David Rubenstein
Co-founder and Co-Chairman of the Board of Carlyle
"There was a famous senator Everett Dirksen who once said, ‘When you're getting kicked out of town, get out in front and pretend you're leading a parade.’ Now, what does that mean? It means take advantage of the situation you find yourself in."
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan and David Rubenstein talk about what makes a good leader, including hard work, vision, and the simple act of showing up.
David reflects on his childhood in Baltimore and how his parent's unconditional love and modest upbringing inspired him for success. After graduation from Duke University, David worked in the White House during the Carter administration. There, he worked around the clock, and his experience in Washington led him to open the first leveraged buyout firm in DC, The Carlyle Group. David now sits on many boards, including Duke University and the Kennedy Center.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians- click here to learn more about David’s new book
David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV- click here to listen to the podcast
Birch Bayh- click here to learn more about Birch Bayh
The Economic Club- click here to learn more about the Economic Club
John Roberts- click here to learn more about John Roberts
Guest Bio
Mr. Rubenstein is a co-founder and non-executive Co-Chairman of the Board of Carlyle. Previously, Mr. Rubenstein served as Co-Chief Executive Officer of Carlyle.
Prior to forming Carlyle in 1987, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington, D.C. with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge LLP (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP). From 1977 to 1981, Mr. Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. From 1975 to 1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1973 to 1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.
Among other philanthropic endeavors, Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Economic Club of Washington and serves on the Board of Directors or Trustees of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Constitution Center, the Brookings Institution, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the World Economic Forum.
Learn more, follow, or read David’s writing at DavidRubenstein.com.
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome, you're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM Radio. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And I'm here with a good friend and someone I admire very much, David Rubenstein. And we'll be talking about David's journey and his life as a philanthropist. I'm a Baltimore native. So I am very intrigued to interview David, who is a Baltimore native himself. He's known for many things. He's the founder and co-executive chairman of the Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest and most successful investment firms. He is a graduate of Duke University, went to the University of Chicago Law School. But I think what he's most known for is none of those things, even though they're all well known. It's that he is actually a great philanthropist humanitarian. And he's a fun guy who interviews lots of people. We're going to talk about his book today, The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians. We're going to talk about his philanthropy and his leadership, which is what this show is all about. And we're going to also talk about the kind of fun things he does that nobody really knows. So David, it is a pleasure and honor for me to have you on the show.
David Rubenstein
My pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me. And I'm always pleased to talk to somebody from Baltimore.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. You make Baltimore very proud. And whenever I go back home, and they talk about people who've actually had significant journeys, you're the one they keep talking about. So you and Cal Ripken.
David Rubenstein
He's a bigger deal than me. But I am very pleased to have been from Baltimore and I got a good education there in public schools.
Alan Fleischmann
And that's wonderful. When did you actually move to Washington?
David Rubenstein
Well, after law school, I moved to New York, practiced law for a couple years, came to Washington to work in the Senate for Birch Bayh. And then after that, I went to work in a presidential campaign for Jimmy Carter for a few months. He won and then I came to Washington to work in the White House for Carter.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. And you were in the domestic policy office.
David Rubenstein
I was the deputy domestic policy adviser to President Carter. A job I wasn't qualified for at the age of 27. But I didn't want to tell anybody at the time.
Alan Fleischmann
And you loved it.
David Rubenstein
It was fun. I never took a day off. I loved working around the clock. I mean, if you were a young person, you come from modest means and you're working in the White House in the West Wing and the President of the United States is calling you for advice, you can't get much better than that at the age of 27.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, tell us a little bit about your roots, actually. You just mentioned your parents, or your modest means. Tell us a little bit about your parents, where you grew up in Baltimore.
David Rubenstein
Baltimore was, when I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, a fairly rigidly segregated area by religion. If you were Jewish, you probably lived in northwest Baltimore, because the mortgage often forbade you to sell a home to somebody who was black or Jewish in those days. It was against the law, but people still did it. So I lived in what was a Jewish ghetto in northwest Baltimore. My father dropped out of high school to go into World War Two, he came back, he met my mother, she dropped out of high school to marry him, they got married when she was 17, he was 20. More than nine months later, I was born. And I was their only child. My father worked in the post office making a very modest blue collar salary for his entire career until he retired at 55. And so I had a blue collar background. But in the end, I had a great background, because at the time, I didn't really know much about having money. And I didn't really have a lot of friends who had a lot of money. So I didn't feel like I was deprived. I had the unconditional love of two parents. And that is what is the most important thing you can have when you're growing up. My own children have had a wealthier setting. And clearly, as you probably know, as a father, when you're raising children and you have a wealthier setting, it's very difficult to give them the same grounding that you might have when you know you have to work hard to make something in your life. So in hindsight, the best thing that happened to me was the unconditional love of my parents, being in a modest setting, recognizing that I had to achieve something on my own if I was going to get anywhere. The hardest thing in life to do, I think, is probably raising children, particularly if you have a wealthy setting yourself. So I'm very fortunate my own children have done reasonably well. But it's very difficult, as you know, the father of two children to raise children in a setting where you have some financial means.
Alan Fleischmann
That's right. And your parents, did they—where did you go to high school in Baltimore?
David Rubenstein
I went to high school that was the third oldest public high school in the United States. It has the strange name of Baltimore City College but it's actually a high school started in 1839. Graduated 1966. I was only 16 when I graduated and I went off to Duke University.
Alan Fleischmann
How did you get to Duke? That's a pretty bug jump.
David Rubenstein
Well, Duke was not at the school that I actually thought I would go to. I applied to a lot of colleges and did reasonably well in getting in but Duke gave me the biggest scholarship and my parents really needed a scholarship to enable me to go to a good school. So they gave me the biggest amount of money and I went there.
Alan Fleischmann
And your parents push education? Was that something where you were self driving or is that something your parents encouraged?
David Rubenstein
I think if you're Jewish, it's in the genes. So I don't know whether my parents had to encourage it, but I just was driven to, you know, try to make something of myself. And I recognize that the path forward is through education. Most people who are reasonably well educated recognize that the path forward is a good education they might have had. And so they all want their children to get a good education. And my parents didn't have a fancy education, but they thought that if I could get a good education, it would be helpful.
Alan Fleischmann
And what does Duke mean to you today? Was that a good experience?
