I thought at the time that I wanted to go into institutional sales, selling stocks and bonds to institutions. In those days, which was the 1960s, the institutional salesman was making about $100,000 a year. I thought that was just an enormous amount of money.
One, I love the creativity. I love the ability to create a capital structure that is appropriate for a company, no matter what field it happens to be in.
I love the ability to work with very good managers, and to provide the right incentives for them, and truly become a partner with that management, and make that management take a long view.
In the large buy out space, which is where we (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) focus our efforts, there are relatively few firms with the capital, experience, infrastructure and networks to compete effectively with the large complex companies that we seek to acquire.