YouSaid · the spoken record

Bill Priest

lines on the record: 126
first: 2025-01-12
most recent: 2025-01-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“That's great. And let me leave it open invitation for you sometime. If it turns out you're free for dinner sometime, I'd love to take you to dinner and we can even bring a colleague to along.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Honestly, I've never thought of it where the kind of tried statement you'd like to leave the place better than when you found it, that concept, I think that's a nice concept. I think I like to think that the people I touched enjoyed my company. Maybe. And I think you need to be pretty fierce about upholding righteousness. You want to live in a liberal democracy and don't let anyone take that away from you. Off the top of my head, that's what I would say.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anyway, and also I notice once you get one generation removed from who you're talking to, it's a bit more challenging to make the connection. You know, when you get within 20 years, once you get, I noticed this sometimes now. I mean, usually most people, they don't really guess my age. They'll guess I'm north of 60 or whatnot, but most of them don't guess I'm north of 80. What I do notice that there is a gap. There's a comprehensive gap of time and conversation”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Local college and let's say an Ivor League school or some more prestigious and make a difference. It doesn't work out that way today. The way it's all funneled, you get pieces. There's probably five, six, seven people who share in something. And it's all about managing all the other scholarships that they get, work, study scholarships. This whole scholarship award thing is really complicated. But in any rate, I'm glad I've done that. And I used to demand two things. I want a Christmas card from you and I want to get a Christmas card and a thank you note. That's all I've ever asked. Christmas card is a long stop. The thank you. I want to say thank you note. He's like, yeah, but now, believe it or not, they Google them. I got two people sent me the same thank you note identical word for word then google thank you notes”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, my mother scholarship goes to anybody, but this one black woman who had a lot to do with raising me, it still has to go to a black because that's how I worded it. So it's really pretty funny now. So when I look at Hoopets, in scholarships, it used to be I wanted to make the difference between that kid going to”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“$3700 in Stungville, Ohio is like $20,000 or something in New York City. I mean, and some of those people, some came from other places, and I am by far the most successful person financially in it. And I try not to make any of it. I did start a scholarship there with my mother and my father. I've sent 100 kids to school now, but partial runs on full scholarships. Back in 79, when my mother was so semi-invaluated and I had this issue with her, and she what do you get an older lady who's infirmed and whatnot? I started scholarship. The problem with the scholarship, it wasn't going any black people. Well, this really ticked me off because I was raised in part by a black woman. In many ways, she was more of a mother than my own mother. So then I started a scholarship for black students, but only black students could get it. Fast forward to today.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dunville, Ohio. They played for three hours, $700. They were fantastic. We got why I'd actually heard of, and we fed people, and we had $2,300 left over, sorry, $1,300 left over, which we gave to the school.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think there's a lot of luck involved. I go back there a lot. Another example would be, I actually was back for high school reunion last June. And there's a friend of mine is still there. He never left. And I said, you got to do better than the last reunion. The wine was terrible. The food was terrible. And I said, I'll keep it anonymous. I'm going to send you $5,000. Just keep it anonymous. But let's get a band, some better fruit. And, you know, about more than half the class is dead at this point. Anyway, they moved on. So I thought, okay, how many people we got? And I said, well, it's a plus one thing. So, you know, maybe we'll have 50 people, 60 people, something like that. Well, that's okay. There's 200 was in the graduating class. And I said, well, get a band. So it turns out $5,000. He got a five-piece jazz band.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lessons or whatnot. And I make the point I said, look, I'd like to buy every one of you here a tattoo. Now, some of you already have tattoos, but in my day, no one had tattoo unless you rode a motorcycle or something like that. I said, so let me buy a tattoo, but I get to pick it out. And it's really pretty simple. It's just four letters, W-Y-A-O, you can put on your knee, your arm, wherever you want to do it, W-Y-A-O. What does that stand for? Work your ass off. The parents applauded, the kids grown. But it was to follow up some examples of how you grow and how to be open to growing. And don't be afraid of new experiences when you're 21 or 22. That's all you're going to get. You're drinking of a fire hose at that age. You don't know it, but everything is new. Everything's new to you at that age.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What happens if you get to be 65 and if you have your health, it's fantastic because if you have your health and enough money to sustain your lifestyle, it's wonderful. You've got all this other stuff behind you. You've learned a lot. You hopefully have a set of friends that you value. And that to me, so I gave this talk with the commencement speaker in my high school not too long ago. And I also have a jumbo tron in the football stadium where I was. So anyway, I put up my high school picture behind me. And the kids were sitting in front of me and parents were in a stance. And I said, you probably want to know who that guy is behind me. That was me when I was your age. This is what she had to look forward to. And of course, the parents laugh and the kids groan. And then at some point, I'm going through a little life.