Being a good private equity investor is more complicated than it seems. I would say that there are a few characteristics that are important. If you look at the skill set that you need to ultimately be a successful private equity investor, at least at the senior level, you have to be, in this business, a good investor. You have to be able to help companies perform and you have to have judgment around exiting investments. If you look at the skill sets there, they include some things you can teach and some that you can't.

Being a good private equity investor is more complicated than it seems. I would say that there are a few characteristics that are important. If you look at the skill set that you need to ultimately be a successful private equity investor, at least at the senior level, you have to be, in this business, a good investor. You have to be able to help companies perform and you have to have judgment around exiting investments. If you look at the skill sets there, they include some things you can teach and some that you can't.

Don't do something you don't like. Look for a job that makes you excited to get up and go to work everyday.

Some of the very best private equity people, in my experience, are people who start out as stock pickers - people who really understood value, how to take a company's financials apart and couple that with good judgment about businesses, macro trends, and where things are going.

I think that what we leave behind us is extremely important. I therefore spend a fair amount of time on the charitable front, and someday I hope to spend more time on it.

The private equity world is a relatively small one. There are currently probably a few thousand professional jobs worldwide. In private equity, that's probably about all there is. So in the scheme of things, the firms are all relatively small.

Private equity capital in each of those markets Europe and Asia - while those markets have very different characteristics - fills a niche where either strategic investors or the public markets don't go, or don't want to go for some particular reason. I think that's going to continue to be the case going forward.