Classmates Introduce Best Sellers
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God’s Hand on America:
Divine Providence in the Modern Era
Michael has done it again … our prolific compeer has published a provocative, book-length essay. As detailed in this extensive review in the Washington Post, “Medved explores U.S. history in search of divine intervention in the progress of the nation. He finds that what might look like happy accidents or random occurrences to some, are, in his eyes, quite simply signs of heavenly favor. America is not just exceptional, it is God’s chosen nation.”
The book has 5 stars on Amazon and blurbs from some heavyweight endorsers:
“A spellbinding page-turner, Michael Medved’s marvelous new book puts our current difficult moment in panoramic historical context. Intensely readable and ultimately inspiring.”—Amy Chua, Yale Law School professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Political Tribes
“I believe in God. Until reading God’s Hand on America, however, I was agnostic as to God’s role in American history. That I am no longer in doubt about God’s hand on America is proof of how persuasive this book is. And, as a bonus, you get to learn history from one of the greatest living American historians.”—Dennis Prager, founder of Prager University and author of the bestselling Bible commentary The Rational Bible
“Riveting, superbly written, wonderfully researched, and compellingly argued. Many an avowed secularist will pause in his or her tracks upon reading God’s Hand on America and say to themselves: ‘I hadn’t considered that!’”—Hugh Hewitt, NBC political analyst and Chapman University School of Law professor
“Michael Medved is one of the nation’s greatest historical thinkers, and God’s Hand on America isn’t just inspiring; it reignites faith in God and the country upon which He has so richly dispensed his blessings.”—Ben Shapiro, nationally syndicated talk-radio host on The Daily Wire
“An eye-opening, moving, and vitally necessary book.”—John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary and MSNBC contributor
“This compulsively readable account of modern American history reveals in exquisite detail those perilous moments when all could have been lost, but dare I say miraculously, wasn’t. History, wisdom, and education are never so enjoyably acquired as when Michael Medved is the author.”—Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, New York Times bestselling author of Jewish Literacy
“Michael Medved has an eye for a story and a preternatural gift for telling it in beguiling ways. The stories here involve fateful moments in American history that happen for reasons that defy reason itself. Whether you call the cause providence, destiny, the gods, or God is less important than witnessing American history survive—a hopeful message for our troubled times.”—Joseph Ellis, Pulitzer Prize winner for history, National Book Award winner, and author of Founding Brothers
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What It Takes
Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence
The Wall Street Journal provides a solid summary:
‘What It Takes’ Review: The Ingredients of Success
Lucky investors. Despite some setbacks, Blackstone Group has been a profit machine ever since, becoming probably the world’s largest alternative asset manager, with $545 billion under management and a portfolio of companies employing hundreds of thousands of people. Blackstone today is an imposing financial edifice largely of Mr. Schwarzman’s making, even as he has become a noted philanthropist—and a lightning rod for critics of plutocratic excess.
How did all this happen? His memoir, “What It Takes,” offers a cautiously engaging recapitulation of Mr. Schwarzman’s life and career, if not the secret to earning billions. The tycoon himself says you can’t learn to be an entrepreneur—yet in keeping with its subtitle, “Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence,” the book surprises by delivering more than the usual homilies for executives and others in business.
A gifted student, athlete and public-school entrepreneur, Mr. Schwarzman started working in his father’s Philadelphia linen store at the age of 10. Even as a clueless young man hired out of Yale by Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, he was clearly going places. With Army Reserve service beckoning during the Vietnam War, he asked in an exit interview with Bill Donaldson why he’d hired someone with no relevant skills. Mr. Donaldson simply said that he’d had a hunch “that one day you’d be the head of my firm.”
Heading a Wall Street firm half a century ago would have been a doubly notable accomplishment for Mr. Schwarzman, whose Judaism would have made him a long shot for the top job at some key firms back then. After Harvard Business School, he interviewed at several and reports that “First Boston didn’t have a single Jewish professional in 1972.” Morgan Stanley had just one. In a sign of changing times, Morgan did offer him a job but asked that he tone down his outspoken personality. He spurned it in favor of Lehman Brothers.
Mr. Schwarzman never headed DLJ, but in 1984 he would save Lehman from collapse (as it turned out, only until 2008) by brokering its sale. The next year, he and former Lehman chief executive Pete Peterson launched a venture of their own. The Blackstone moniker came from their names; “Schwarz” in German and Yiddish means black, and “petros” in Greek means stone. (Peterson’s original family name had been Petropoulos.) The firm might have as easily been called BlackRock. In fact, when they sold off a joint venture formed with Larry Fink and others, that enterprise took the name BlackRock—and grew into today’s money-management colossus. “Selling that business was a heroic mistake,” Mr. Schwarzman admits.
Running a private-equity firm is a little like surfing; it takes talent, but it helps to have a wave—and spy it in advance. Blackstone completed its initial public offering in 2007 on the eve of the financial crisis. It also got in and out just ahead of the crash when it risked $39 billion to buy a giant commercial real-estate venture run by Sam Zell, instantly reselling much of the property to lock in profits and stave off risk.
Mr. Schwarzman is not one to suffer much from low self-esteem, yet his success has also depended on knowing his limitations. Realizing he couldn’t capably manage a growing giant, he had the sense to bring in Tony James in 2002 as Blackstone’s chief operating officer so that he could focus his own energies on making money. “I’m not a natural manager,” he admits, whereas Mr. James “is the opposite. He is a great manager.”
Mr. Schwarzman is well served by his ghostwriter, Philip Delves Broughton, whose handiwork is a model of clarity. Of course there’s more to any mogul’s story than a memoir is likely to retell. For a fuller picture of Mr. Schwarzman, one can always turn to “King of Capital” (2010) by David Carey and John E. Morris. Their three-dimensional portrait, which emerges from a close analysis of Blackstone’s biggest deals, presents him as a driven yet risk-averse financier who has occasionally said dumb things, treated subordinates harshly and raised eyebrows with his lavish lifestyle. But he also emerges as trustworthy, tireless and even compassionate, at one point seeing to the medical treatment of a former colleague with cancer.
The tools of Mr. Schwarzman’s craft are a similarly double-edged sword. At its worst, private equity has drained companies of cash, burdened them with debt, and left employees and lenders empty-handed when a business collapses under the weight of so much borrowing. But unsentimental private-equity firms can also make companies stronger in the long run while delivering outsize returns for universities and pensioners. By buying and selling Celanese, for example, Blackstone and its investors quintupled their money for a $2.9 billion profit. When the dust settled, employment was only 4% lower, and worker productivity had risen by half.
Grappling more than briefly with the dark side of private equity would have made for a more compelling memoir. Mr. Schwarzman also makes only a brief allusion to the media storm that erupted over his $3 million 60th birthday party at the Park Avenue Armory in 2007. It featured Patti LaBelle and Rod Stewart and, according to a Journal editorial, “played into the hands of populists looking for a real-life Gordon Gekko to skewer.”
Despite such episodes of tone deafness, it’s clear that Mr. Schwarzman, now 72, has learned a thing or two during his long career. The most salient: “It’s as easy to do something big as it is to do something small. Both will consume your time and energy, so make sure your fantasy is worthy of your pursuit, with rewards commensurate to your effort.” Mr. Schwarzman is worth billions. Let it not be said that he failed to practice what he preached.
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