HEAF Gala 2021 Conversations: Verdun Perry, Robert F. Smith, and Neil deGrasse Tyson

Hi, I'm Neil Degrasse Tyson, I'm an astrophysicist and I'm on the board of Heath, the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, and I have with me today this year's honoree, Verdan Perry, and you're the head of global strategy, global head of Blackstone strategic partners. strategic partners at blackstone, but we're actually in New York City, in the New York offices of Vista Equity Partners, and if we're there, that means we're with their founding chairman and CEO, Robert F Smith, Robert, It's good to see you again, it's good to see you. You, Neil, and I'm here to just chew the fat with you, just to find out, first, what Blackstone does and what you do as part of the strategic decisions that you make for them.

Well, Blackstone is one of the most important alternatives. investment firms in the world and I run one of the business units called strategic partners and what we do is buy limited partnership stakes in other firms, other private equity firms, including this man's big firm, Vista Equity Partners, and with that what you are investing in. I invest in him, I do it at both a primary and secondary level, and what that means is that when he raises funds, we invest because we think they're great, they have a great track record, the people are great, the processes are great, but equally important. buy and invest secondarily and what that means is if someone made an investment primarily and for whatever reason they need to sell, we will buy them just so we can get more exposure to

robert

f

smith

, okay, okay, okay , because You know, I've walked through your offices here, so what are the people doing in these cubicles?

I hope, I hope, I hope that what they are doing is in the factory of creating value and creating value for our stakeholders. We, as you know, have a multitude of interested parties. What are your knowledge about your group? Who are the investors in our companies? Investors in our funds who ultimately invest in our companies. Other stakeholders of ours are our employees and what we have to think about is developing and creating an environment for them to be productive and I always say to be their best selves, what does that mean? bring your creative genius to bring value to financial services.

In our case, it is enterprise software. Other stakeholders that we focus on are actually groups like Keith, if you think about it, what we do is. We are looking to create a platform for young talent to find their first experiences in portfolio companies that are enterprise software companies and for mature people to have a place to actually implement their trading and develop enterprise software that, frankly, changes the way they we all interact. and creates enormous amounts of value in our world. I couldn't agree with him more, but think about it, we're in the business of recognizing value where others don't see value and when you think about value generation, it's not. just business or investments, they're people, so think about you, Robert and I, we've both hired people that maybe didn't get a 4.0, a 3.9 or a 3.8, maybe they got a 3-4 and a lot of people can say that Yeah. a diamond in the rough or I'm just going to ignore that they're not a 3-9, but you know they have great interpersonal skills, the ability to connect and find common ground, they're good people, they treat others the same way.

They want to be treated so if you give those people a chance I would say they have a lot more than others maybe don't have and that is resilience so they haven't had an easy road especially if you go back to their stages early. years and explore how you got here why you have a three-four instead of a three-nine. I think some of the stories because their path towards this exactly instead of making a straight line. Here is an example. I went to school and worked. full time to pay for a mistake where I grew up in inner city Philadelphia, the Overbrook section of West Philadelphia and that's an example, I mean, when I talk about finding value where others just don't recognize it, I'm an example of that and so growing up in an environment because of the way both parents at home were tremendous, but like we all do, you have to leave the house and what happens outside those doors of your home makes a huge difference in who you become. , many of the challenges that I face throughout my journey here are now my greatest assets, not everyone had the same opportunity to start, but that does not mean that they do not have the same ability or enhanced ability to optimize or maximize what is the world, our job is to provide access to these opportunities for those who want it and who are willing to put in the effort and diligence in preparation the courage to succeed the courage part of what we have to do is ensure that all people have access to these opportunities, computing power has changed everything, and the distribution of that computing power has created more opportunities for more people now than ever before in human history.

