Today, we will be diving into Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager. Founded in 1985 as a boutique M&A advisory business with $400,000 of seed capital. The firm now manages over $600 billion across private equity, real estate, credit, and hedge fund strategies. In this breakdown, we will start by discussing Blackstone’s business model and ... Show More
Jul 27
Applied Intuition: A Billion Intelligent Machines - [Business Breakdowns, EP.248]
Today, we are breaking down Applied Intuition. Our guests are co-founders Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig, who started the company in 2017 with a mission to make a billion machines intelligent. The simplest way to understand Applied Intuition is that it builds the brains for machin ... Show More
47m 13s
May 29
Toast: Sticky SaaS - [Business Breakdowns, EP.247]
Today, we are breaking down Toast, a name we have covered before but are revisiting because the story has changed enough to be worth telling again. Most listeners will have tapped a Toast terminal without thinking much about the business behind it. Our guest is Sean Barrett, foun ... Show More
49m 24s
May 15
Auto1: EU-sed Car Marketplace - [Business Breakdowns, EP.246]
Today, we are breaking down Auto1, and this is an interesting episode because we are tackling a business that most US listeners will not be familiar with, even though it resembles names they already know well. Our guest is Harrison Moot, co-founder and CIO of Sandstone, who walks ... Show More
1h 5m
May 2025
Corporate Finance Explained | Private Equity Unlocked: Strategy, Investment, and Corporate Growth
What drives success in private equity? In this episode of Careers in Finance, we unpack the strategies behind some of the biggest PE deals in history, from Blackstone’s transformation of Hilton Hotels to the Dell Technologies buyout. But it’s not just about big names and bold mov ... Show More
14m 35s
Jan 2025
Blackstone President and COO: Investment Decisions, Entrepreneurial Drive and Company Culture
<p>oin Nicolai Tangen as he sits down with Jonathan Gray, COO of Blackstone and former head of its real estate division. Gray shares what drives Blackstone’s success, the evolution of their investment philosophy, and the process for identifying outstanding businesses. He also pro ... Show More
49m 24s
Oct 2025
Bill Ackman - Evolving Investment Playbook, From MBIA to Moats
Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, joins hosts Michael Mauboussin and Tano Santos to trace the arc of his investing journey—from his early days in real estate finance to founding Gotham Partners and eventually building Pershing Square into a $30 b ... Show More
56m 47s
Jul 2021
Steve Mandel - Investing Behind Change - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 235]
My guest today is Steve Mandel, founder of Lone Pine Capital, one of the most successful hedge fund and investment firms of this generation. In our conversation, we discuss how the investing business has evolved since Steve’s start in the 1980s, why it’s so difficult to drive alp ... Show More
1h 12m
Jan 2024
Erik Serrano - Investing in Investment Firms - [Invest Like the Best, EP.358]
My guest today is Erik Serrano. Erik is the CEO of Stable Asset Management, which he started 14 years ago in his early 20s and has scaled to over $3 billion in AUM. Unusually, Stable’s strategy focuses on other investing firms. They look to back the Blackstone's of tomorrow and p ... Show More
1h 27m