David Rubenstein
At the time, I thought that I was gonna not probably do that well at Duke because I didn't have—I was what is today called a first generation student. I now underwrite scholars who are first generation students at Duke. And what that means is you not only have to help them get into the school and help them with financial means to be able to afford the school, but help them integrate into a setting where most people are not first generation. I did okay. I subsequently got involved with Duke and I served for four years as the chairman of the board. In my graduating class in 1970, had they voted, who would be the least likely person to be the chairman of the board down the road, I probably would have won. But somehow I became the chairman of the board. I served the board for 12 years, became a good donor to Duke and fairly involved. And still even though I'm not a chairman of the board any longer because of term limits.
Alan Fleischmann
But you're still on the board.
David Rubenstein
No. You can only serve 12 years. So I served 12 years, the last four as Chair, I now am on the Harvard Corporation board, where my two daughters went to school at Harvard. I'm on the University of Chicago Board where I got my law degree. And I've been on the Johns Hopkins board from Baltimore as well. So I've been on four university boards. And I think higher education is very important in my life. And it's very important, I think, to our country. So I really want to do what I can to support higher educational institutions.
Alan Fleischmann
And how many children do you have?
David Rubenstein
We have three. They are all in pretty good shape. One is 34. In our private family office that we have, now has her second child. Another one also went to Harvard undergrad, has her graduate degrees in business and in food science, she has her own private equity fund. And our son is at Stanford Law School and Stanford Business School. So all of them will have MBAs and all of them might go into private equity. And as I've said, private equity is the highest calling of mankind. Of course, we all know that. So my children all are in private equity, no struggling artists, no filmmakers.
Alan Fleischmann
You did really well, you too.
David Rubenstein
Well, we'll see what happens. Time will tell.
Alan Fleischmann
That's exactly right. Time will tell. But it sounds like they're on their way. You know, so when you tell—you mentioned a minute ago that you were 27 years old, when you were in the White House, an amazing experience, four years of pretty significant job, actually, how did that happen? You went for the campaign and they said, David Rubenstein, I want you to be in a big position in the White House?
David Rubenstein
Luck is an important part of life. You can work hard, but luck is important. So what happened was, when Carter was looking to hire some people for the general election campaign, he was almost certainly going to be the nominee, but he didn't have a big domestic policy staffer, foreign policy staff for his general election campaign. They began interviewing people in Washington DC. I was working on Capitol Hill. My boss Birch Bayh was not running for president, he had dropped out. So I was interested in getting in a presidential campaign. Stuart Eizenstat, Carter's domestic adviser, policy adviser in the campaign, did the interviews. He hired a number of people, including me. I went to work for him, became his deputy. And when he became the domestic adviser to President Carter, I became one of his two deputies. And I did that for four years. And I absolutely loved it. I was the first person in on the first day, when President Carter was inaugurated, I was the last person to leave when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. So I couldn't imagine a better thing in life. And at the time, I had no interest in making money, no interest in philanthropy, I was only interested in public service in that traditional sense. And I was inspired, I think, by John Kennedy. When I was in the sixth grade, John Kennedy gave an incredible speech, his first in his inaugural address, in which he said that people should, you know, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And that speech inspired me to kind of want to do something for my country. And so ultimately, I thought public service was the best thing I could do and work in the White House, I thought was the ultimate at the time.
Alan Fleischmann
We're going to circle back to the President's and obviously, the Kennedy Center in a minute as well. I know you're the chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center. I don't know if I remember this from years ago, or if I just put it in my own head, but I have this memory, that one of the things about David Rubenstein and the White House is that he slept in the White House a lot. Is that true, in his office?
David Rubenstein
I wouldn't say I slept but I would say what I did—I was younger than and I had maybe more endurance than I have today. So what I would typically do is I'd get in around 7, we'd have staff meetings at 7:30 or 8. Work through the day. And then when everybody would leave around 7 at night, I would call on a second shift of secretaries and I would prepare stuff for the next day. So I would typically work until 12 or one o'clock. Now that sounds crazy. But I was young, I was single. I loved what I was doing and it was just terrific to me to do this. But today I wouldn't be able to do that. Probably physically it would be too hard to do that today.
Alan Fleischmann
But it shows the work ethic was already there.
David Rubenstein
Well, I always had a view that I wasn't as smart or as talented as my peers. And so to compensate for that, I would have to work harder. So I worked harder than other people, perhaps, and maybe I would work more than I needed to. But I was trying to compensate for maybe a lack of ability that I thought I had.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, so now you're in 1980, I guess 1980 where the election's over, you're looking—the White House is—the winner of the White House was not what you expected?
David Rubenstein
Well, we had problems. Jimmy Carter, who was 95 years old and in fairly good mental shape, and obviously had some physical problems lately. But Jimmy Carter had some bad luck. He had hostages in Iran, he had gas lines, we had high inflation, and so forth. But we never thought honestly that he was going to lose. Most White House staff do not think that their incumbent president's gonna lose. We recognize that presidents rarely get reelected when they have a recession. But we thought we could overcome that because we thought we were going to run against an old old old man who wasn't able to get out of bed in the morning. He was so old. He was 69 years old, Ronald Reagan. Now, I'm 70. So doesn't he seem as old as he used to. But in those days, I thought 69 was too old. But Ronald Reagan showed that 69 isn't that old. So he beat us. And then I had the experience that I wouldn't wish on other people, except that I do think that it can be character building. People used to come to me in the White House and say, you're a bright young man, if you ever want a job, call me up. Well, I didn't want a job because I was working in the White House. But when we lost the election, I started calling all these people and they never called me back. Because we were out of power in Washington, you're a dead man. So nobody really wanted a Carter White House aide. So I didn't get a job very easily. In fact, I didn't want to tell my mother that her only child was unemployed and unemployable, because nobody wanted to hire a Carter White House aide. So January, February, March, April, May, June, July, no job offers, and I kept telling my mother Well, I have so many offers, I don't know which one to pick from. And she said, Well, you maybe should pick just one of them. Just get started again. But finally somebody felt sorry for me. I got a job practicing law. And I recognized once again, I wasn't a good lawyer and I didn't like it.
Alan Fleischmann
Which law firm did you go to?
