Untitled episode

it's the business we show you leave school you get a job you learn the ropes you jump somewhere else you end up staying and then something big happens something profound it doesn't just knock you off course it puts an end to the professional era that came before and it kicks off your second act for years and years I did pretty much the same thing with reporting

on money and power for blueberg news which meant I got to write some fun things for our magazine business week about billionaires and race gender Secrets drugs and violent shaped pools and then came my second act this the business week show how do you recreate yourself while being true to who you are and if you fail in public how do you begin again we are going

to try to figure out second acts together tonight I don't think I know anyone who has gained and lost more financial power and has gained and lost more political power and is able to actually think and talk about it quite like this next guest John Corine became the head of Goldman Sachs he became a US senator and a governor for New Jersey he became the head

of MF Global for its rise and then it's fall he started a hedge fund and he just closed it and all of that is to say that this man has way more than just a second act he's here to talk about it I'm so glad he is John Corine welcome good to be here you joined Goldman Sachs as a bond Trader low a lowly Bond Trader

in 75 1975 it takes you five years to become a partner which is essentially joining the really one of the most elite groups on Wall Street in 1994 you became really the most important person at the most profitable firm in Wall Street history you know right as it was preparing to go from a partnership which it had always been to a public company which would it

would become in a few years what what did you learn inside Goldman Sachs about about competing with with Rich and with powerful people and not just competing but you you know you Rose to the top 1994 was the worst year that the firm had had I don't know in the last 25 preceding years and there people dropped out of the partnership when I joined so it

wasn't like wow we really love this guy coming in it really was a turnaround situation which I thought was um maybe the most important thing I did and I'm very proud of how the team that I had the honor of leading um was able to turn that around and I think we had almost every year that I led the firm something north of certainly north of

20% Returns on Capital and I think two or three of those years north of 30 so you you spent years pushing your partners to you know on on the idea of of taking Goldman public you win their support and then before the IPO over Christmas you go skiing I think in uh I think in Telly ride maybe your co-leader at the time Hank Paulson he worked

with colleagues to I mean essentially I think the fair way of saying it is to essentially you out one of your colleagues once said John you never lost at anything until that moment what did losing teach you well that's just not I mean reality is that's not true I lost and won many times in life as you proceed this was a real shock to me um

but apparently both the process of going public bruised Egos and made uh people who I thought I could count on uh less secure than I should of and then we had uh what was really one of the most important things I did at Goldman Sachs along with herb Allison at Merill Lynch and Bill mcdunn at the Federal Reserve we put together the program that had Wall

Street bail out long-term capital not the taxpayer's money we had 14 banks that put in don't hold me to the number I think about three billion and uh a number of my partners thought I had overreached I didn't personally believe I had I think we served both the public interest uh markets and the interest of Goldman Sachs by taking that on and others disagree so you

tell your aunt I think you have you have a couple of aunts I think you told one of your aunts that you're interested in in in uh there's an opening in the US Senate and she said to you John politics is a dirty game but you won few Executives have managed to actually trade in Wall Street for Washington as effectively as you did I kind of

want to ask like a caddy uh caddy superficial question though which is like you know which which one is sneakier you know is there is there one world where people really let themselves be known and then the other one people keep their keep their motives hidden is it is it not really quite that simple I don't think it's that simple but human nature is fairly consistent

and particularly when you're sitting among ambitious men and women who have good Minds see great opportunities and sometimes another person is in the way of that person getting to that opportunity and so uh probably I was a little naive on that from time to time in my career uh probably a little tougher in politics than I was at Goldman Sachs about those kinds of issues so

if Goldman was first politics was second your third Act was a brokerage called MF Global I'm going to give a short obituary of MF Global so it ended up imploding it was one of the the I think one of the biggest bankruptcies in in American history I think you paid five million bucks to settle uh commodity Futures Trading commission uh accusations they they they said that

you had a role and the unlawful use of nearly a billion dollars of customer funds you did not admit or deny I don't think that's right it I settled on a failure to supervise okay failure to supervise um they had originally accused they had originally had accusations there were accusations all of all kinds of things right okay so you you settled those accusations um your experience

tends to get lumped in with something different which is the 2008 Global financial crisis which this was not but um you you know there's I think there's this anger in America that firms went down Executives just simply move on and I think it's fair to say that people on the right and people on the left have have craved a certain kind of punishment for for failure

on on Wall Street what what can you what can you say to them well I think that if people break the law and do it with intent I think both of those things are important in GRE then I think they should be held accountable as anyone else would be and I think there needs to be a equality of how people are treated in front of the

law and I think that the issue of breaking the law was pretty well handled by the facts not by How It Was Written not by how other people want to categorize it so I it's probably one of the greatest disappointments of my life it's not the greatest sadness of my life but the greatest disappointment because other people were hurt and other people's integrity was challenged not

