我第一次遇见彼得·彼得森是在1973年，当时他被任命为雷曼兄弟的首席执行官。我们后来在1985年共同创立了黑石集团。
My first encounter with Pete Peterson, with whom I would co-found Blackstone in 1985, dates back to 1973, when he was brought in as CEO of Lehman Brothers.
当时我刚在公司工作第二年。彼得被选中是出于一个奇怪的原因：因为他对金融知之甚少，所以不会对公司内部各派系构成威胁。各派系都认为他很容易管理。
I was in my second year at the firm. Pete had been chosen for a peculiar reason: Because he knew little about finance, he posed no threat to any of the firm's warring factions. Each side assumed he would be easy to manage.
他到任不久，便向全体员工发出了一份备忘录，征求大家关于如何提升公司业绩的想法。
Soon after arriving, Pete sent a memo to the entire staff asking for ideas about how to improve the firm's performance.
他写道：“公司目前状况不佳。”实际上，他问道：“你们认为我们应采取何种商业策略，才能取得更大的成功？”
"The firm is not doing well," he wrote, in effect. "What business strategy would you recommend that we adopt so that we can have greater success?"
我为公司制定了一份商业计划。结果证明，我是唯一回复他备忘录的人。彼得把我叫去，我们讨论了我提出的策略后，他说：“你和我应该合作。”凭借年轻人的冲动，我拒绝了。“这是个糟糕的主意，”我告诉他。
I wrote up a business plan for the firm. As it turned out, I was the only person who responded to Pete's memo. Pete called me in, and after we discussed the strategy I had proposed, he said, "You and I should work together." With the impudence of youth, I declined. "That's a terrible idea," I told him.
“我觉得你根本不知道自己在金融领域到底在做什么，”我说，试图解释我的想法。“我了解到，曾与你共事的人说，你之所以问那么多问题，是因为你想学习。我几乎一无所知，所以我帮不了你学习，你也帮不了我学习。因此我们不应该合作。”
"I don't think you have any idea what you're doing in finance," I said, trying to explain my reasoning. "I understand from people who have worked with you that you ask an enormous number of questions because you're trying to learn. I know almost nothing, so I can't help you learn and you can't help me learn.
然后我说：“等我学到足够多、有信心的时候，我会给你打电话，告诉你我已做好准备。”两年后，我给他打了电话。“我准备好和你合作了，”我说。此后，我们开始携手合作。
So we shouldn't work together." Then I added, "When I have learned enough to feel confident, I'll call you and tell you I'm ready." Two years later, I telephoned him. "I'm ready to work with you," I said. From then on, we worked as a team.
1985年我们创办自己的公司时也是如此。在公司成立前的几周里，彼得和我每天早上都在纽约梅菲尔酒店的庭院餐厅会面，讨论我们的商业模式应该是什么样子。我们一直在反复问自己一个简单的问题：我们能做出什么别人没有做过的事情？我们需要一种独特的策略。如果我们只是跟随别人做同样的事，为什么有人会选择我们？我们决定从三个支柱开始。
So it was when we founded our own firm in 1985. In the weeks before the launch, Pete and I met every morning in the courtyard restaurant of the Mayfair Hotel in New York to debate what our business model should be. The question we kept asking ourselves was simple: What could we do that no one else had done before? We needed a unique strategy. If all we did was what everyone else did, why would anyone use us? We decided to begin with three pillars.
第一个想法是成立一家小型投资银行，即所谓的精品银行，为企业提供并购咨询。由于客户数量有限，他们之间不会存在利益冲突。企业可以放心地将业务委托给我们。当时并没有完全类似的公司存在。
The first was to be a small investment bank, known as a boutique, advising corporations on mergers and acquisitions. Because the number of clients would be limited, there would be no conflicts of interest among them. Companies could entrust us with their business in confidence. No firm quite like that existed at the time.
第二个想法是成立一家专注于当时被称为杠杆收购（LBOs）领域的收购基金。我在雷曼兄弟时期曾就此类交易提供过咨询，对此很熟悉。如今全球有数千家这样的公司。当时可能只有大约10家。
The second was to be a buyout fund in a field then known as leveraged buyouts, or LBOs. I had advised on such deals in my Lehman days and knew my way around them. Today there are thousands of such firms around the world. Back then, there were perhaps 10.
