雷曼兄弟公司内部充满了纷争。冲突不仅限于各部门之间的竞争，还渗透到了各部门内部，其动力来自权力、怨恨和个人野心。
Lehman Brothers was riven by internal strife. The conflict was not confined to rival divisions. It ran through them as well, driven by power, resentment and personal ambition.
1973年，公司聘请皮特·彼得森担任首席执行官。皮特曾担任美国商务部长，后来又与我一起创立了黑石集团。在雷曼兄弟，他是一个妥协人选。合伙人认为，由于他对金融知之甚少，所以很容易被控制。
In 1973, the firm brought in Pete Peterson as CEO. Pete had served as U.S. secretary of commerce and would later found Blackstone with me. At Lehman, he was a compromise candidate. The partners thought that because he knew little about finance, he would be easy to control.
然而，即使是皮特，最终也被迫离开了首席执行官的位置。1983年，负责交易部门的刘易斯·格拉克曼将他赶走。后来我问皮特，当刘易斯施压让他离开时，他为何没有更激烈地反抗。皮特只是默默离开。他说，他不想“为了自己的职位而毁掉公司”。讽刺的是，一年后公司照样分崩离析。
Even Pete, however, would eventually be driven from the chief executive's chair. In 1983, Lew Glucksman, who headed the trading division, forced him out. I later asked Pete why he had not fought harder when Lew pressured him to leave. Pete simply walked away. He did not want, he said, to "destroy the firm over my own position." The irony was that the firm fell apart a year later all the same.
在赶走皮特之后，刘易斯开始拉拢我。他要求与我会面，会议从早上6点半开始，持续两个半小时。
After pushing Pete out, Lew began to court me. He demanded meetings with me that began at 6:30 in the morning and ran for two and a half hours.
自从皮特来到雷曼兄弟后，我一直在某种程度上是他的知己。也许他在试探我，想把我拉进他的阵营。我从事投资银行业务，服务于企业客户，与刘易斯几乎没有专业上的接触，他的权力基础在于交易业务。
Ever since Pete had arrived at Lehman, I had been something of a confidant to him. Perhaps he was sounding me out, trying to draw me into his camp. I was in investment banking, serving corporate clients, and had little professional contact with Lew, whose power base was trading.
这些会议在三或四次后结束。在最后一次会面中，刘易斯看着我说：“你知道，你很聪明也很有能力，但我不会把我的工作交给你。”“你说什么？”我说。“我知道你在觊觎我的职位，”刘易斯回答道。我予以否认，但他死活不肯放手。“你为什么会认为我在觊觎你的职位？”我问。“因为我知道你是。”
The meetings ended after three or four sessions. At the last of them, Lew looked at me and said, "You know, you're very smart and capable, but I'm not gonna give you my job." "Excuse me?" I said. "I know you're after my job," Lew replied. I denied it, but he would not let go. "Why would you think I'm after your job?" I asked. "Because I know you are."
刘易斯是一个令人畏惧的人物。他在交易中赚取了巨额财富，凭借强烈的意志力攀升至雷曼兄弟的顶端。正因为此，他竟然将我视为威胁，这更显得令人惊讶。
Lew was a formidable figure. He had made a fortune in trading and had risen to the top of Lehman through force of will. That made it all the more surprising that he should regard me as a threat.
在某种意义上，他的不祥预感被证明是正确的，尽管方式并非他所想象的那样。违背我的本意，我很快就会参与到他失去公司控制权的过程中。
In one sense, his grim premonition proved correct, though not in the way he imagined. Against my own intentions, I would soon play a part in the process by which he lost control of the firm.
到1984年，卢伊短暂的统治已经使雷曼兄弟公司分裂且严重缺乏资本。在并购业务中，我协助安排了将公司出售给Shearson/American Express的交易。该交易终结了雷曼兄弟的独立性，而新东家也罢免了卢伊。
By 1984, Lew's brief reign had left Lehman divided and badly short of capital. In mergers and acquisitions, I helped arrange the sale of the firm to Shearson/American Express. The deal ended Lehman's independence, and the new owner removed Lew.
