Private equity investing with Blackstone’s Joe Baratta
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Welcome back to another episode of Goldman Sachs Exchanges Great Investors. I'm your host, Allison Mas, chairman of investment banking at Goldman Sachs. And today, I'm delighted to be joined by Joe Baratta, who runs the private equity business at Blackstone, one of the world's largest alternative asset managers with $1,000,000,000,000 in assets under management. Joe's career has mirrored the growth of the private equity industry from what started out as a cottage industry in the 19 nineties to the $1,000,000,000,000 industry it is today. Joe joined Blackstone in 1998, established Blackstone's
Thank you for having me, Allison. Great to be here.
So I wanna start with your early years and career, but I wanna rewind the clock back to talk about your life before private equity. You grew up in Sacramento, California as a son of a bodybuilder. Your dad, also Joseph Barrata, was a fitness enthusiast and businessman who opened up one of the first health clubs in California, hosting bodybuilding contests that attracted people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno among others. All of this is new to me because I didn't know this about you. So what type of influence did your father have on you and the way you think about running businesse
My dad was, 1st and foremost, passionate about health and fitness, and he was a bodybuilder. And to sustain that interest, he needed a job. He needed to make money, so he started a small gym in Southern California that was actually ladies only, and it was called Joseph's Figure Studios, which is funny. It's basically a modern day physical trainer, but he built some equipment with his hands. And then he ended up opening and running 6 health clubs, just what he could manage himself. He was not thinking about building a big business and franchising and doing all that. It was just something to sus
lucky to have had a role model like him. Yes. So I have to ask off script. Did you ever meet Arnold Schwarzenegger and Luther again?
So your intro was mostly right. The contest that he ended up hosting was at the California State Fair. Okay. Pretty that was probably now we're probably in the early 19 or mid 19 seventies, and it was more of an exhibition than, like, the Contest. Mister Universe contest. And he would have guest he would call them guest posers. In this case, that's a good thing, not a
Right. I
get it. Bad thing. And so this was in the pumping iron days of Arnold Schwarzenegger pre Terminator and him being a movie star, but he would come Lou Frigno, I think, at the time, was the Incredible Hulk in the TV shows. He came, Franco Colombo, who was Arnold's sidekick. If any of you have watched Pumping Iron or watched the amazing documentary on Arnold in Netflix, which I recommend, and they would come and do, like, feats of human strength. I think I remember Arnold basically lifting the back of a bus, a literal bus, and pushing it. Wow. You know, 50 meters or a 100 meters. And then my dad
amazing. How fun for a young boy. Yes. Okay. So back to your background. So you went to the East Coast for college and attended Georgetown. So why did you decide to pursue finance?
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