First up, Steve shares his thoughts on a bunch of economic numbers coming out including residential housing prices, consumer confidence index and durable goods numbers. He also speaks to the upcoming United Nations meeting and the United Kingdom Supreme Court.Then, with a personal net worth of over $18 billion dollars, venerable Wall Street titan and Blackstone Group Cofounder, Chair and CEO, Steve Schwarzman, has become the world’s most powerful financial leader. This hard-fought success is documented in his new book, What It Takes: Lessons In The Pursuit Of Excellence which details Schwarzman’s remarkable journey from not knowing the difference between a stock and a bond at his first Wall Street job to leading an investment firm that controls companies worth over $500 billion. One of the key takeaways? The person at the top of any organization should always be eager to learn—and to teach. Which is why he has created a uniquely successful culture at Blackstone aimed to help employees thrive. He’s also never hesitated to try to teach those who were ranked higher than him. For example, he told the dean of Harvard Business School during his time there that his organization was not well-run. In this episode, he shares with Steve his colorful path from working in his father’s local shop as a young boy to negotiating one of the biggest mergers in U.S. corporate history at the age of thirty. This is part one in a two-part conversation. Last, Steve's "Reads of the Week" are three articles. They are: “Antitrust Can’t Catch Big Tech” by Andy Kessler, "Don’t Ban Nontobacco Flavored ecigarettes. Adults are in more Danger than your Kids" by Sally Satel and ”Why Hasn’t Brexit Happened?" By Christopher Caldwell