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The son of a dry goods store owner, Stephen Schwarzman founded private equity firm Blackstone with fellow billionaire Peter Peterson in 1985.

Initially a boutique merger-and-acquisition advisory business, Blackstone has grown into the world's largest alternative asset manager, with more than $1 trillion in assets under management.

While Peter Peterson (d. 2018) retired shortly after Blackstone's 2007 IPO, Schwarzman still presides over the business as chairman and CEO.

Schwarzman got his start on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers; he wrote in his 2019 memoir about mistakes by management at that firm.

He started his first business, a lawn-mowing operation, at age 14, employing his younger twin brothers to mow while he brought in the clients.