He and I, you know, with Blackstone Investor, we just partnered on a deal that we're close to. In closing, you know, I look at the prospects for that company, it's in the education space, it's a phenomenal business and I know we're going to create tremendous value for our shareholders and, by the way, my expectations are probably going to be 40 or 50 higher in terms of of employment when we end that company because of the market opportunity, but doing so by leveraging brainpower and technology to provide a broader set of, in this case, educational services to more people, makes complete sense for their immediate interest. in the health mission statement now I hear what you're saying because that completely aligns with everything that we're trying to do as a board as an organization so I'm delighted to know that what I remember from is this is a story is apocryphal but it's something we can all think about and relate to, there's the immigrant who comes to the United States with ten dollars in their pocket and they work hard and they fight and they try to get food and then they work in a bakery and then they get fired and they come back to work, but they learn some skills, then maybe they open their own bakery and start selling and then it becomes a huge operation decades later, the person is rich, okay, but they had struggled every day of their lives and the people Those who struggled know what it's like to be at the bottom, yes, and to be smart about how to rise from that low place.

You're talking about cumulative learning and I would do that. Call it cumulative wisdom, it's not just intelligence and knowledge, it's how to apply it in a meaningful way, it's wisdom, so for people who struggle and extract value and knowledge from long-term failure, they can succeed. I tell people that their ultimate success does not depend on what you do on your best day, but rather what you do on your worst day, what happens when you fail, lose a loved one, have been disappointed, don't. They have ascended, do you rise from the dust and continue fighting or do you retreat?

That's really the question: do you fight or do you retreat? I would say if you fight and those challenges where today you might feel embarrassed, I'm sure someone I was talking to a student a year ago and the student felt embarrassed because his my father was illiterate and couldn't read and I told him Do you know how many jobs your father has? because I don't know, I didn't know his father, he said that he has two and I told him that your father, who doesn't know how to read, is the reason why you know how to read. be proud of your dad be proud of the texture of your hair be proud of how you look be proud of the things you think you should be ashamed of because you will come to a point in your life where you will say thank God I experienced that because There will be people who were given their lives at the first sign of trouble, the first sign of battle, they will retreat because they have no scars, they have never been in battle before, almost every successful person you have ever met has stories. about people who said they couldn't go people who said no, give up now, but it's those experiences that taught ambition what it's all about what our role is what your job is you know you can go and inspire millions of people every day we arrived inspire 40. and that's okay, that's okay, because probably what we have to do is create opportunities for young African American Latinos to understand, you know what this finance thing is, what does this guy do vern, what does that guy do ,

robert

, and why.

That's great and giving them opportunities through internships through scholarships, but part of what we have to do as people and citizens of the community is open that opening of opportunities for people in our community and Robert is humble, just Robert is outstanding, excellent, the best at what he does. He is inspiring many others, we may never meet them, boys and girls, brown, black, they are hearing about Robert and they are seeing his presence, they are seeing how people respect him and now people are starting to hear about us, it is not as if we existed. in a void somewhere out there people are starting to see and that inspires, yes, it's an interesting multiplier effect, yes, and although I have a direct, one-on-one role model, I think it has value, yes, I don't know can underestimate just being visible and being the best at what you do and better than anyone else at what you do, I mean, these are powerful forces operating in a society that desperately needs them.

What do you see in the future of technology and how it is applied to the country and how? applies and how it could reach everyone you need to get to one of the most important things we need to do today as a nation is ensure that everyone has access to broadband. I'm sitting here today in a world in a country where about 40 million people, about 60 of them are black and brown people who don't have access to broadband and that's a travesty because we need every single one of those people to participate in our economy and cannot participate in the new age economy unless they have access to broadband. and having access not only to the economy, it is access to knowledge.

Now think about the hunger for knowledge, the hunger to succeed, the hunger to change the trajectory of their lives, give them broadband and see how often they use it to gain knowledge. I wasn't completely familiar with Heath until 2019 and Robert was kind enough to invite me to that

gala

? We made a table. I was there and heard the stories I heard from the students by the way, he should know. Yes, the website is phenomenal, over 30 years of success and excellence, that's phenomenal, students listen, see and hear students, that's the talk. I'm sold and I think others would be sold too and I'll leave with that.

Don't get me wrong, you're good, but the students are better, Robert, it's always good to talk to you, okay, and my overall enjoyment in this conversation touched me because first it tells us how much more work there is to do, but I think the most The important thing is that it tells me that we have some people who are aware and I think we need more people like these people here.