A tombstone in Lucite, with a black, not white, background sits on the windowsill in Steven Schwarzman’s office to remind him of a multimillion-dollar mistake involving the purchase of a steel company.
“It was about the most humiliating experience,” Schwarzman, group chairman, CEO and co-founder of the private equity firm Blackstone Group , of a post-mortem meeting with disgruntled investors. His firm also lost 100 percent of its investment on the deal.