David Rubenstein
I went to a firm that was then called Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, now called Pillsbury Shaw Pittman. And it's a large firm, at the time it was a modest sized firm. And to do something well in life, you have to love it. Nobody's ever won a Nobel Prize hating what they do. I didn't really love the practice of law and it was clear my clients didn't think I was a great lawyer. And it was clear my partners didn't think I was great. So I was trying to find something else to do, because I wanted to do something I really loved like I loved working in the White House. And then, by happenstance, I read about a leveraged buyout being done by somebody. I kind of thought this might be interesting. I didn't know what a leveraged buyout really was. But ultimately, I started the first leveraged buyout firm in Washington, DC, and it grew to be a very large firm called Carlyle.
Alan Fleischmann
We're going to go back to that in a second. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with David Rubenstein, the, I guess the executive, co-executive chairman and founder, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, great philanthropists, great investor, great humanitarian. We're going to talk about all this on the show today. So Carlyle Group, very legendary. It's a big deal. You kind of reshaped Washington too by starting an investment firm because you don't expect—we didn't expect investment firms to be in DC at that time.
David Rubenstein
There were very few investment firms here, honestly. And there were no leveraged buyout firms. We did it here because we happened to be living here. If we had moved to New York, my partners and I, none of whom had investment banking experience, we wouldn't have been taken seriously because in the early days of private equity, let's say in the mid 80s, or late 80s, all the firm's were really pretty much run by people that had been investment bankers or in finance in New York in some way, shape, or form. So we stayed here, and we use the argument that we understood companies heavily affected by the federal government better than the guys in New York did. I'm not sure what's true, but it sounded good. And so maybe we did in some cases understand them better. But in any event, we started very small, we had no money to begin with. I went out and raised from four investors, ultimately $5 million. Today, the firm manages about $220 billion, and has become one of the largest private equity firms in the world. And we got lucky in many respects, we had a good track record. But we did some things that changed the face of private equity, and maybe that's enabled us to grow.
Alan Fleischmann
The gumption you must have had, the three of you. How old were they, the two co-founders?
David Rubenstein
Well, I started at 37. Because I read that entrepreneurs start their first companies between the ages of 28 and 37, after 37, an entrepreneur probably will not start a company. And so when I read that when I was 37, I said I better do it now or I'll never have a chance to do it. And my partners were roughly the same age.
Alan Fleischmann
And how did you know them?
David Rubenstein
Cold calls, mostly. I was talking to people that I did know and they said, Oh, that's a good idea. But not for me. Let me go talk to somebody else. In other words, nobody that I knew wanted to come, so they just recommended other people just as a way to get me out of the office. And eventually I wore people down. Eventually I convinced them that I had some money when I didn't. And eventually I convinced them that we were going to build a great firm and they didn't really maybe believe it, but they were trying to maybe leave where they were. So we took a number of people who had finance backgrounds and much better than I did.
Alan Fleischmann
And did the other two co-founders have—they did not have finance backgrounds.
David Rubenstein
They did have investment banking backgrounds. One of them was the Chief Financial Officer of MCI, a telecommunications company in Washington. And one was a senior finance person at Marriott.
Alan Fleischmann
So that was great. And you came together and you said, we're gonna be in DC. We're going to start here.
David Rubenstein
We said it made sense to be here because, as I like to say, there was a famous senator Everett Dirksen who once said, famously, I guess, when you're getting kicked out of town, get out in front and pretend you're leading a parade. Now what does that mean? Means take advantage of the situation you find yourself in. You're getting kicked out of town, say you're leading a parade. So we said, we understand companies heavily affected by Washington better than the guys in New York, and we'll be in Washington. So investors could give us money for things that are affected by the federal government. Defense companies, let's say, or communications companies.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, my firm which is in New York a lot too. We are based here in DC and we always say that you get advice that goes through a geopolitical policy and political lens if you get advice from us. There's a little bit of Washington DNA.
David Rubenstein
Obviously work for you, your companies were successful, I should have thought of that phrasing.
Alan Fleischmann
I think you're doing just fine with your own messaging. So we'll get the name Carlyle from?
David Rubenstein
Well, like most people that start a company, you go through the usual Greek and Roman names, and we couldn't either pronounce them or understand what they meant. And then we said, well, what about something like an international investment and finance company? Which doesn't exactly roll off your tongue. And then one of my partners read about a famous financier named Andre Meyer, who had run Lazard Frères as the head of it, but he had a lifestyle that was where he lived in the Carlyle hotel. He was a single man, had a very active social life.
Alan Fleischmann
Very close with Jackie Kennedy, if I remember right.
David Rubenstein
That's probably correct. And you are correct. And so Andre Meyer was her financial advisor. And so he—this one person in the firm said, well, living in the Carlyle Hotel. That's a great lifestyle. Why don't we name it after Carlyle? And it turned out that was available and was two syllables, and it sounded fairly English and therefore establishment. So it worked.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. I always wondered whether it was actually the hotel that you know, the story behind the hotel.
David Rubenstein
It was. We didn't really have meetings at the hotel because we couldn't afford to go to the meetings at the hotel. After we came and started the name Carlyle, the owner of the hotel at the time wrote us a note saying, you have violated my copyright, but I will ignore that if you stay at the hotel a couple times. So he was being tongue in cheek.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very good. So you actually started this firm? You obviously—what I love about you, David, is that you have such humility, but you also have such great curiosity and gumption. The fact that you could say, why not me? And why not my partners? And start something and envision something. Did you think you were successful early on? When did you realize that this firm was actually transforming private equity, which is what it did?
David Rubenstein
Well, any entrepreneur who starts a company thinks that he or she is going to be successful by definition. 99.9% of the companies that are started or not successful. So for some reason, some people get lucky, they either have the good idea, or they work hard, or a lot of luck comes along. In our case, we stumbled, we made mistakes. But we did two things that really enabled us to be successful. One was we had a good track record, when we would do deals, they actually tended to work out because we were very cautious and careful. So we had a good track record. But we did one thing that changed the face of private equity as we now know it. Now, there is no Nobel Prize for private equity. So I'm not going to win a Nobel Prize when I tell you what it is, and your jaw isn't going to drop when I tell you how wonderful this idea was. But here's essentially what we did. Private equity in the late 70s, early 80s, mid 80s was basically a mom and pop shop business. When KKR did the famous RJR deal in 1989, there were about seven investment professionals. The reason was, the partnership agreements, if you had a buyout fund or venture fund, said you can only do one thing. You have to manage this fund 100% of your time. And so people honored that. I decided that I would do something a little different. When we raised our first fund of $100 million. I said to my partners, you guys are investment professionals. I'm really not skilled in that. You can manage the fund. Nobody will care if I do one other thing. And the idea was this. I would build a family of funds like Fidelity or Tiro Price had done in the mutual fund area. So we take the Carlyle buyout name and say we're gonna have a Carlyle growth fund, the Carlyle real estate fund, the Carlyle debt fund, and then basically have a family of funds, putting the administrative responsibilities, fundraising, accounting, legal tax in Washington, and having different fund heads that we would control the funds operate different funds, that doesn't strike you as a brilliant idea. It was novel at the time. And then I decided, secondly, we would globalize it. I'd go to Europe, Asia, Middle East and have dedicated Carlyle funds there. So that's how we built a global organization and have many different funds. Other firms have done it very well also. Blackstone, KKR, and Apollo are similar in what they have done to what we've done.
