Marc Rowan: commitment

Transcript context

…But you must use your intuition at some level, right? We all do. What does your intuition tell us that I wouldn’t learn from someone else? No one gets hired to make major decisions right away, so let’s start with that. I will say jokingly your first year at Apollo is mostly useless. Your second year, you’re at 30 percent capacity. By the third year, you feel like you’ve been here 10 years. We have lots of smart people, and there are lots of smart people in financial services. This is about cultural fit, and it’s understanding where we’re going and whether the organization can absorb the specific decision, the amount of change, or whether it has to be prepped in a certain way. We are not chess pieces that can be moved around. I just got back from an offsite with all 201 Apollo partners in Abu Dhabi. Really interesting way to get together. Three most valuable days of the year for me. First thing I said, “A small group of us cannot run this business. ” There are too many important decisions — to your point — that are taking place at levels that I will never see and I could never absorb. I have to get the buy-in of 200 people to successfully run this organization. So, when I present, or the leadership here presents a strategic plan, we’re in debate mode. There’s very little that gets done in the way of dicta here. You’re hiring a 22-year-old for an entry-level position, but a potentially significant one. What nonobvious qualities do you look for? Yes, they’re smart, they work hard, maybe went to a good school. What else?…

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