I really wanted to hate this book – my pre-judgement was that it would be a thinly-veiled list of achievements and self-aggrandisement. This is true in part. But Schwarzman is undeniably an industry titan and there is a lot to learn from his story; he was incredibly scrappy and had a good sense for balancing confidence and bold actions with humility and subtle acts of service. The book is full of amusing anecdotes, for example when Schwarzman told his interviewer at DLJ that he wouldn’t accept the investment banking offer (widely coveted by many students) unless his salary made him the highest-paid Yale grad.
Schwarzman is a talented business builder and What it Takes contains many valuable insights won in the heat of battle – similar in tone to Bob Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime, but with a greater emphasis on practicality takeaways both for operators and for students. The Blackstone story is told elsewhere (e.g King of Capital), but hearing the perspective of the man calling the shots lends a certain depth to the historical events, and gives greater colour on the firm’s unique culture.
The second half of the book becomes quite tedious: the density of insights drops precipitously, heavily diluted by self-congratulation about Schwarzman’s philanthropic endeavours and political clout. Some of this is vaguely interesting, but also somewhat worrying – should a private citizen really have so much influence over government? In any case, there are few actionable takeaways here.
Fortunately, the book ends on a high note: Schwarzman summarises his experiences into “25 Rules for Work and Life” (which can also be found online), distilling and reiterating the most important ideas that he touched on throughout the book. This is definitely worth reading and for the time-pressed individual, it might be a reasonable substitute for reading the whole book.