Alan Fleischmann
But they did it actually following your lead in that regard.
David Rubenstein
They might not say that. At the time, there weren't very many people doing it. We were kind of criticized. People said we were franchising our name, but we weren't really franchising. We controlled everything. But in truth, we were probably the first to really have multiple funds and be global in that respect.
Alan Fleischmann
What's also a brilliant way to actually build your company because, in essence, the holding company stays strong. And then you build the different entities that have their own leadership.
David Rubenstein
And they had their own economics, so I could recruit people and say, well, you're gonna have your economics from your fund, and you'll get a little bit of economics from the parent, but each person would feel they could get some larger economics from their own good performance if they did a good job.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. That's great. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with David Rubenstein. And we're talking about the Carlyle Group, which he co-founded, and he's the co-executive chairman. And we're gonna be talking now about other things that he's been leading along the way. This show talks about leadership. And what I love to hear is that as an entrepreneur, David, you decided, I'm going to do something and you seized it. I mean, and I guess every day you kind of renew that pledge?
David Rubenstein
Well, like many entrepreneurs, if you look back and you say, how could I have thought I was gonna do this? I knew so little. If I know—I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it. Because I didn't know anything. But the advantage of not knowing anything is you don't know what you don't know. So in hindsight, I shouldn't have done this. And my mother—when I told my mother, Look, I'm giving up the practice of law. And my mother, you know, she was not college or high school educated, very plain, you know, in her outlook. She was always worried that I would not be a success. So when I went to law school, she was happy. Though she'd want to go to dental school. She thought that was a better profession. I told her I might get arthritis in my fingers. So I don't want to be a dentist. So I went to law school, she was of course convinced I would fail the bar exam because her friends who had children who had taken the bar exam had all failed, so she didn't think I could pass it. So I passed the bar exam. But then she would ultimately be afraid that if I started a business, and I didn't know anything about business, it would fail. She said, Please keep your law license. So today, 32 years after I started Carlisle, I still have my DC bar license, because I want to make sure I have something to fall back on.
Alan Fleischmann
For mom. I love it. You know, so you started Carlyle. You're actually building Carlyle? Did you ever think you'd go back to the White House? Was it ever something in the back of your mind? Or once you started the firm, you said, you know what, I'm here.
David Rubenstein
Well, to be honest, in the, you know, more than 40 years since I left government, there hadn't been any offers to come back. I got inflation to 18%. And nobody's asked me to come back. My boss didn't get reelected. So nobody's asked me to come back. So I would say there hasn't been a lot of demand. I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon. But, you know, hope springs eternal. Maybe somebody will say they want to get high inflation again, and they want me to come back.
Alan Fleischmann
I love you for that. That's wonderful. And the truth is, you've actually had an amazing journey of public service. And you describe that what drew you to the White House, in your 20s, was the love of service, honestly. And when you look at what you've done in your life, since you've been building your Carlyle, which is extraordinary in its depth and breadth, is a love of service. When did you start becoming focused on the community? Or is that always something you were doing?
David Rubenstein
Well, I grew up in a family that didn't have a lot of money. My family were not philanthropists, my mother did volunteer for things. And I'd like to remind people that philanthropy is a derivative of an ancient Greek word, that means loving humanity. And you can love humanity with your time, your energy, your ideas, and your money. So my mother did a lot of volunteer work. And I tell people all the time, the most valuable thing you have is your time, you can always make more money if you're really inclined to make money. You can maybe come up with fresh ideas, you can't make more time. So giving your time to to a philanthropic cause or a good project is a very important thing to do. In my case, when Carlyle became successful, Forbes magazine began to write about the net worth of my partners and me, and saying how high our net worth was and it was probably reasonably accurate. So I realized that, you know, when you have this much money, what are you going to do? So I don't have and I will never have the wealth of Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos. That's in a stratosphere that's well beyond what I have. But by the standards of any normal human being on the face of the earth, I have a lot of money. So what do you do with it when you have a lot of money? Well, throughout history, the most common thing that people have done with a lot of money is buy a lot of physical objects. But then they ultimately leave it to their spouse and their children. That's the most common thing people have done throughout history. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I thought that I didn't want to burden my children with too much money. They may not have agreed with that. But I don't honestly, think that, to be serious, if you give a child a billion dollars and say, guess what, you don't have to work that hard, you're gonna inherit a billion dollars. Do whatever you want. It doesn't usually lead to a Nobel prize from that child or something great. So I think it's a good thing to give love to your children, support them in any way you can, help them with their ideas, give them a good education to the extent you can, but not make them feel that they have unlimited amounts of money that will make it possible for them to do anything or essentially do nothing in their life. So if you say you're not going to give your children all your money, what are you going to do with it? Well, you can do what the Pharaohs did, which is build pyramids, and take your wealth and be buried with it. There's no evidence you really need it in the afterlife. So if you eliminate that possibility, you basically are going to give it away to causes or projects that are useful. And you either do it while you're alive or upon your death. And I am amazed at how many people give away the bulk of their money upon their death, as if they are afraid that they don't have it until the end. There are a lot of well known philanthropists, very good people, but you see, they sometimes make gifts when they're 90 years old, saying, Well, when I die, you're going to get this money. Well, what are you waiting for? When you're 90, you might as well give it when you're 90. But in my case, I decided to largely try to give it all away while I'm alive. I don't know how long I'll live, but with a normal life expectancy, I hope to be able to give away most of the money while I'm alive.
Alan Fleischmann
We're going to come back in a minute, what I'd love to do is talk to you about—you're also a signer of the Giving Pledge, which is—I want you to describe a little bit. I know that you've been a great mentor to many other philanthropists, and encouraging them to be signers of the Giving Pledge as well. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1
What does it take to be a great leader? How are the leaders of today changing the world? Leadership Matters with your host business advisor Alan Fleischmann.
