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

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.

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.

All I'm trying to do is manage money and take care of my shareholders.

I think this is also a great time to invest in private equity, helping companies grow from the ground up.

The 2008 economic crisis and Great Recession forced widespread restructuring throughout the U.S. economy - not unlike a company gritting its teeth through a lifesaving bankruptcy.

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.

We've always been modestly leveraged, and we've never believed in a great deal of leverage on either our private equity business or on our investment banking business. And I think it really goes back to my uncle and dad growing up in the Depression and just seeing what happened to people who were overly levered.

People in private equity complain that they have so much capital and so few places to invest. But you have lots of entrepreneurs trying to raise money at the low end and find that they can't get funding because of this mismatch. I think that there is an opportunity there.

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