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got married Well, my parents were 35 when they got married, which was also really weird. That's very unusual. And my father never, and my mother got married once, but only lasted a year. They were just very typical. Nowadays, we have some friends that are, I mean, and I'll give you my theory. So I'll give you this real quick. So I think a Dalwood starts around 21. That's when you graduate college. Maybe went to the military, was in school, so 21. So at 25, you have four years of adulthood. But at 30, you've got nine. You're twice the adult at 30, you were at 25. And at 40, you've got 19 years of adulthood. And there's something magical about 40. 40 is when your life experience comes together and you've had enough things happen that you actually have judgment. Up until then, judgment can come and go, in my view. And then...”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“True. I think that's the best way to go through life. I actually am one of these people that got this boring. I really believe right high right place. If you think about it, had Arissa not gotten passed. In 1974, if you went back and looked at that stock market, it fell 50%. I mean, the market collapsed in 1974. I mean, I came home one time and thought that dumbest decision I ever made was to go to PE. I married with two kids, stay-at-home wife. I don't know how many, I don't even know if I had $10,000 in savings. But at that bear market had continued, I said, look, we're going to lose a house and we may have to move back to Stumville. That was really a realistic thing. And then it worked out. But I mean, I'm not sure that if you put all the facts of some of my decisions in front of somebody else, they would do what I did.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But if you have an MBA, I pay less, it's time to spy. So he went to Columbia, did really well, is that he's been a reasonably successful guy. But he is just a wonderful person in the family. It's a nice family to be around. And my daughter is also one that reminds me of, you know, just, she grounds me. She grounds me a lot. And she's a hospice worker. Right now, every one of her patients has ALS. I don't know how you do this. I really don't. But she's a happy person. She feels this is what she does. I think it's... I think if she makes $70,000 a year, I'll be surprised. It's not a super fancy suburb, but it doesn't matter. The relationships matter.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dad, what do you want me to do? Marinet Cow like you? Because I have a CPA thing, and I said, I found someone I can share everything with. She goes through this. I thought, holy cow, he's 25. She knows more about relationships than I do. And so then I met him. And he went to the New York Institute of Technology. I've never even heard of that place. And I said, gee, Steve. And he's well-admore at graduate school there too. I said, well, most people want to go somewhere else. And he says, well, it's free for me because if I taught undergrad, they'd let me let me. I said, well, okay. And I said, have you ever thought about going to business school? And he said, no, I can't afford it. And I said, why don't you take the GMAT? He takes the GMAT. She didn't like the 98% down. I am so excited. I said, Steve, forget my daughter. I will pay for your education. I will pay for you to get MBA. I'm part of this with songs, I think. I'm going to pay no matter what.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Recipe Well, my daughter, I always tell people the best thing that ever happened to me is my daughter married her husband. And Steve is just a wonderful person. And again, I'll give you a little more color. She was dating a guy. I didn't know. This has been a long time ago now. They were in her 20s or something. And, you know, she hadn't really dated a lot of people. I was just encouraging her to meet other people or whatnot. Christmas dinner or whatnot. She just kind of folded her arm like this.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To and my daughter is a hospice worker. My daughter, I know too, again, this is a philosophy. I think the most important thing in life relationships. Nothing else really matters. Everything else, the secondary relationships. So I know two really, really happy families. One is an ex-partner, Tim Taustick, who's no longer with me. I mean, he retired. He had cancer, but he's okay. You retired. And my daughter's family. And when you're around those families, I don't care when you're around them. There's laughter. There's joy. And joy, joy is a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing to experience. There's laugh, but there's jokes. People chip in to do the dishes or cook or whatnot. But again, I've lived a long time. I only know two really families. So maybe I should get a broader set of friends. But I mean, it's not that people are fighting all the time, but there's happiness.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very good friend. He said, So, what do you see in her? Why do you like her? And I said, and this is, you know, I was probably in my close to 50 when all this happened. I said, I'd rather have dinner with her than anyone. And that's still true. We have our day where it's just like spouse just can't, but it's still a true statement. And I find that ability to have conversed and discuss issues. And we do have hard issues from time to time. But that matters to me. The other stuff, you know, we don't have children together. I mean, she doesn't have any children at all, but there's no, we don't have children to it. What's interesting to me is both of my kids really, really like her. And that's important when you go through one of these things.