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome back. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with David Rubenstein, my good friend and we're talking about leadership, philanthropy. David, you know, we're gonna get back to the philanthropy conversation, I just want to make a point. You actually—everything you do is excellent. When you think about what you've done with private equity and building Carlyle, you did things that nobody else has ever done, you created things that hadn't been done. You're also known as being an amazing fundraiser. And I remember you saying at one point that you, you know, you should not be uncomfortable asking other people for money. If you don't believe in what you're doing, you shouldn't ask.
David Rubenstein
Well, let me just talk about that. Interestingly, many people in society are spending a lot of their time either being asked for money or asking people for money. It is amazing how many people, when I asked them, have, how many people I will say to an audience in the last month have they asked somebody for a political contribution, a philanthropic contribution or an investment. A lot of hands are raised. Or how many of you have been asked for those kinds of things, political, philanthropic, or business? And many, many people are asking people for money, or being asked for money. And there's nothing wrong with it. If you're asking people for money, presumably you think it's a good thing. You shouldn't be embarrassed about it. It is interesting that when you go to business school, Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, or virtually any good business school and say, guess what, I want to be a fundraiser, people say, you want to be a fundraiser? You want to be an investment professional, you want to be a manager of big companies, you don't be a fundraiser because it's like the bottom of the totem pole. But the truth is, asking people for money often is an important skill. And it makes the world go round. I wish they would teach people how to ask people for money and do it in an intelligent, informed way. So in the—any organization, when you join an organization, you can say to yourself, I'm just the founder of the organization so I don't have to do any work. I'll just sit here and people will work for me. It doesn't usually work that way. If you build an organization, you found it, you have to do something to make it useful. And at some point, if you're not adding to the company, you'll be thrown out of the company. Steve Jobs was thrown out of Apple, at one point, obviously, he came back and built a great company. But founders aren't guaranteed life tenure. So when I started Carlyle, the other guys were saying, Well, David, you don't have any investment experience. David, you're really not great at reading a balance sheet. So like, what's your contribution here? So I said, Alright, I've got to find something that I can do that's useful. And what we needed to do was to have somebody who would ask for money, raise the money. So I took on the job of raising money. Something I wasn't really qualified for, I thought, because my view was that fundraisers were people that were—men were wearing suspenders, smoked cigars, back slappers, played golf, drank a lot of alcohol. I didn't do any of those things. So I wasn't sure I was cut out for it. But I ultimately taught myself how to go ask people for money in an intelligent, informed and sensible way. And ultimately, I became the person who was responsible for overseeing the fundraising for Carlyle over the 30 some years.
Alan Fleischmann
I think you still are.
David Rubenstein
Well, we have a lot of other people now doing it and they don't need me so much. But I would say I also decided to do the same thing in the philanthropic area. It's one thing to write a check to an organization. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think that's an important thing to do if you have the means to do it. But I like to get involved with organizations that I'm supporting by serving on the board or some other way helping them. In some cases, I will try to help them by chairing a capital campaign or being involved in the capital campaign, therefore having to ask other people for money for a philanthropic organization. And I—if I've given money, I don't think there's anything wrong with asking other people to do the same. So I've done this a fair bit and I think it's a useful service.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, you're an authentic asker. So when you ask something, people know that you believe in it. And you're a great storyteller, so you don't just come in with a transactional—come in, I want you to invest in this or I want you to give. You tell people why.
David Rubenstein
It's important that you understand what you're talking about. If you're going to be a good fundraiser in the business or political or philanthropic area, you should understand the cause and understand what you're doing and be able to talk sensibly about it. And recognize that people probably aren't going to say, Oh, yes, I wanted to give you $10 million today for this philanthropic cause. I was waiting with this extra $10 million just sitting here. That doesn't usually happen. It takes a while for things to take hold. For example, I wanted to build an extension to the Kennedy Center. I'm the chairman of the Kennedy Center. And I've been the chair for about 10 years. And it's a great place for me, I love it, because it's named after John Kennedy, who inspired me to go into public service. It's involved with the performing arts, which I think is a great way to bring people together. And also shows the great development of the human mind when you see the great operas and ballets and symphonies. It just shows you what human potential really can accomplish. And has accomplished. So I like it. And I thought the facility was a little dated in some ways. We should modernize and make it more open to the public, and to the local community. So we built an extension. And I decided that I would not go to the federal government for money, we would raise it all philanthropically. And we did and in that case, I had a large contributor to it. So it was easier for me to ask people for money, along with other people who are involved in asking. So I think if you contribute to something, you can easily ask people for additional support needed.
Alan Fleischmann
So I'm on the board of the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, and you're obviously the chairman of the board, you're kind of a very big imprint on the Kennedy Center, which I love. I'm a member of the economic club in Washington, DC. You give the best interviews and you attract the greatest talent to Washington at the Economic Club. I'm a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and you're the chairman there. You know, when you think about that, you're the chairman of the Smithsonian, Chairman of the Kennedy Center, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, you're Chairman of Economic Club. I'm not done yet, am I? What other chairmanships do you have?
David Rubenstein
Oh, I've been very fortunate that when I get involved in these organizations, they can't find other people that want to be the chair so I become the chair. And so sometimes they don't have term limits. So I stay the chair for a while, but I enjoy it. And it's one of the great pleasures of my life and giving back in the philanthropic area. And clearly, when you chair a board, you have a certain responsibility, but you also have a sense of accomplishment. So you know, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to do this, and how much longer I'm going to be on the face of the earth. But at some point, my children and grandchildren will say, well, the old man, he did something while he was here. He built that building, he oversaw this project. And, you know, it gives you a good feeling.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, these are iconic institutions. And you said earlier, we're talking about you in the White House, how you had such endurance, what you had to do you live to work days, and you said you were young with endurance, the thing you don't know, maybe you do, is that behind your back, people always wonder—it's not like you just took the title, you are so present at every one of the institutions I just mentioned. You were physically there, and you were leading them, them and you were bringing new people on board, and you're convincing them why the mission is so great, as if that's your only thing. But you're the you know, you're the active executive co-executive chairman of Carlyle, you are the chairman of these iconic, very busy institutions. So the real question I got, which I'm dying to know, and I'm sure our listeners want to know, How do you do? How do you manage time? Are there secrets to that? Because I know you're on airplanes flying back and forth overseas as well.
