Goldman Sachs but also with our colleagues' capital, but certainly also our own capital. We think that carry is important to incentivize great investment outcomes, but we also think that you need to have a lot of skin in your game at the most personal level.
You operate in the core mill market, five hundred million to two billion dollar deals. The most competitive part of the middle market. And you have some very formidable competitors. How do you outcompete them when it comes to the best assets?
You're right, we have formidable competitors. we have been able to do well ourselves by activating Goldman Sachs. Nobody else has Goldman Sachs as their wingman or wingwoman in their investment strategy. I think we do that in a multitude of ways. We do the network piece that we already talked about, which is fantastic for sourcing and it's fantastic for value creation. In addition to that, we have one of the largest operating groups in our part of the market. We have more than 110 operational partners that drive value creation in our strategy. And then we have insights beyond what most firms see. We're 45,000 employees. Goldman Sachs. We are in most markets around the world and we get a lot of signals and those signals float back into our business such that we can navigate even the most complex operational environments, environments like the ones that we are seeing right now, with very meaningful geopolitical uncertainty and also a much more blurry uh macroeconomic picture.
We spoke about the network effect.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is talent considered the biggest competitive advantage in private equity today?
0:00–5:11
2
How does Goldman Sachs’ “skin‑in‑the‑game” philosophy shape its private‑equity incentives?
5:11–9:09
3
What unique resources does Goldman Sachs use to out‑compete other PE firms for middle‑market assets?
9:09–14:28
4
How are AI‑enabled operating partners and value‑accelerator centers built into Goldman’s PE model?
14:28–19:09
5
Why does the war for talent intensify when AI becomes a core capability?
19:09–24:15
6
What leadership and cultural changes are required for CEOs to drive AI transformation?
24:15–30:02
7
How does Goldman Sachs help portfolio companies adopt AI through universities, networks, and vendor partnerships?
30:02–35:03
8
What timeless career advice does Michael Bruun share for thriving in a fast‑changing PE landscape?
35:03–37:50
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from How I Invest with David Weisburd
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