427: Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman shares stories from his childhood, his time as an undergraduate at Yale, on Wall Street, and business school at Harvard, and his experiences at Lehman Brothers and Blackstone. These stories how he went from nearly failing in an English course in college to the Dean’s List, how he offered constructive criticism to the Dean of Harvard Business School while he was a student, how he led one of the biggest mergers in history to date as a fourth-year associate at Lehman Brothers who had never done a merger, as well as tales from the founding and growth of Blackstone. We also discuss the importance of having a strong culture and hiring the best people, how and why China bought 9.9 percent of the firm when Blackstone was going public, the Schwarzman Scholars program that he has developed in China, among other topics.