当前的危机在于雷曼兄弟的商业票据业务。该公司建立了一项主要业务，专门买卖公司发行的短期无担保债务，通常期限为30至90天。
The immediate crisis lay in Lehman's commercial paper business. The firm had built a major operation dealing in short-term, unsecured debt issued by companies, usually with maturities of 30 to 90 days.
卢伊及其团队在牛市中变得贪婪。他们违反了雷曼兄弟内部规定，超越了短期商业票据的范围，购买了期限长达五年的票据，使公司面临远更大的利率风险。当市场转而不利于他们时，未实现的损失不断累积，直至威胁到雷曼兄弟的资本基础。
Lew and his team had grown greedy in a rising market. In violation of Lehman's internal rules, they had moved beyond short-term commercial paper and bought notes with maturities of as long as five years, exposing the firm to far greater interest-rate risk. When the market turned against them, the unrealized losses mounted until they threatened Lehman's capital base.
正是在一个星期四，合伙人发现了损失的规模并决定出售公司。我认为，除非我们在周日之前找到买家并完成交易，否则损失的消息将会泄露，雷曼兄弟将失去市场信心，一切都将轰然倒塌。
It was on a Thursday that the partners discovered the scale of the losses and resolved to sell the firm. I believed that unless we found a buyer and closed a deal by Sunday, word of the losses would leak, Lehman would lose the market's confidence and everything would come crashing down.
交易在最后时刻完成了。但这并不是一个令人满意的结果。雷曼兄弟已无法再作为独立机构生存，这让我感到空虚。
The deal was closed in time. But it was not a happy outcome. Lehman could no longer survive as an independent house, and that left me hollow.
其实还有另一种可能的路径。我们本来可以引入外部资本来充实资产负债表。但合伙人意见分歧，在一个周末内就谁来领导这些谈判达成一致是不可能的。最终，唯一剩下的选择就是直接出售公司。这是保存剩余价值的最简单方式。
There had been another possible path. We might have brought in outside capital to shore up the balance sheet. But the partners were divided, and reaching agreement over a single weekend on who would lead those negotiations was impossible. In the end, the only choice left was to sell the firm outright. It was the simplest way to preserve what value remained.
部分高级合伙人未能做出正确的选择。他们本应挺身而出，对抗卢——后者违规操作并试图掩盖亏损。但他们没有。他们怕他。他掌握着他们职业生涯的生杀大权，他们心知肚明。
Some of the senior partners failed to do the right thing. They should have stood up to Lew, who had broken the rules and tried to conceal the losses. They did not. They were afraid of him. He held the power of life and death over their careers and they knew it.
正是在雷曼，我深刻体会到了内讧的危害。当人们开始为个人而非机构行事时，合作就会瓦解，信任荡然无存，决策会被野心和恐惧扭曲。久而久之，这种机能失调会削弱业务，甚至将其摧毁。这个教训我铭记在心。
It was at Lehman that I came to understand the danger of internecine conflict. When people begin acting for themselves rather than for the institution, cooperation breaks down. Trust disappears. Decisions become distorted by ambition and fear. In time, the dysfunction weakens the business and can destroy it. That lesson stayed with me.
从1985年皮特和我创立黑石的那一天起，我就告诉我们的员工，有两条路会让他们卷铺盖走人。一是业绩达不到我们的预期，二是卷入内部斗争。
From the day Pete and I founded Blackstone in 1985, I told our people there were two ways to get themselves fired. One was to fall short of the performance we expected of them. The other was to get involved in internal feuds.
我们还建立了一套机制，防止此类斗争吞噬公司。创立之初，皮特和我共同持有100%的投票权，确保我们始终能以机构的最佳利益做决策。斯蒂芬·施瓦茨曼是黑石联合创始人、董事长兼首席执行官。
We also built a mechanism to prevent such feuds from overwhelming the firm. At the founding, Pete and I held 100% of the voting rights between us, so we could always make decisions in the best interests of the organization. Stephen Schwarzman is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Blackstone.