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's again probably the heading of TMI, but when we sold BEA to Credit Suisse, Ken Balkin, who's a lawyer that I knew, a real mentor to me, Ken's passed away. So she shows up with this entourage of lawyer. Ken, I just wanted to talk to you. He says, this is going to be the team, blah, blah. So there's this woman on the team. She didn't have an ATAX partner. It took forever to do this deal like nine months. And at one point, I just said, would you have dinner with me? And she said, why? Do you have a tax question? And I said, it's a social invitation. So time went by and no response. And then she called up and she said, with respect to your invitation, I don't know how many weeks ago, the answer is okay. That was the enthusiasm. But she's really smart. And I think what was missing for me was an intellectual companion. And I long time talking to another.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think you're right. I don't think you have to be extreme. I'll give you a little digital background. I mean, I was married when I was 20. When I was 22, I had two kids. I married my high school sweetheart. We were married for a long time, and it worked for a long time.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, absolutely true. It's absolutely true. I think when you go in my parents' report or what they went through, I mean, look at life expectancy.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really successful people often don't have a perspective to say, hey, yeah, I worked hard, maybe I got lucky, but boy, right time, right place.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We should, and I think this, I guess I don't feel really great about what's happening in the West, if you will. I think there's this kind of a decay going on and there's kind of this default to strong people or rich people. Again, getting back to these, some of the people, you look at all these people in some of the current administration, they're all billionaires. A billion dollars, if you had a million dollars, that always used to be considered super rich, but people with billions. And the problem with the tendency of many of those people is I earned it, it's mine, I did it. To me, write time, right place. You want to be born anywhere to when I was born. You want to be born in the United States after World War II. The world was a mess. The United States was nice, pretty nice place to be born. And then you get an education. So time and place really...”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think you're right about that, and I think I don't want to be this old curmudgeon that says, you know, my way was the best. I think you have to adapt. I mean, if not yet this adapt or die. But I do believe that I don't think just listening, TikTok and all that kind of stuff, I don't, there's an old saying, seeing as believing, but the reverse is true. Believing is seeing. And once the belief is established and all that social media is coming in to reinforce it, it's hard to get people to think differently. It's really hard. And I'd rather read, you know, it's, can you hold two competing ideas in your head? I've always felt that was a good way to be.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He also wrote a book called 21 Lessons of 21st Century. I think that's a great book. So I got every one of my grandkids this book. And so I said, now, you know, I'd like you to read the book. I'd like you to read the book. And when you're done, I'll buy dinner and you don't have to agree with the book or my views at all, but I'd like to talk about the book. And after dinner, we having a conversation. I'm going to give you a check for $500. This is November 18th. No one's read the book. So I'm thinking, wait a minute here. I took care of education and all this stuff. And I'm a little irritated with this to say the least.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I said, I might have the interest. I might even have the energy. But the other, there has to be another side that says, hey, you know what? This guy may be old, but he's still got, he can still think. So that's kind of where all that. I don't really. The advice I have is Always say, I'm curious being curious and I read a lot. I am a big reader. And again, another, I mean, I just read just wrote what went wrong with capitalism. That is a great book. That is an absolutely great book. And then I have these grandchildren. I'm so ticked off at them in some regards. I don't give them stuff anymore, but I gave him a book. I buy them books. And this generation does a read as far as I can tell. So I'm a real fan of Harari. He wrote Harari wrote.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Work in order to live, but a few people live to work. I would put myself in that category. The problem with people like me, we can be very difficult on relationships outside of what matters to us. And my wife came up to me and said, I don't know how long ago this was. Some evening when she goes, knock knock, remember me? I'm your wife. And you just get wrapped up in what you're doing. It has some pluses, but it has a lot of negatives. And I don't know. I am sure that I will time out at TD at some point. I mean, I am by far the oldest employee by a mile. And I'm saying that that era will come to some end, but it doesn't mean my work, Gareth, going to come to an end. And some years are starting another firm.