just mine who I think much of which was unfair and yet John the story of Wall Street is a story of Rises and falls and Rises and falls and you picked yourself up a few years go by you start a new hedge fund it's called jdc JSC she's using your initials and and your sons this year three I think it's fair to call them sort of

critics John Corine critics they tried to essentially get you banned from Futures Trading my understanding is you think they were just absolutely wrong on the facts and yet you decided to close your hedge fund why did you do it and what was it like to say goodbye to uh to to this act of your life well I know I don't think I'm saying goodbye I'm starting

a family office which significant part of my hedge fund was funds for my family um I'm 76 years old you know little old uh and I do believe that to be a successful as one needs to be in the world of hedge funds going forward you're going to have to have a footprint in the quantitative side of the business I think the highest probability of success

will come with those that build out a a team but B have access at computing power in a world of AI and all of the other elements many of which are already practiced in the financial world world changed dramatically from when I was reasonably successful as a Trader in the 80s and early 90s to where the world is today the people you're competing against they're letting

their computer programs which they've spent enormous amount of intellectual horsepower to build do that and I think it's very hard to compete against I want to ask about someone you know uh Goldman sack's chief executive officer David Solomon he has faced you know without piling on declining profits and I think it's fair to call it very loud grumbling from colleagues over over the past year or

two you are um you know it's this is putting a very fine point on it but you're the last guy to lose the top job at Goldman a mid kind of General infighting as it were how should Solomon handle it maybe maybe differently than you did well first of all I think David is handling it pretty damn well last time I saw him on camera he

looked straight at the camera and said these things I've done well and these things I have to improve on and I believe in our team and I believe in our purpose as a client-driven firm you know I know he's a smart guy historically The Firm always thought the trading businesses were cyclical and would end up undermining the PE Ratio well now the world sort of decided

that's true of investment banking too mergers Acquisitions and so you know the two greatest strengths of the firm have gone through difficult periods between Co and the changing view about m& in particular but Investment Banking and fees have come down so I I you know I think he has done uh a very good job of saying I'm not so sure that one strategic tack we've taken

is where we ought to be placing our chips and that's a that's that's an important thing for a CEO to do I think before you go I want to ask you I either either my toughest question or maybe maybe this is the softest question of all which is that you know what what you want to be remembered for which of these acts that we've talked about

I'm I'm imagining that maybe you might have a fear that MF Global will will overshadow the rest is there something that you want to be remembered for John I have um eight grandchildren I'm more interested in what they think of me and what they know about what my values are and what they can build into their own lives and see them successful John coron thank you

so much for being here love it good to be here uh I think I mostly enjoyed it Max I'll take it I'll take good no matter what your life looks like or what kind of career you have the shape of your First Act may end up having very little in common with what comes next for example the guest who is sitting with me at this table

when he started out in music he was a vegan straight edge Punk who belonged to a DIY hardcore Collective but Steve Aoki is now a kick- throwing champagne spraying Arena filling dance DJ whose music has been streamed billions of times also he has a pool in Las Vegas uh that is decorated at the bottom with an image of his own face he is here to tell

us who he was who he is and who he wants to be Steve welcome thank you around 2004 you start DJing in La yeah you were so I think unconcerned with the business side at the time that I I'm I think essentially you were like losing money on some of the gigs in the early days but by 2012 I think you were said to be the

the the highest grossing electronic music artist in North America can you take take me to now like I just speaking generally I mean we're a business show like how how much how much do you make per show these days like give us give us a sense of what things are like okay so it's it's like varied you know like in some instances I do make you

know in the hundreds of thousands of dollars um but it's once again economy to scale it makes it has to make sense to the person that's giving you the money you're not just be like Oh I'm going to lose 60 Grand but I really need Steve Aoki to play Steve Aoki needs to draw this amount of money so that Steve aoki's worth the 150 Grand or

200 Grand or 100 Grand whatever it is or 50 Grand whatever it might be and and then I could still make money on top of that because people are coming to see you yeah I think a lot of people don't realize DJs actually command audiences right and I Have Become I'm a global DJ so I'm very lucky to be able to play in front of all

these different people from all around the world and all these different countries which I love playing to different crowds different languages different cultures and luckily I'm still able to draw a lot of people and if I'm headlining a festival surely I'm going to be making the you know more than the other artists or equal to with the other co-headliner so and that could be two three

four five even 600,000 you know one Universal second act that I think most of us crave somewhere inside of us is like the the ability to start from scratch you know and begin everything again you have a nonprofit the oi Foundation it's working to support like not beginning again but age reversal yeah why would you want to age in Reverse like Benjamin Button style what what

is it about that that appeals to you okay so first of all we can't age in Reverse yet you know but I would like to like I'm 45 right now so imagine so the average life expectancy is 80 now I i' I'm you know with a healthy lifestyle you can always go oh yeah you're going to extend that but it's not just about extending it's about

