George R Roberts, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: For any partnership to succeed, you have to have certain shared values.
Transcript:
George R Roberts: For any partnership to succeed, you have to have certain shared values. So it's really making sure that people are aligned with your interests, their values are shared, and they're people that you can trust. You did perform for them, but they trusted you. Because after all, people do business with people they like and they trust.
KKR - My Perspective: Partnership
George R Roberts: Well KKR was started, truly as a partnership with Jerry, Henry and myself. Jerry was my boss and Henry's boss at Bear Stearns and Henry and I are first cousins and obviously have a very close and trusting relationship. So the firm was founded on that. It was founded on really the important principles of what any partnerships should be. And obviously trust, integrity, sharing a common vision, and really wanting anybody that you partnered with to succeed. That's really the fundamentals of how the firm was started in 1976. And it's the fundamentals that underline really everything that we've done to date, even as the firm continued to grow.
George R Roberts: You know, people have to like you to give you a chance, and you have to do a good job to earn the trust. That takes time and I think KKR, we've had a lot of success, and I think that a lot of that is a result of what we've been able to do in building those relationships over time.
