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Blackstone

0 statements across 0 episodes · 7 bullish · 1 bearish · 3 people on the record · first statement Apr 12, 2023 by Deb Liu · said 14 times in 3 episodes since 2023 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by David Haber (9), Tony James (3), Dylan Patel (1), Deb Liu (1)

tap a year for its mentions
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0112023202420252026episodes it came up in
007.50.51512023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 12 mentions in 1 episode
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Blackstone, oldest first

Apr 12, 2023
Assertion Supported
Blackstone interviewed Ancestry CEO Deb Liu entirely on Zoom after $4.7B acquisition
“You're picking a CEO for a company they had just bought for 4.7 billion dollars. Blackstone did the entire interview process in zoom.”
Deb Liu Apr 12, 2023 ▶ 1:08 Marketplace Tactics: Metrics, Growth vs. Focus, Business Strategy | Field Notes by Connie Chan
Aug 23, 2025
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Horowitz: Public markets value private equity on fee streams over returns
“The public markets value them on their fee stream much more than on their investment returns.”
Ben Horowitz Aug 23, 2025 ▶ 6:11 Ben Horowitz Shares the a16z Origin Story & Plans for the Future
May 5, 2026 bullish
Disclosure
James: Blackstone employs 500 people in retail distribution unit
“There's no other firm that could have afforded to build the retail distribution. We have 500 people in that.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 51:48 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tony James says he once managed 50 direct reports to minimize hierarchy
“I had at one point, I think, 50 direct reports.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 1:04:48 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Blackstone grew its valuation from $1B to $170B under Tony James
“AIG had just put a hundred million dollars into Blackstone for 10% of the company and the rights to invest in our funds. So, at best, it was worth a billion dollars, and when I left, it was worth a 170.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 35:28 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Insight
James: Never buy fully built franchises where you pay for prior growth
“We'd never wanted to buy a fully built out franchise where you're paying someone else for all the growth. We wanted to deliver the growth, the value of the growth to our shareholders.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 1:03:38 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Insight
Tony James: Investment committees define Blackstone's culture and rigor
“And also, for a firm like Blackstone, it's investment committees that are the cultural crucible of what defines the firm.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 40:30 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
James: Every Blackstone acquisition succeeded, returning at least 3-4x
“Every one of our acquisitions worked. There were two that didn't really move the needle strategically, but we made a very good return on the investment. We probably made three or four times our money.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 1:02:00 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Supported
Tony James: DLJ had $29B AUM when sold to Credit Suisse
“And that, and we built that business when we sold DOJ to Credit Suisse, it was about a twenty-nine billion dollar AUM business. Blackstone at the time was high teens”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 11:40 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Not checkable as stated
James: Prepared Blackstone IPO in secret for nine months
“Steve delegated to me, and I did really with no one else in the firm actually helping for nine months. I did it at night, and worked out all this with bankers, outside bankers and lawyers, but not internal people.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 58:54 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026 positive
Opinion
Fewer than 1 in 100 founders willingly relinquish operational control
“To give that Element of control, that level of control to someone else. Not one in a hundred would have done that.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 30:59 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Supported
Blackstone imposed an unprecedented eight-year stock lockup at its IPO
“We did that first of all, by basically telling people they can't sell any stock for eight years.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 57:25 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Partly supported
Pre-IPO Blackstone was structured as 173 independent partnerships
“Blackstone wasn't a firm. It was a 173 independent partnerships, all with different percentage ownerships. Every fund had a different percentage ownership than every other fund.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 54:19 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Contradicted
James: Blackstone spent $75M annually on corporate overhead for IPO
“Added seventy-five million dollars a year at the time to our operating cost, which is not nothing, a lot more today.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 56:16 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Not checkable as stated
James: Blackstone lost no key partners for eight years post-IPO
“And we didn't lose anyone that we didn't want to lose for eight years.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 58:07 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026
Assertion Supported
Tony James Replaced Almost Every Business Leader Upon Arriving at Blackstone
“I think virtually every, the leader of every business almost was changed, because a lot of culture comes from leadership.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 36:32 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026 negative
Assertion Supported
Blackstone wrote off one-third of a private equity fund before 2002
“The private equity business, they'd raised a fund and had made a couple of disastrous investors so that, that were within a year write-offs with about a third of the fund.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 34:37 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tony James and Steve Schwarzman agreed on 98% of decisions at Blackstone
“By the way, we agreed 98% of the time.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 29:46 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Blackstone turned a $119M acquisition into a $120B secondary business
“So we bought it for a hundred and nineteen million. It's a hundred and twenty billion dollar business today. It's worth tens of billions.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 1:01:42 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
May 5, 2026 bullish
Opinion
James: Blackstone's retail network is an irreplicable dominant strategic asset
“That I think is the, now the one, the dominant strategic asset that Blackstone has that no one else can really replicate. Because no one else has the breadth of product so that you're always in the market.”
Tony James May 5, 2026 ▶ 52:40 Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
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