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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 has been the purview of super wealthy individuals and institutions.

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.

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

Nothing turns off an investor more than when an entrepreneur comes in with a ridiculous valuation.

Simply put, investors should own less equities, more bonds, more global investments, more cash and more dry ammunition.

But successful investors tend to be not too self-destructive. They tend to be patient, they tend not to follow the crowd, and they tend not to be too guilty about winning.

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.

Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.

The role of private equity as fiduciaries is certainly to make money.