David Rubenstein
There are two secrets. One, I don't play golf, that's very time consuming. So that saves a lot of time. Secondly, people don't know this, but I'm actually a twin. I have another brother. He's an identical twin. And he does the nonprofit, I do the for profit stuff. We never actually appear in the same place at the same time. So that's how we pull it off.
Alan Fleischmann
Danny Rubenstein. Right?
David Rubenstein
Right. So there's another person you don't really—you never see us at the same time. It's like Clark Kent and Superman.
Alan Fleischmann
I wondered whether it was like, you know, holographic? I don't know, there's things you're doing that are actually holograms or something because it is true. Are there secrets—are you an eight hour sleeper? Are you—
David Rubenstein
You know, I have read a lot of books about the importance of eight hours a night and sleeping, but I am not good at that. So I think if I can get five or six hours a night I'm okay. If I—sometimes I can get three or four hours. And after a couple days, you got to catch up. But I know doctors wouldn't say it's a good thing. But I've never really been a long sleeper. Some people can't get by with less than eight hours. Some people really don't do as well with eight hours, six hours is fine for me. Five and a half is fine for me. As you get older, you're not as old as me. When you're a man and you're as old as I am, 70, you're not going to get eight hours of sleep a night anyway, uninterrupted, as you're always getting up in the middle of the night. But this is an occupational hazard you get when you get to be older.
Alan Fleischmann
I understand. I understand very well, you know, but you know, for me, actually, I would say because I get to work with CEOs around the world, the one thing they had in common is that none of them none of them slept. Now I've seen that there's a trend to sleep. Everybody wants to claim that they're sleeping eight hours. I'm not convinced people are really sleeping eight hours, but they're claiming that they're sleeping eight hours.
David Rubenstein
They might be claiming it and they may be sleeping in their office hours. You don't know. But there's no doubt there's a certain macho quality to saying I don't need a lot of sleep. And I think that can be dangerous because clearly the human body is designed to sleep. And what's the purpose of sleep? It's not to rest your fingers, your hands, your muscles, they don't really need the rest. It's your brain. It's the brain that has to retool, and it's the brain that really needs to sleep and if you don't get enough hours to sleep, eventually you're gonna make mistakes. You need to get a reasonable amount. And in some cases, I might catch up on a weekend if I've not had a lot of sleep during the week, I can sleep a little bit longer on a weekend.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, you know, the big thing about you is that you show up, you're there. I mean, I am stunned to know that you—at a major event, at the Kennedy Center, or major events at all the institutions, that you're the CEO. You're the chairman. The Smithsonian has many entities under it. They all have major events. You've got many, many entities in the Kennedy Center. Many events. You're on the board of Harvard, you said. You know, so you show up. I know you do at the Council on Foreign Relations. So that's got to be a big part of your leadership DNA.
David Rubenstein
When I chair a board—I've chaired many of them, I have never missed a board meeting, I think when I'm the Chair. Now, sometimes, because of schedule conflicts, I'm not the chair, I don't have the same responsibility, but I try to show up when I can. There are some boards where there are conflicts and I don't do as good a job. There are a few boards I'm on where I've been trying to get off of them. And I'm not the chair, and I just can't come to the meetings. But sometimes they say well, why don't you stay on the board? Because you'll be a big donor, even if you're not on the board. You're staying on the board, even if you don't come to the meetings. But I do try to, you know, show up and really contribute something if I can the board meetings.
Alan Fleischmann
No, it's amazing. I know that in the Economic Club, for example, you've got these great interviews, you've got this show that you have built on Bloomberg TV called the David Rubenstein show, which I recommend to folks, where you interview leaders. And people love when you talk to people, and when you do the one on ones with folks, in particular. Because you bring out their voices, and you help people, when you're a chairman, bring out their contribution, both financially and their voices on the boards.
David Rubenstein
It's worked out okay. I didn't think I was gonna have an interview show. I became the president of the Economic Club in Washington. My job was let's get business people to speak. But I realized they were not scintillating speakers, people were falling asleep. So I decided I'd interview them and use some humor to make the interviews more lively. Bloomberg people saw it and they said, why don't you do a TV show similar to what you've done at Economic Club? I said, Okay. They said, we're gonna name it the David Rubenstein show. And I said, geez, a long Jewish name like that probably is not going to work. And they said, No, Mike Bloomberg thinks it's okay.
Alan Fleischmann
That's a good point.
David Rubenstein
So anyway, it's worked out and I enjoy it. But to me, it's pleasurable and I like to prepare. And you're obviously prepared for this interview. And I like to prepare for interviews as well. And, you know, people seem to enjoy it, so I'm gonna keep doing it for a while.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, it's very intimidating to interview you because you are so prepared, and people know what you do. And you also bring such great joy and humor to everything you do. Again, this is Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And I'm here with David Rubenstein. You know, David, go back to the Giving Pledge for a moment, then I got to get to your book. And there's so much to talk about with you, it's extraordinary. I could literally talk about any one of the entities you are affiliated with for two hours. And gladly. The Giving Pledge is a big deal. It was founded, I guess, by Bill Gates with Warren Buffett. And the idea is, you know, to do what you were saying earlier that people should not, you know, think that they should give when they die, but give in their life, or at least commit to half their wealth, at least.
David Rubenstein
Let me explain. It was Bill and Melinda Gates with Warren Buffett, who started it. It was started about eight years ago, I guess. And originally there were 40 of us who signed. Now it's about 200 or so, mostly in the United States, because people in the United States are much more philanthropic. When Bill and Warren have talked to people in China or other places, they say, We want you to give away half your wealth. People were like, Hey, are you crazy? Half? Well, maybe 5%. So it's an American philanthropic gene, we have. Our country was started when the country didn't have any money. And so the idea of volunteer associations giving back to society through your time, your energy or your money was part of our initial history. When de Tocqueville came over here in the 1830s, he was amazed that everybody was volunteering for things. In Europe, there was a rich state, and there was a rich government and church and they kind of supported a lot of the educational and other kinds of cultural things. Here, we didn't have that tradition. So we continue this today. And the United States is by far the most philanthropic country in the world per capita. Roughly 2% of GDP goes to philanthropic contributions every year. The Giving Pledge is a good symbol of the idea of giving back, but it's a symbol because even if you have 200 of the wealthiest people in the world giving away half of their money, that's not going to solve all the social problems of the world. What we really want to do is have other people say, Well, I may not be worth what Bill Gates is worth, but I will give back to society what I can afford and or with my time or energy as well. So we really want to encourage philanthropy across the board, not just from the wealthiest people.
