The richest CEO in private equity just wants to hire nice people

Steve Schwarzman

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman. Blackstone CEO S teve Schwarzman may be aggressive when it comes to business, but, he says, he's really a nice guy – and he likes his employees to be too.

"I don't like people who are not nice," he said at a leadership event on Tuesday, CNN Money reported.

And Schwarzman, who is currently the richest man in PE, is quick to turn down people who lack the right personality traits – namely, niceness – when hiring for his star private equity firm, Blackstone Group.

" They can be very, very smart, but they are the kind of person you wouldn't want to spend time with or expose your people to," he reportedly said.

That's more important to him than, say, an MBA degree.

He pointed to some of his own executives who do not hold MBAs, like Jon Gray, who runs the real estate division.

"Jon's got a gift. Obviously an MBA wouldn't have improved it too much," CNN Money quoted him as saying.

Read the full story over at Money >>

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