Luke Nosek Quotes

I delivered lectures, and I was also a consultant for international companies in finance, both private equity and big venture capital funds.

Big banks have long had private equity divisions that put up capital for deals too complex or risky for individual shareholders to finance.

Private equity has been the purview of super wealthy individuals and institutions.

Blackstone is a major client of many of the largest banks around the world.

I'm a very practical, pragmatic capitalist. I was trained at Goldman Sachs. I went to Harvard Business School. I was as hard-nosed a capitalist as you get. I specialized in media, in investing in media companies, and it's a very, very tough environment.

Goldman Sachs isn't the firm it once was when I worked for it, but it's still one of the building blocks of our capitalist society.

I have never run a public company. I spent my entire life working for a private company.

Let's be honest: the trappings of investment banking are quite tempting. I do miss it sometimes. And to be honest, there was a time I'd read the 'WSJ' in the morning, and for years I have done that.

I wanted to be a venture capitalist and join Sequoia Capital. They've financed and helped built some really special and enormously successful companies, including Google, Yahoo, Paypal, YouTube, Cisco, Oracle, Apple, and also Zappos.

Private equity does pay very well, and my counterparts, guys that I grew up with who are still working at a number of firms, all make a lot of money.

I think one of the key differentiators I bring to the table as a venture capitalist is a solid understanding of the public markets and how they operate.

When you are buying companies, everyone in the company feels very good. Their chests are puffed out. At Blackstone, I used to tell people that there is nothing more fun than buying a company with somebody else's money. The business is growing, which creates more opportunity for your employees.

When investors, particularly investment bankers, talk about splitting up companies, there's a lot of discussion about multiple expansion, and the reality is multiple expansion is an outcome, not a strategy.

We don't think of ourselves as a regional investment bank. We think of ourselves as merchant bankers with clients all over the country.

[Corporate] takeovers are for the public good, but that's not why I do it. I do it to make money.

In India, the investment banking industry is a little different. Overseas, the structures are very complicated, but not in India.

Goldman in the '80s was like a priesthood, a monastic experience where you worked all the time but were incredibly dedicated to client services, to building and growing companies.

The deal machinations many companies put themselves through, while certainly a bonanza for investment bankers, can confound the typical investor.

As a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and public company CEO, nothing irks me more than when a startup founder talks about wanting to cash in with an initial public offering.

As part of our research, we monitor just about every announced deal globally that is in excess of a billion dollars.

VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup.

I meet young people all the time who say something like, 'I want to work in venture capital.' And I can see why. Who wouldn't want to be smart, well-paid, dispense large sums of money, and tell people what to do?

Goldman Sachs saying they might be interested in such an investment. I'm familiar with the company. I've known the management, the current management, Jack Welch before Jeff Immelt. I've known him for decades.

I wanted a CFO with public company experience; I needed an HR department, new office space, and a board which could help me grow the business. Insight, the private equity firm I chose, helped me with all that.

I have either run private equity funded companies or been a partner in a private equity fund since 1982. I've had a front row view of the vital role private equity continues to play in building and keeping American businesses competitive in the global economy.