Alan Fleischmann
I know though, I know several billionaire investors who decided that they were going to sign the Giving Pledge because you did, you know. Less so because—actually, they've met with Warren and Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates after they heard from you. So like you do with every board chairmanship, I guess, you're not afraid to tell people, you know, what is your plan for philanthropy? And how are you doing it?
David Rubenstein
I didn't know that. Maybe I should get a finder's fee. I don't know. But I'm glad to hear that. But actually, what induces people to give away money interestingly, is peer to peer requesting and peer to peer example. When people read that Bill Gates or Warren Buffett does something and you feel you're a peer or close to a peer, you might be more inclined to follow them. I'm not as wealthy as they are, but if people were roughly my net worth, see what I'm doing, maybe they might be inspired to do it, I don't know. But what I try to do when I give away money is remind people that I came from very modest circumstances, and got very lucky in this country. And if you're in the same situation as me, maybe you have an obligation to give back to the country in the same way.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, that's important. Let's go to that right now too. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And I'm talking to David Rubenstein, investor, philanthropist, and leader in so many institutions. And the one thing that people should know more about, and I think they do, but we should know more about, is your love of this country. You were just talking about giving back to the you know, in this country. You've done that in many ways. You seem to be the one person— you know, the government doesn't always jump in. You've actually invested in our history, and, you know, in very, very important ways, and then you've donated back to our institutions. Let me explain. Because I worked at the White House and on Capitol Hill, I do have a sense of history, perhaps. And I was probably better in history than I was in physics, and maybe that accounts for it as well. But there's no doubt if you live in Washington, maybe I also have a sense of history. Sadly, we don't teach civics in history very much anymore. So for example, three quarters of Americans 75% Americans cannot name the three branches of our government, in a recent survey. 1/3 of Americans can only name one branch of government. It turns out that Americans just aren't educated that much anymore. For example, if you were a naturalized citizen in this country, you have to live in this country for five years, and then take a citizenship test, which typically has 100 questions, you need to get 60 right. 91% of the people take that test pass. The same survey was recently given by the—I believe it was the Woodrow Wilson foundation, to native born Americans in all 50 states. In only one state, Vermont, could the majority of citizens pass the basic citizenship test that naturalized citizens have to pass. So what I'm trying to do in this one area is say let's educate people more about history, more about civics, so that we can have a more informed society. George Santayana, a very famous Harvard teacher once said, If those people don't remember history, they're condemned to relive it. In other words, you're going to make mistakes that others made before. Let's not try to do that. So one of the projects that has been involved with is buying historic documents like the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, 13th Amendment, put them in places where people see them. If you see an original, your brain is still more likely to force you to go read more about it before or after you see it. I've been involved in restoring like Monticello or Montpelier, James Madison's home or Arlington House at the top of Arlington Cemetery. And the theory that if people visit these historic sites, they might be more inclined to learn more about the history involved with it. A project I'm also involved with is one that led to this new book, The American Story. I've been trying to make sure that members of Congress also know about history. So once a month, for the last six years, I've had a program where at the Library of Congress, I get a great historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, or David McCullough, and have them come in and let me interview them in front of members of Congress. And members of Congress love this because it's a bipartisan thing. They don't have to do political kinds of things there. They can just—no presses there. They can learn about American history from our great historians. And these people are very interested in history. They're making history, so they're interested in learning what their predecessors did. And so it's worked quite well. And this book is designed to take about 18 of the interviews, put them together, and let people read the interviews that members of Congress are in fact experiencing firsthand. The book is The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians. It's extraordinary. It's about John Sdams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King, Lyndon Johnson, and many more. And when you look at who you attracted, I guess these are the ones who actually did the interviews with, they are the greatest historians of our time.
David Rubenstein
I've done about 50 interviews so far, the first book, and if this book sells, hopefully, there will be a second volume. But let me just give you one example of somebody who's not a historian interviewed, which is the Chief Justice of the United States. As you noted, I am the chairman of the Smithsonian, but John Roberts, who's the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, is the chancellor of the Smithsonian. So he's involved and I deal with him reasonably regularly about Smithsonian matters. So I asked him if he would let me interview him in front of members of Congress, because they don't really know him that well, even though their offices are only a couple 100 yards apart. So he said yes. So at the beginning of the interview, I said to the Chief Justice, did you always want to be, when you're a little boy, Chief Justice of the United States? And he said, No. Well, did you want to be a justice on the Supreme Court? No. Did you want to be a judge? No. Well, did you want to be a lawyer? No. What do you want to be? I wanted to be a historian. All I cared about was American history. John Robert's father said, John, you won't make any money doing that. You will write books, they'll be boring, nobody will pay attention. He said, I don't care. So he went off to Harvard and he majored in history. Came back from spring break one year, sophomore year, I believe it was. Got in a cab at Logan Airport and said to the cab driver, Please take me to Cambridge. Cab driver said, Are you a student at Harvard? Yes, I am. What are you majoring in? I major in history. Cab driver said, Well, when I was a student at Harvard, that's what I majored in also. So all of a sudden, John Roberts realized that maybe he shouldn't major in history if he wanted to have a nice income. So he did go to law school, though he did stay as a history major, but he did go to law school.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that, you know, but I think when you look at this—when you read this book, and then when you look at what you've done in conservation, preservation of our greatest documents in history, and then obviously you've done other things with are—physically with the buildings and Washington Monument you've been involved in. And the National Cathedral, I think as well, right?
David Rubenstein
Well, I've been involved with the Washington—not the National Cathedral, the Washington Monument.
Alan Fleischmann
You get a lot of credit for that one, though.
David Rubenstein
People have given me credit for the National Cathedral. I told them, when they asked me, I said, Geez, I'm not sure I'm the right religion for that. But they've done pretty well on that. On the Washington Monument, it had its earthquake damage, and I did put up some money to help and the federal government did as well and we restored it and it has recently been opened again.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, the majesty of our history, when you think about—when you look at our fore-fathers and fore-mothers, I guess, in history, they believed in the majesty of the American story, they also believed in an access to it. So you've done both, you've actually reminded people to kind of sit up straight and remind them what our country is about, and then also created access so that people understood it.
