He admits to letting his work destroy two marriages, and he spent huge amounts of time heading Foundations, many quite well known, and was tireless in his work for them. He established his own Foundation in the early 2000's, dedicated to helping the US come to terms with fiscal responsibility. As an analyst at heart, he believes passionately in curbing our debt, through fiscal responsibility, both by cutting entitlements like Medicare and Social Security (financed on the backs of our grandchildren), as well as raising taxes, making them more fair and reasonable, especially for the poor and middle class, which he bemoans its disappearance.
He seems to have know just about everyone by the time he reaches eighty, in government, business, and the media, as well as the power brokers both in the East and Europe. Toward the end, I got tired of him talking about all the foundations, committees, and all the groups he was part of, all the famous people who made them up, all political and rich and powerful, a big club as it were, with ideas on how to save the world, the US, capitalism, whatever. The last five pages he summarizes what he has learned over the past eighyt years. Nothing earth shaking...be yourself, work hard, stick to your beliefs, and hope you are lucky enough to live in a great country like the US where something like this can happen. I like him more than most Republicans, probably because he wasn't a nut like today's conservative Republicans. Today, he would almost be a Democrat, with his way of thinking.
I don't think I learned any great lessons, other than he did not take himself too seriously, and seems to have been easy to work with, someone who cared about his team, his workers, their jobs and salaries, and wished them the best. He worked hard for them, hated the back biting and cut throat attitudes at Lehmann Brothers and made sure Blackstone Group did not follow that pattern. A real American story of ONE.