Stephen Schwarzman, with his cofounder Pete Peterson, built Blackstone into the largest private equity firm in the world, with over half a trillion dollars under management. Yet at the beginning, that success did not seem inevitable. In 1985, they sent out almost five hundred letters to potential investors and received two responses. Two years later, they closed an eight-hundred million fund, and they closed it on the eve on the largest one-day percentage drop in stock market history. Along the way, Steve Schwarzman became one of the sought-after advisors to business, governments, and leaders around the world as well as an incredibly active philanthropists in China, England, and the United States.

In this episode of Just the Right Book with Roxanne Coady, Schwarzman joins Roxanne Coady to discuss his new book, What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence, out now from Avid Reader Press.

This episode is sponsored by Amistad Books and the upcoming novel Africaville by Jeffrey Colvin, a stunning debut inspired the true history of a settlement in Halifax, Nova Scotia, whose black population—largely the descendants of slaves from the American South and the Caribbean-- carved out a community against the harsh maritime landscape and against bigotry and racism. Africaville by Jeffrey Colvin is available now wherever books are sold.