David Rubenstein
The human brain has not yet evolved, fortunately, such that if you see a computer screen of the picture of the Washington Monument, or the Declaration of Independence, you feel the same attachment to what you've seen on the computer screen as if you actually physically visit the place, maybe in 100 years, 200 years, 1000 years, a computer screen picture of something will be the same as actually physically experience it. But because if you physically experienced the Washington Monument or the Declaration of Independence, you're more likely to read more about it before or after you see it or experience it. And therefore you might be more educated about it than you would otherwise be.
Alan Fleischmann
I mean, the book is amazing. So I really do hope people buy it. Whether it's for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, whatever the occasion or people's birthdays, but to remind people to actually know their history and know their leaders and what I love about it is you're telling the story of the American history through the life of individuals.
David Rubenstein
That's, that's correct. Yes.
Alan Fleischmann
So it's really about leadership yet again. Let me define our story through people, which ultimately, is what people attach to.
David Rubenstein
So we take some of the leading figures in our country's history, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and interview the great historians who wrote about them and try to distill the interviews. And that's what I tried to do in this book. And I hope people enjoy it.
Alan Fleischmann
And if you do a second one who's missing in this book that you're going to capture in the next one?
David Rubenstein
Well, there are a lot of famous people we have interviews about, and we will have them in the second volume, assuming there's a second volume.
Alan Fleischmann
And there's a rumor that you've got a few other books in the pipeline. One about leadership?
David Rubenstein
That's correct. I will be doing a book coming out next year. And I hopefully will be working on it the remainder of this year where I'll take the Bloomberg interviews, which I've now done a fair number of, and I will distill the leadership points from the leaders that I've interviewed, what is it that they think it took to make them a leader? And what are the key attributes of leadership? And that's a book that I hope will get out early next year.
Alan Fleischmann
What I love about this interview is I get to talk about you because you really are out there in a mission to put the spotlight on others, and tell the story of others and their stories and obviously, their trials and tribulations along the way as they are either entrepreneurs or historians, or are frankly, public officials. So you seem to be on a quest to personalize the dynamics in the—in all sectors, private, public, and civil society.
David Rubenstein
Well, everybody has tried to do what they can. And I try to remind people of a story that I talk about sometimes in speeches that I give. And that is this story. That Alfred Nobel sat down at his breakfast table in Stockholm in the 1880s. And he was reading the newspaper, and he read that he had died. His obituary was there. And it said, Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, The Merchant of Death has died. Thank God, he's gone. Now, obviously, it was fake news, because it was his younger brother who had died. But he didn't like what he read. And he said, How can I change the image that people have of me? He obviously came up with a Nobel prize. And if he's looking down from heaven, he realizes his name is now not considered the Merchant of Death, but the man who really did a lot of great things for society. So I tell people, think about your own obituary. If you were going to write your own obituary tomorrow, or you're going to read it tomorrow? Would you be happy with what you saw? And if the answer is you're not sure? What can you do in the remaining years of your life, to make the obituary one that your children, your partner, your spouse, your grandchildren, your parents would be proud of? And so I always try to think about what am I doing that I can do better and make imprint on society and to leave the country or my neighborhood or my state slightly better than when I came onto this face of the Earth?
Alan Fleischmann
You know, what I love about you, David, is that when I think of you, I think of someone who's insatiably curious, which means you're going to be young forever. You are confident but not arrogant. And you carry yourself with an extraordinary amount of humility, genuinely, and you are fun to be with. And I think it's amazing how much you do and you juggle. I hope you never lose that endurance and energy that you had. And I guess as a Baltimore boy, where we started, someone who, you know, who can relate to your—the values that you bring, to everything you do. You made your mom and dad pretty proud.
David Rubenstein
Well, I often say that the strongest magnetic force in the world is not necessarily nuclear energy, or magnetic forces of cosmic dimensions. But it's the love between a mother and a son. And so my mother was very proud of what I achieved. Fortunately, before she passed away, she would tell me that and tell her friends and after she died, I went through all of her belongings and she had every letter I'd ever written her, every article I had ever had had written about me all categorized, cataloged, and everything. And she obviously took pride in it. So if you can make your mother proud, what greater thing is there to do in life than that?
Alan Fleischmann
So that's, you know, as a guy who loved his late mother and late father, who admired you. My father, who died 93 and a half this last summer, loved everything that you were doing. Was a historian himself, and loved. He was in World War Two. And he loved everything you were doing, and literally saw you as somebody who had rescued America. And I think I got to encourage you to keep rescuing America, keep making your mom proud. When you think about this book, when you think about the institutions that you were leading, when you think of the role model that you bring, I am grateful. I'm grateful to be in the community that you live, here and elsewhere. I get to see you everywhere.
David Rubenstein
Alright, so let's do it this way. Sometime I'll come back here and let me interview you.
Alan Fleischmann
I would love that.
David Rubenstein
All right, I'll come back and interview you on your show.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, I would love that. That'd be painful for me. But I's enjoy it.
David Rubenstein
We'll do that.
Alan Fleischmann
What we'll do is we'll talk about your next book. And the other books you're going to do and I'll turn it right back on you.
David Rubenstein
We'll talk about your books. Okay.
Alan Fleischmann
We're gonna talk about your books. But you know, David, it is such an honor. It's such a pleasure. I wish this were a two hour show. I am looking forward to having you back on here when you have another book. I do urge everyone to go and buy The American Story by David Rubenstein. It is an amazing book and do check out, you know, the wonderful David Rubenstein show on Bloomberg TV. And then, you know, go to the Smithsonian. It's free. Those who are coming to Washington, please come check out a place that David holds dear. And that is the institution that he is chairman of, the Smithsonian Institution. It is free. And it has so many wonderful museums. Go to the Kennedy Center, check out the Economic Club and get involved in foreign affairs. I don't know David, you've done a lot of people proud. And I'm glad to be your friend.
David Rubenstein
Thank you very much. And I forgot to mention that if people read this book, they will live a longer life. You might be skeptical of that. But why would you want to take a chance that I'm wrong?
Alan Fleischmann
I think that's a very good thing. I think we should leave with that. If you want to live a long and healthy life, read The American Story. Thank you all for being here today. This is Alan Fleischmann on Leadership Matters. I've had the great pleasure of interviewing David Rubenstein. He has too many titles to tell. But I just want to say as a great investor, CEO, Chairman, you name it. And a great philanthropist. He's one of a kind and we're grateful that he was with us today.
David Rubenstein
Thank you.
