Career
Schwarzman's first job in the financial services was with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, a now defunct investment bank. After business school, Schwarzman started working at the investment bank Lehman Brothers, where he reached the rank of managing director at age 31. He eventually became the head of Lehman Brothers' global mergers and acquisitions team. In 1985, Schwarzman and his boss Peter Peterson started Blackstone, which originally focused on mergers and acquisitions.
With an estimated current net worth of around $4.7 billion, Schwarzman was ranked by Forbes as the 52nd-richest person in America in 2011. He lives in a large apartment at 740 Park Avenue in New York, previously owned by the Mayflower descendent George Brewster and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Schwarzman bought it from Saul Steinberg in 2000 for just under $30 million. However, an article in the New Yorker claims that the apartment was purchased for $37 million.
On 13 February 2007, Schwarzman celebrated his 60th birthday at the Armory on Park Avenue. Guests included Colin Powell, Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, and Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York. The climax of the evening was a half-hour live performance by Rod Stewart, for which he was reportedly paid $1 million.
When Blackstone went public in June 2007, it revealed in a securities filing that Schwarzman had earned about $398.3 million in fiscal 2006. He ultimately received $684 million selling part of his Blackstone stake in the IPO, keeping a stake then worth $9.1 billion.
In 2007, Schwarzman was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.
Schwarzman has served as an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Management and is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In June 2007, Schwarzman described his view on financial markets with the statement: "I want war, not a series of skirmishes. (...) I always think about what will kill off the other bidder."
On March 11, 2008 Schwarzman announced that he contributed $100 million toward the expansion of the New York Public Library, for which he serves as a trustee. The central reference building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue was renamed "The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building".
In August 2010, Schwarzman compared the Obama administration's plan to raise carried interest taxes to Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, a comment for which Schwarzman later apologized.
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