David Rubenstein
David Rubenstein
David Mark Rubensteinis an American financier and philanthropist best known as co-founder and co-chief executive officer of The Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment company based in Washington D.C. He is also currently serving as chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and chairman of the board of trustees at Duke University, his alma mater. According to the Forbes ranking of the wealthiest people in America, Rubenstein has a net worth of $2.5 billion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth11 August 1949
CountryUnited States of America
It's clear to me when you do private equity well, you're making companies more efficient and helping them grow and become more profitable. That success means our investors - such as public pension funds - benefit, which contributes to the economic wealth of society.
People used to think that private equity was basically just a compensation scheme, but it is much more about making companies more efficient.
Persist - don't take no for an answer. If you're happy to sit at your desk and not take any risk, you'll be sitting at your desk for the next 20 years.
Probably in 2035 we will pass that mantle on to China. It will be the biggest economy in the world, and it will go way past us and way past India. Given the growth, the size, the opportunities, I don't think there's any other place in the world that can match it.
My father worked in a post office and never made probably more than $8,000 a year as an employee of the post office, so when people can rise up from very modest circumstances and do well economically, I think that's a good thing about America, and we should encourage that kind of activity.
Of course Ken Starr was the leader of the impeachment movement against Bill Clinton and we are not particularly thrilled about him coming. However, we want to hear what he has to say.
Right now we're operating as if the music's not going to stop playing and the music is going to stop. I am more concerned about this than any other issue.
Europe is more attractive than the U.S. and Asia, where there are fewer opportunities for restructuring.
This has been a golden age for our industry but nothing continues to be golden forever.
This may be the most profitable private equity deal of all time.
This is an incredible success if you look at the things we got out of it. People seeing who we are and what we're about.
The business of New Orleans is tourism, and New Orleans has got to get back to business. There's all this talk about bringing people back to New Orleans, but without tourism there won't be any jobs for them to come home to.
German political leaders and business leaders should encourage more German private equity firms to get started -- don't wait for the Americans to show up but support and encourage Germans to start their own funds and to do the same kind of things that the Americans are doing.
It might be easy to buy into these ... when things are going good. I worry these deals don't look so smart when economies turn down.