having quality life right so think like if if I do die at 80 which is the average life expectancy that's only 35 years of life and at the like the the ten the main tenant of all this is that I love life I love living but don't you think like the finiteness of life and the fact that it's only moving in One Direction like isn't isn't

that what makes it valuable people say that but 35 more years is is just not enough time I think the finite of life if you live to 200 is different but 80 is not enough time like I I mean I'm just it's it's like perfect example is this my mom's 80 average life expectancy is 80 she's like I don't like you know she wants to live

extend and at the same time you know I want to not die at 80 I want to die with the same kind of vibrancy and energy you know much later in life you know reversing is like the the the the end goal right but we all want to live optimally no matter what age hearing you talk about your mom it makes me think about someone close

to her your father Rocky Aoki was this legendary guy founded benih you talk about him in your book he rased speedboats he fathered I think three kids from three women at around the same time you you right about he was complicated he like basically I think played guilty to insider trading I mean the United States he was like almost deported he I think he even sued

like a couple of your siblings but not you though what what what did he teach you that you think about like day in and day out he he taught me about risks and taking risks for to to increase his like his quality of life was living on the edge that was that was where he loved to live and when you see that growing up as a

kid it's like oh that's how you're supposed to live because everything he did was like I got to break this record like he was the first one to fly hot air balloon from Japan to America and almost died doing it and then he gets out of that that that hot air balloon going what other records can we break what other things can I do that is

not is not possible so that was the other thing the the risks that you lived like also I'm an adrenaline junkie and I and I started doing certain things that put me in that adrenaline that adrenaline area of my life and I was like oh yeah I get it now I get like wow this is really when you're on the edge it does feel more exciting

there's like this adrenaline you feel the dopamine is definitely there you know and then this determination to do things that you might not be skilled enough to do but you just have to put in the time and and the passion and I would say a lot of what has made me who I am is definitely in the same boat I mean it's not my job to

psychoanalyze you but it's almost like you maybe subconsciously like you you've provided like a second act to your father's life like you've provided this level of adrenaline that even he didn't have like the kind of things that you're doing now is like the One Step Beyond like flying a balloon from Japan to America has that ever occurred to you that you're like you're you're continuing his

life kind of I I think it with all of his kids he's had this incredible effect and impact where we all do that and you know I don't want to deflect away from myself but my siblings are like this too we always have like this urge to to like you know continue this Legacy and to make him proud he was a difficult man to to make

proud of what you're doing I'm sure but after he died it was it was like oh I got to do this for for Dad I got to do this for you know like if I can do this it's like for him it's not it's not necessar for you it's for him you've talked about fomo I want to ask you about kind of the opposite of fomo

which is Regret you've called yourself a crypto believer and last year I mean right before the end of the road for uh for Sam freed you djed the crypto Bahamas festival for FTX you just give me a sense of like how you how you feel about that now yeah well obviously like at that time it was uh it was like I'm a crypto guy so I

was in Bitcoin I was in ethereum I was big on nfts and uh when I got invited to to play out there and be out there it was actually pretty exciting at that time um but you know obviously it is regretful that I was even there and I was playing there but you know some of those things you can't you can't predict what's going to happen

you don't you don't I never saw that it was going to go in that direction at all I remember that time it was just everyone's affirmations or like thoughts on where crypto was going was to the moon really you know at that time I thought Bitcoin was going to hit 100,000 for sure I kept on piling my money in even at at 60 Grand I was

putting more money in do you still have a lot of nfts I know I think you issued some nfts but the market is just like it's kind of been obliterated yeah it's obliterated there are like a small core of us that still believe that it's going to be part of the future the nfts and blockchain first of all it's a blockchain technology I think is something

that is going to be underlying in the future it's it's it's so it's something you can't really it's a it's a great transaction service you know a place where you can find a decentralized way to to do transactions and it's secured on the blockchain I do believe in that I do I'm a believer of that CVI thank you so much for being here I really appreciate

it thank you there are at least two reasons you can be sure that F scotford sherald was wrong when he said there's no such thing as second act in American lives for one thing the line itself had a second act it's started out in an essay and ended up in one of his novels for another thing F scage Gerald died thinking he was a failure and

he ended up in like every bookshelf in America the careers of our two guests tonight one of them a scandal plagued Wall Street executive and the other a globe trotting electronic music DJ look about as different as physically possible and yet they both show you can start and stop and start again and change some of that has to do with privilege and luck popular opinion forgiveness

Grace and part of it is up to you who you were who you are and who you want to be thank you so much for watching we will see you next time don't worry I won't Ki you I won't Ki you I have a very passionate dislike of disloyalty do you want to uh you want to have any words for the cake or no it's just

it's just time to get caked most important lesson I've learned from business is hire the very best people they'll make you look good you ready should I CI from back here yeah go for it okay I need I'm left-handed so I'm going to have to like here sit over there pork roll or Taylor Ham Taylor Ham by a long distance [Music] [Music] ready