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's an interesting question. I'm lucky to have my health. I would start with that. I am for being as hard for me to believe. I'm like maybe three years old, which is friggin' amazing. It really is. I've got a lot of energy. Even I recently had a physical, again, whenever a year. And a guy said, you know, there's an old saying age is only a number, but in your case, it's the absolute truth. I think I'm a weird dude in that respect other than taking lipitorial, take the drugs of any kind. And I like being engaged, but I would say people like me, we're a challenge in a way. Most people”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was a nightmare with those people. And we were an institutional firm. They were more of a retail firm. Well, the problem that's a cultural factual difference, but it's also a cultural difference. Those people were more concerned about their personal account, their PA than anything else. We had all kinds of rules around that. You could trade. You couldn't do anything, really, without getting clearance from. And I've never been sued by a client or an employee in my entire career, not once. And I'm proud of that. It speaks to the culture that we had and we created. We've never written checked to anybody.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I said, well, does anybody at Weber Pingas Management know about this? They're going to find out tomorrow. I was shocked. I said, you can't make an acquisition of another asset management company without an advocate inside the inquiry. And they said, Bill, that's not a helpful comment. And I said, that's a truthful one. And I said, they're going to report to me. He says, yeah. I said, my life was hell for a week. They hated me. I was a very embodiment of this horrible Zurich firm. It took me over a year to have them trust me. And the cultures were so different. Culture, it was Peter Drucker that said this cultured strategy for breakfast that he's 100% right. You have to get buy-in from the workforce. Otherwise, the culture, you can't dictate culture. The culture bubbles up. You can have aspirations up here, but the culture's got to be lived by people.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, most companies go out in business. That's the truth. Most companies go out of business. When you get in and the ones that survive tend to be larger ones, they tend to be a corporate structure rather than a partnership. Partnerships are really hard to continue, just really, really hard. But they can. They can do that. They usually are private rather than public. And it's not that they don't have their problems too. I think with Credit Suisse, I've learned some things from Credit Suisse, though. They had bought us and then shortly thereafter, a year or two after, they called me up and said, congratulations, you have another company reporting to you. I said, what are you talking about? We just bought Warburg Fink disaster management. I said, I didn't know anything about that. He said, well, he said, well, we bought it from the private equity firm, private equity firm owned Warburg Pink.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do too. And I also think now when you get into big organizations, whether it's a bank or an insurance company, they have 80, 90,000 employees. You can't manage an organization that size without a lot of process. And compensation is complicated. You've got this matrix from A to Z and numbers from It's foreign to me. It's really, I wound up in big organizations, but the bureaucracy is just so staltifying.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Around you. You've got to get rid of that. You just have to get rid of it. So create committees of compensation, create groups of this. But don't allow one person to become so preeminent that basically the whole firm rides on that decision. It has succeeded. I can think of firms where it has succeeded, but it's never been one that I aspire to. I've always had I made sure that the best corner office I never took. And it's a funny thing, but I had Mike Wellholder, as you would know, but he's the guy that's retiring now. He had the best corner office in Epic for like a decade. And he said, why didn't you get him? I said, I had my offices on Lexington Avenue. His office is on Park Avenue, a big corner office, Big One of us. He said, why do you want? I spill, I'm uncomfortable here. I said, Mark, you can carry the office. The person in the corner office has to be able to carry it. It doesn't have to be the CEO. I needed to be somewhere else. I need people to walk in and talk to me like...”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everyone wanted out of 60 or knew they had to go out, but Alice kind of made up a little bit like I was, where, you know, I want to work forever if they can. Anyway, it worked, got out. And then the other thing he did there, which I think affected people a lot, Al had the corner office. I've never wanted a corner office. I think corner offices are problems. Now, I've had a corner office, but I've never had the best corner office. And the reason for that, you need people to speak truth. One of the problems of big organizations, two things that I've watched Swiss, it happened in San Diego elsewhere. No one speaks truth to power and to get along, go along. That's death in an investment firm. You cannot have that. So people will always respect you if you have the corner office and either one that makes higher fire and comp decisions or whatnot. They are really nervous.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Said, what if I can get you out of that? And he said, You'll never get me out. And I said, well, if I can get you out, you don't have a non solicitor or a non-compete. Will you go along with us? And he said, yes. So I said, but I have one condition. You're not allowed to meet with them. He said, what do you mean? I said, this is the credit Swiss spot, the company. I said, so you can't meet with them. And he said, why is that? I said, I just don't want you meeting with them. And he said, Okay. So I talked them into it. Al was turning Al was like 62. In their world, you had a 60 and out problem. If you were a C-level executive, they were tired at 60. So Al was over 62. And I basically said, look, don't worry about him. And I was able to talk them into it because their culture.