第三个想法是开展新业务。我们会观察金融形势的变化，等待合适的时机行动。我们为任何新业务设定了两个条件。首先，必须找到一位“十分中选十”的人来领导它。其次，它必须产生我们所说的智力资本——肉眼看不见的价值，但能够丰富我们现有的业务。
The third was to begin new ventures. We would read the shifting currents of finance and wait for the right moment to move. We set two conditions for any new venture. First, we had to find a "10 out of 10" person to lead it. Second, it had to generate what we called intellectual capital, value invisible to the eye but capable of enriching our existing businesses.
典型例子是我们在1988年通过引入拉里·芬克而启动的流动资产管理业务。我稍后会详细讲述这个故事。该业务最终脱离了我们的体系，发展成为全球最大的资产管理公司贝莱德（BlackRock）。
The classic example was the liquid asset management business we launched in 1988 by bringing in Larry Fink. I will return to that story in more detail later. The business eventually left our fold and grew into BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world.
拉里是真正卓越的人才，堪称十分中选十一。流动资产投资紧密关联宏观经济的脉搏。要管理好债券，必须读懂中央银行、利率、通胀和信贷状况。我相信这种知识只会强化我们其他业务的实力。全球没有其他公司建立在这三个支柱之上。
Larry was a truly exceptional talent, an 11 out of 10. Investment in liquid assets sits close to the pulse of the macroeconomy. To manage bonds well, one has to read central banks, interest rates, inflation and credit conditions. That knowledge, I believed, could only strengthen the rest of our business. No other firm in the world rested on these three pillars.
至于“黑石”这一名称，我们参考了我们两个姓氏的来源。“Schwarz”源自我的德裔犹太背景，意为“黑”。“Petro”源自皮特父亲原来的希腊名字Petropoulos，意为“石头”或“岩石”。我们将两者结合，得名Blackstone。我们各自出资20万美元，于10月1日以40万美元的注册资本开业。此后，我们屡次挥棒未中。
As for the name Blackstone, we drew on the origins of our two family names. "Schwarz," from my German-Jewish background, means "black." "Petro," from Pete's father's original Greek name, Petropoulos, means "stone" or "rock." We combined the two and became Blackstone. We each put in $200,000 and on Oct. 1 we opened our doors with $400,000 in capital. Then we swung and missed, again and again.
我们寄出了超过500封宣布我们成立的信件。没有一封带来业务。甚至《华尔街日报》计划报道我们成立的那篇文章，也因雷曼兄弟的干预而被叫停。
We mailed over 500 letters announcing our launch. Not a single piece of business came in. Even the story The Wall Street Journal was planning to run on our founding was killed after interference from Lehman.
我们曾以为我们的声誉会自行说话，公司会主动找我们。但我们忽略了一件关键的事情：任何选择我们的客户，都必须向其长期依赖的大型金融机构解释这一决定。他们不得不为使用我们而道歉。我们以为自己知道自己在做什么，但并未完全理解客户的问题。这是创业者常常陷入的陷阱。
We had assumed that our reputations would speak for themselves and that companies would hire us. But we had overlooked something essential: Any client who chose us would have to justify that decision to the large financial houses on which it had long depended. They had to apologize for using us. We thought we knew what we were doing but we did not fully understand the client's problem. It is a trap entrepreneurs often fall into.
对于这只并购基金，我们公开宣称将筹集10亿美元，这将使其成为全球最大的资本池之一。然而在美国，我们仅筹集到了1.75亿美元。正是日本拯救了我们于此困境。
For the buyout fund, we had publicly declared that we would raise $1 billion, which would make it one of the largest pools of capital in the world. Yet in the United States, we managed to gather only $175 million. What rescued us from that predicament was Japan.
斯蒂芬·施瓦茨曼是黑石集团的联合创始人、董事长兼首席执行官。
Stephen Schwarzman is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Blackstone.