Quote

People used to think that private equity was basically just a compensation scheme, but it is much more about making companies more efficient.

We really wake up every day trying to build businesses. That is the goal of private equity. It's a misnomer out there that private equity profits by shrinking companies. In fact, it's just the opposite. Private equity creates value by growing great companies.

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

It's clear to me when you do private equity well, you're making companies more efficient and helping them grow and become more profitable. That success means our investors - such as public pension funds - benefit, which contributes to the economic wealth of society.

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.

As president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, I have seen private equity firms plunder company after company, taking rich fees for themselves and cutting costs until there's nothing left to cut. Time and again I've seen their reckless behavior drive companies to declare bankruptcy.

I think good private equity investors create a lot more economic value than they destroy.

I've probably done more venture capital deals and expansion financings than I have done private equity deals. But both are the same. Private equity companies have also built jobs.

When companies are private, founders can share more about their future dreams with investors; report less; and the shares are illiquid, constraining short-term changes in valuation.

Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.