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we decided we had a problem, we had a problem of transitioning in leadership. There were three senior people, Al John and myself, and then three younger people I hired, and they were getting pretty ambitious and wanted to run the firm. Well, the problem is the value of the firm had gone up so much they didn't have the capital to buy anybody out. So you almost, you have to have a transaction to kind of facilitate the continuance of the firm. And Alan particularly just didn't want to have anything of it. I said, Al, this just isn't going to work. And I said, by this time I had become the CEO, but he was the founder. Founders kind of slong shadows. They affect firms from day one. And he was a mentor to me in many ways. And so I worked out a way with him and he announced, I'm not signing any non-compete, non-solicit. And I said, okay. He said, but they want all six of us to sign it. And I said, I know. Well, I'm not signing.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Problem is, they can't listen. They come in with a frame of reference or a frame of mind that they think is all encompassing, but it's the rare view that's all encompassing. It's the rare view. So what you want to do is just find people who have a point of view. I like having points of view, but it's not the end point of view. I mean, life's a learning journey. And to me, you can learn something every day. So to me, it's all about basically saying, look, I may have thought this way once, but I've changed my views. Don't be wedded to the past, wedded to the old views. You'll have to be. You just have to be open-minded. I can think of, I can tell you a funny story that happened. It had to do with days of BEA. I hired everyone at BEA for the longest time.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I do think a lot of it has to do with how you treat people. I think there's a level of respect that human beings just should provide one another. Occasionally, I would say it's always, but you occasionally run into this like this guy that I interviewed. I still remember him. Harvard, Columbia, Goldman Sachs, like I got all the tickets. There's an arrogance there. Arrogance people can't listen. They cannot listen. And they will get you in a ton of trouble. So to me, I always think If you don't know what you don't know, you do get everyone in a lot of trouble. And I think knowing it's very helpful to know what you don't know.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we still ask it. I would say depending on your own history, some people are more data centric and computer literate, tech literate than others. But I think your organization has to become very, very tech literate. And we try to weave that into virtually everything we do. I consider myself one of the most illiterate tech people in the firm. I'm always saying, hey, I think I accidentally deleted this work and I find it all that kind of stuff.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of giving you the whiteboard. Here's what here are the things you have to do. And I could easily send you that. I wrote this one page on the strategy, which I think is, if you can't answer those two questions, your strategy is going to fail.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For TD. And it was really pretty interesting. McKinsey and they have a lot of data and whatnot. But then you have to say, okay, so two things in strategy matter. And I'm thinking it's business strategy. The way to think about strategy, the goal is winning, but you have to answer two questions. Where to play and how to win? If you can't answer those two questions up front, you're going to fail. So when you use a firm like McKinsey and whatnot and you kind of look at where to play and how to win as you go forward as best you can. But then once that's done, you got to get people behind you. To see this is the strategy that's going to work. This is how it's going to play out. And that was really enjoyable. I really like that. I wouldn't want McKinsey to be doing the execution, but I think they're good at...”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fun of me a little bit. I really don't know very much about anything. And I start with that. So my base, I've had a lot of experience, but I really don't know a whole hell of a lot. And so I haven't thought about that. Let's work that in. And I think it's one of the reasons we've had, listen, until we end this thing, this is a tough lesson to me. Well, it wasn't the first time difficult, but when you sell a firm, like what happens is we sell a firm, you trade governance for money. You get the money, they get the governance. So when you do that, you have to know that's what's going to happen because they have a dream too. They have a dream of how you fit into their big picture. And you need to respect that because that was part of the trade. And I think one of the things that I spent last year with McKinsey, I was chair of the wealth strategy committee.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I tell people no one has made more mistakes than me. I've been around longer than most people. I've made more mistakes than anybody I know. And we have a guy here, his name is Steve Blyberg. Steve is like 60 or 61 years old. Steve was a summer student for me. He's really pretty amazing. Now, he laughed. He came back. He's the smartest guy, smartest guys I've ever met. And I never have a conversation. I used to go in with a half-baked idea. Hey, Steve, I'm thinking about this. What do you think? And then in about 10 minutes, he destroys my argument. I always, there's not a conversation I have with him that I don't come out being smarter when I walked in. I don't need the adulation. I don't need the, I don't need people to suck up to me. I just want to get better. And believe me,”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's kind of my talk on leadership, and that's how you got to be, yep. I met people who think they know it all. They're pretty smart, probably smarter than me, smarter than what I know, but they come down like a ton of bricks on our people and their staff. It takes, you know, I don't know, I think I forget who said this, but it takes a village to win. It's a community. Work is a community. And I spent a lot of time thinking about this, but I personally need a community. And the community, it can be family, but I need other people. We're social beings. We need a community. And I'd like the work community to be one where people, we have a purpose, but we have a good time. Who wants to work somewhere where you just don't want to be there? You just don't want to be there. It's just too unpleasant.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Swims over to where this thing is, it starts hacking away, but it's not working. And the ship is even listening even more. So Russell Crowe is a captain, cuts the line, ship side. His friend dies, but the ship is saved. And the moral there is the institution matters more than anything else. You've got to save the institution. And if you cannot make that distinction as a leader, you don't deserve the jobs. You just don't. Recently, I have a guy who's retiring. I can't believe he's retiring. I said, Mike, you're retiring. At my age when I started upping. And so he said, I never understood why you pointed me prison in the first place. I said, Mike, you have the capability of fire me. And he said, well, I don't want to fire you or my mentor. I said, that's not the point, Mike. You have the capacity and capability. As the leader of the firm, nothing matters more than the firm.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To watch is first of all miracle on ice. That's the story of the US when they beat the Russians. And that movie The U.S. team was a mess for a while. Prima donas, coaches, finally they all get together. And there's a Christmas party before the Olympics. And the teams come together. Everybody feels good. It's maybe 11 o'clock at night or 11 at what time it was. The coach gets up to leave. And the player comes over and says, Coach, where are you going? The party's just getting started. He has to leave. He's not one of them. They're the players. He's the coach. You have to have this little gap between you and the others. Then you get to another movie, Master and Commander, which was Russell Crow's in that. And that's a story of a ship with been struck by lightning. And it's in the 19th century. It's a three-massed ship and the main mast is hit by lightning. It's in the water. And the ship is starting to capsize. And they have to start cutting the line and trying to cut the line. It's not working. So his second lieutenant, best friend, jumps in.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Back and forth a little bit. But it's about setting hey if we do A, B, and C, we can go from this place to that place. Sports are like that a lot. You know, if we can, if the defense and the offense and the special teams all do well, we can be in the playoffs. But it isn't just saying that. It's kind of living it. It's showing the example. And I think you'd be hard-pressed around here. I had somebody, in fact, the kid that I was telling you about that we ultimately hired, he said at the end of his interview with me, he said, I'll outwork anyone in your firm. I said, all but one. And he said, who's that? I said, me. So everyone here admires my work ethic, notwithstanding achievements and title and all that. But you have to respect effort. Effort alone doesn't guarantee achievement. But effort is honorable. And this gets to my two movies. So the two movies that I think later...”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Busy Sunday afternoon in August. You show up with a forsome at two o'clock and I show up with a forceome at 2 o'clock. And, well, wait a minute, I got the floor at 2 o'clock. You got the two. The starter has to make a tactical decision. He might say, you know what? You take the day at two. Bill Priest, I don't know what happened. We don't have time to go back and look who called in first, who sent the emails because he's got a line of people back there. He cannot admire the problem. So he makes a decision. I come back tomorrow. Club that's free because they treated me. But that's a tactical decision. A lot of executives get tied up in trying to do the right thing. Don't admire the problem. Some things have to be addressed now. So a good leader has to. But the third thing is inspiration. You have to be able to inspire people. Now, it's easier to inspire young people than older people because the older people either batter.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when you get into leadership, a really good leader to me has to be able to do three things. First of all, you got to have empathy. Now, just in this interchange that you and I are having, I totally see you are an empathetic person. You will draw people out because you're trying to accomplish something here. But in order to do that, you communicate empathy. That's very important. A person without empathy, you can be a dictator leader. You could do that. But boy, for me, it's certainly not any fun. But empathy is a requirement. The other thing, which a lot of people get hung up on, is you need to be able to make tactical decisions, not necessarily philosophical ones, but tactical ones. My favorite example might be an example I use in the discussion is, let's suppose you and I play, both play golf. We belong to the same club.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I would say The way I think about it, I made a joke about this. When I first got to be a CEO, I just wanted to hire the smartest people I could find. And I hope they were decent. When I started effing, I just wanted to hire decent people and hope they were smart. I actually think that's a better way to go.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In your family, whether you realize it or not, you've given every family member a put. They will call you up when there's an issue. Trust me, they do. And I'm not going to ban them. I just, this is not, it's not who I am. So it isn't just taking care of you. There's a broad definition of you. And it includes a lot of people.”
2025-01-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH053: Trouble Ahead w/ Bill Priest · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT