“Failure early in life is a gift. Doing everything right and having things go wrong is a gift. You learn from that.”
Ed Hajim, the son of a Syrian immigrant, is a seasoned Wall Street executive with more than 50 years of investment experience. He is now chairman of High Vista, a Boston-based money management company. He recently published his memoir On the Road Less Traveled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom.
A tumultuous and nomadic childhood saw Ed Hajim bounce around the country, living in hotels, YMCA’s, orphanages and foster homes- 15-20 different places in his first 18 years. From it, a determination grew to attend a private college and hide that troubled childhood. From a wide-ranging and successful career came the understanding and development of the Four P’s: Passions, Principles, Partner(s) and Plans. For Hajim, finding his partner, his wife Barbara, was key to his life. “If you can truly find someone in life you can support and will support you, who you can share your life with, solves at least half the problem.”
It is important to never become a victim or give in to self-pity. This means always asking ‘what’s next?’ after a failure. “Failure early in life is a gift. Doing everything right and having things go wrong is a gift. You learn from that.”
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Ed Hajim
Author
On The Road Less Traveled
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darcie: (00:07)
Hello everyone. And welcome back to salt talks. My name is John Darcie. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance technology and public policy. Salt talks are a digital interview series that we started in 2020 with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these salt talks the same as our goal at our salt conferences, which we're excited to resume in September of 2021 in New York city. And that's to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. And we're very excited today to welcome ed Hagan to salt talks. Ed is the son of a Syrian immigrant and as a seasoned wall street executive with more than 50 years of investment experience, he's held senior management positions with Capitol group EF Hutton Lehman brothers all before becoming chairman and CEO of Ferman cells.
John Darcie: (01:06)
Hey, Jim has been the co-chairman of ING Barings, the America's region chairman and CEO of ING Altus group. And I N G Ferman sells asset management after that acquisition and chairman and CEO of M L H capital today, he is the chairman of high Vista, a Boston-based money management company hosting today's talk is Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge capital, a global alternative investment firm. Anthony is also the chairman of salt. And I believe, you know, it's been something like 20 years. Anthony, you mentioned since you stepped into Ed's office, when you were at your previous business, Oscar capital,
Anthony Scaramucci: (01:43)
All right, John Darcie, I've been lying about my age. Okay. Yeah. Let everybody know that I know age them for that long in truth truth be told right before nine 11. Uh, I went to see ed, uh, he probably won't remember the visit as well as I do, because at that time he was still is a legendary person on wall street. And you know what I, what I, after reading your book, one of my reactions to you, ed, and I said this to my old professor, Sol Gittleman, you are the O positive of relationships, meaning you're like the universal donor. You can meet people, find something in common with them and build a relationship. Uh, and that's one of the big takeaways from your book. But I remember our meeting very vividly because we were in the process of selling our company. Uh, one of your colleagues, bill Turgeon brought us into your, your office and you gave me great advice, uh, which I often give to other people, which was, you know, do the right thing for your employees, pick the place, uh, to land them in a way where, you know, it'll help their careers.
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:53)
Uh, and that'll turn out to be a good decision. We ultimately sold that business to Neuberger Berman. Uh, Jeff Lane, uh, uh, was running Neuberger at that time. Um, but, but onto you, I want to hold up the book, uh, it's on the road, less traveled. Uh, the book is an unlikely journey from the orphanage to the boardroom. I got to tell you, sir, it was a brilliant read. I'm not saying that the flatter you, I read a lot of books. We have a lot of authors on, but your story is remarkable and unique. So I'd like to ask you that first question, tell us how you grew up in
Ed Hajim: (03:32)
It. Uh, it's a story that starts prior to my birth when my father came over and as an immigrant in 1900 and, uh, they, they settled in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Uh, dad became fascinated as young men with something called radio and by 1918 had, you know, taken a number of technical courses, got involved in RCA. And for the next, you know, the one roaring twenties did very, very well. I've a picture of him with an airplane. You supposedly own buildings on a hundred 10th street. And then in 29, he was obviously, margined a 10 to one like everybody else. And in the next four years, between 1929 and 33 lost everything. And those of us who know friends who have declined in, in, in personal wealth and so forth, not it has an enormous impact. And when you lose everything, I mean everything the same time, his most important parent, his mother died, and she supposedly died of a broken heart.
Ed Hajim: (04:35)
She was involved in the community and community winded difficulty, and she died in 1933. He decided that basically, uh, he was either going to commit suicide or drive across country with his last possession, which was his car lucky for me, decided not to commit suicide and drive across country. Uh, uh, he stopped at a cousin's home in St. Louis. And, uh, he was, he met their fifth child who was an 18 year old, young lady, 15 years, his junior, and they got married in two weeks with just another story. Anyway, they proceeded to California that I found that the streets were not paid to gold at a couple of finding a job. Supposedly the only happiness happened three years later when I was born 1936 at the queen of angels hospital. Uh, and it lasted a few a few months and they found out that having, uh, uh, you know, no amount to feed was not a good deal.
Ed Hajim: (05:29)
Three years later, uh, difficulty really with my wife's father was a very difficult man, having all the demons from his decline and wealth. Uh, my mother at 24 years old, divorced my father and got custody of me and took me from Los Angeles back to her home in St. Louis. She was not welcomed in St. Louis. Her father had 5, 6, 5 children at the time, and he was not glad to see a divorced 24 year old woman with a three-year-old child. My father got $5 a week alimony and child support, and he got Sunday visiting rights on the book cover. You'll see the picture of my father and I in a car, 1936 Roadster driving on highway 66, 1 of the visiting rights he got there. He found me so called unkept. And instead of taking me to a movie or to the playground, he got back on highway 36 and kept driving to Los Angeles, uh, told me that, uh, I never seen my mother again a few weeks later.
Ed Hajim: (06:28)
He said she died. And that's how I kept it for another, uh, 57 years thinking that she had passed away. Uh, dad and I spent a couple of years together, although he was a merchant Marine at the time radio operator. I spent time with, uh, with a neighbor most of the time. And when the war started, he was either, either volunteered or became, was, uh, drafted as an officer in the merchant Marines. And I didn't see him for four and a half years. Uh, he put me with a Catholic welfare agency, which resulted in my being at five Catholic, uh, foster homes, five schools, uh, which was an interesting experience. The war ended. Dad came back on the east coast. I made the trip across country. We spent some time in the Sloan house on 34th street, Y YMCA, which still exists. Wasn't a pleasant place at the time.
Ed Hajim: (07:19)
Then a hotel room in Coney island while he saw Atlanta based work, it didn't work. He had to go back to see. Then I went, ended up in two Jewish orphanages, one in far Rockaway. When I aged out of that one, I ended up in a better, a very good orphanage in Yonkers, New York, about four blocks from next to the high school. So 15 or 20 different places in the first 18 years, uh, you know, a real eager as they call it a trip from, from, you know, from Mecca to Medina and many stops along the way. And the, the relationships from the Forrester homes were ranged from being abusive and cold, to warm and caring. So, you know, what I got out of that were a lot of disadvantages, which in my book, I try to put across to people like me resulted in some of the advantages.
Ed Hajim: (08:05)
And that's sort of the thumbnail sketch it's it's in the book. It's, it's better. Well done to me, just running to all those pages very quickly, but the child, it was very difficult and it, you know, some people call it Dicksonian, but it, it, I, I, as I say, it wasn't my fault. And I, I had people along the way that did help me writing the book made me recognize there was some very good people along the way, which basically helped me get through the period. Uh, dad came in and out of my life and, uh, at 17 I make one of the key decisions in my life. I decided that one, I was going to go to a private college, no matter what it took. And I just shackled the clock. He got that done. And two, I was going to take my background and hide it, which the psychologist with today would say, it'd be a disaster. But for me was the answer. I was going to draw that line at 18 years old, go to a college and tell everybody that never tell anybody my, my story. And I kept that a secret for 55 years. And that's another story.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:07)
So I want to go directly to what you attributed to be one of the cornerstones of your success. And that's your wife, Barbara, and you write some beautiful passages about her in the book. But one of the things that is, uh, uh, striking to people that are married is the unconditionality of love between a spouse or two spouses. I should say. We see that relationship often with children, but you have that relationship with your wife. And since we're here to also embarrass you, just give me one, there's a beautiful picture of you right here. So I'm looking at this strapping young man in 19.
Ed Hajim: (09:47)
Well, I'll go ahead. I don't have my hunk.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:49)
Yeah, I'm going to come on. That's 1959. Okay. There you are. Uh, looking like a super honk there. So tell us about the courtship with Barbara, how she came into your life and her influence.
Ed Hajim: (10:02)
It's a long story, and I hope you can put up with it, but that picture was taken. I was at an it's an incident Navy, our first trip requests, the ocean stopped in Hawaii and somebody took that picture. I thought it was kind of humorous, uh, Barbara, the story about Barbara and I are really, is it that you can't, you really can't tell a story like this in my, and by the way, at the end of the book, I have my four PS and the third P is partnership partners. And there's a thing called P one. If you truly can find P one early in life, someone new you can support who will support you. Someone who you can share your life with it's really solves at least half the problem. And I met the Barbara situation is that it's unfortunately a long story. It starts in 1957.
Ed Hajim: (10:46)
When I was the editor of F I founded, I was founding editor of a humor magazine at the university of Rochester. I felt that the school was a place where fun went to die, and I was going to get a human magazine. That's a whole story. Anyway, the next editor was a boy named David Melnick, who was a year behind me. And in order to transfer the information on this under human magazine, I went to his house in Staten island. And while I was there talking about the human magazine is 13 or 14 year old, little pigtail sister was buzzing around and we kept chasing her away. After I left the house, she told her mother and father that she was going to marry me. Of course, she ever had a teenage crush. They didn't think twice about it. Seven years later, I was at the business school.
Ed Hajim: (11:31)
My second year phone rang spring, who was David Melnick. He said, well, I'm getting married and I want you to be my best man. I said, great, hung the phone up realized I did not have the money to fly to San Francisco where he was in school. So I quickly call it the placement officer. I said, have you got anything in California? I don't care what they do. I need a, and the girl lady, there was a buddy of mine. Actually, we had dated for awhile. And so she said, come on over. There's nobody. There's no availability, but there's a company here called capital research. This is in a mutual fund business. I'd never taken an investment course. I wanted to manage a business. I didn't want to go in the investment business. I mean, they said, we'll put you outside the chairman's door and you can cost them and see if you can get the invitation to the dinner.
Ed Hajim: (12:17)
They invite a bunch of people that dinner. Then they cut the group in half and they invited half out to, for no, the interview in Los Angeles. Uh, I got there stood outside the door, Jim Fullerton, the chairman came out and the way he tells the story is I, he learned more about me in 10 minutes than he learned all day long by anybody, any hour interview. Anyway, they invited me to dinner. I made the cut, I got the chance to go to California. I was on my way to the airport and I got a phone call from Barbara's mother who said, would I take a little Barbara to the wedding? And I said, sure, at Idlewild airport, which is now Kennedy, we passed each other a dozen times. I finally had PA system and the little 13 year old turned out to be a 20 year old striking young lady.
Ed Hajim: (12:59)
And we got an airplane. She fell asleep on my shoulder. We went to the wedding. We danced, we had a good time. And I appeared the next morning. And Monday morning at Capitol research hung over, not interested, only interested in one thing, which was to get out of there. The first thing he did was give me a battery of psychological tests, which I flunked. I can spend my time on capital research for, because it was a great, great day. Anyway, I finally got out of there back to Harvard, uh, and a couple of weeks later, I invited her up for a weekend and she quickly said, yes. And I said, okay, I'll fix you up with somebody your own age. And I did. And then a couple of weeks later, I didn't have a date. So I think I invited her up and she came up and she spent a weekend with me very innocent weekend.
Ed Hajim: (13:41)
And I'm thinking anything of it. She's a nice little girl, much younger, you know, seven years younger than I was. So we were all set, ready to take a job on wall street. I'd interviewed all the usuals, Goldman Sachs and Kuhn, Loeb, and Lehman brothers and, and Eastman, Dillon, and so forth. And I was going to take one of those jobs. And, uh, there's a long story in there. Anyway, I decided last minute to take a job in California capital research, this company that I had no interest in, by the way I worked for him for 10 years, Barbara was a teacher in Connecticut. She immediately canceled her job and applied to graduate school at San Francisco state, university of California, San Francisco got in. And what does San Francisco we dated for about a year and somewhere along the line, under the, under the golden gate bridge I proposed and we were married. So it was, it was a, it's a, it's an Odyssey. Uh, I ended up spending 10 years with the company. I had no interest in the only reason I went out there was to be the wedding for her brother. And we're now married 55 years. And we have three wonderful children and eight grandchildren, which is really my legacy, uh, seven grand sons, by the way, that's too long. A but unfortunately,
Anthony Scaramucci: (14:53)
Please, it's a brilliant story, which is why I didn't want to interrupt one second of it. And you've regaled some of it in the book. Uh, I'm not a pop psychologist. Um, but I, I, when I read your book, I made an observation of myself and a note, and I'm going to ask you this. And, and, you know, I just want you to react to it. You know, some people that grow up the way you did in a fractured situation, moving about, uh, can develop trust issues, can develop a fear based, uh, relationships, not want to wait deeply into the pool. Uh, but you manage to overcome all of that, uh, as it relates to your marriage, but also the business relationships. And, and I'd like you to get into the four PS. If you don't mind, I don't want to ruin the book for people, cause I certainly want them to read it, but I want them to get a sense for your ethos. How are you able to, um, break out of the shifting winds and sands of your childhood to live this anchored in such a stable, great, uh, career arc and family arc?
Ed Hajim: (16:03)
Well, I can go into it in depth, but I want if I want to simply say why the problem with most people have backgrounds like me, that spiraled down as they become victims, they come victims of their circumstance. I refused no matter what happened to me. And by the way, my entire life not to be a victim, always asks what's next. I've tried to delve in why I took that Oster possibly because my, my father was a victim. He always complained. It was always somebody else's fault and children tend to do the opposite of their parents. So maybe that was the reason, but all through my life, no matter what happened to me. And I had a wonderful question last night at Alfred university, a young man asked me what was the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life. And I said, it's basically something where you do everything right? And it still comes out wrong. Spend seven years with Lehman, brothers turned two divisions around and they still throw you out in the street because you don't get along with the boss or, you know, you go to it, then tuck it and you apply to the golf club and they reject you. You know, even though you're a good guy and you sit next to the, the guy who's a trustee, you know, who recommends you and so forth. So in many respects, don't I just I'm pitching this. Well, John John Dorsey
Anthony Scaramucci: (17:18)
Wants me to landscape the golf club that he's a member of. I just want to point that out to you and I'll tell you what we're up against. We're going to keep going, but you built a golf club on Nantucket. So we'll go into that in a second too, but I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I had a throat Darcie under the bus there temporarily, go ahead.
Ed Hajim: (17:35)
Don't be a victim, no matter what anybody does to you try to think of how to, what to do next and get out of it. You know, whatever it is. And in my case, it really has paid off because in many respects, you know, getting thrown at you, Lehman my brothers story is a great story because I really did everything right for the first time in my life. And I communicate with people at Xtra, made the first woman vice president at Lindsey management company, blah, blah, blah, but Glucksman, and I didn't get along. And he forced me out of my division and I, I left there and I got my dream job and the same thing with the golf course, being rejected as the best thing that ever happened to me, because I don't know you're doing John, but building a golf course is one of the great experiences of all times. I can talk about legacy, you know, all the companies I worked for except for capitalism.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:21)
Well, it's also, it's also the best golf course on Nantucket. I don't know. I don't know if you remember to say that. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. Well, I'm not really much of a golfer, but I don't know if you remember Jack Schneider now and a company. Uh, he, he took me there. He had several, uh, friends of his that were members there. Uh, and, uh, it was absolutely breathtaking.
John Darcie: (18:40)
And Anthony shot, I think a 1 43. Well, and that was,
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:44)
That was on the first nine. And I made the 1 43 on the first nine. Let's not talk about the entire score. Of course, I did think that you had a score. You were scoring points by swinging. I didn't realize it was the opposite, but what we can talk about that later go to the four piece. So, so it'll be a book by one of the things I want to emphasize. We have a lot of young people listening to our Saul talks, no victim hood, no self pity. Uh, you know, you take life as it comes and you, you, you do your best to see the good things in life. And you come in from a position of gratitude, which you obviously have indicated in the book, but tell us about the four piece. Let me give you the
Ed Hajim: (19:24)
Mic. Give me just again, you, you said it so well, don't be a victim. Don't look for self pity. Don't look, don't look for anything. Special failure early in life is a gift. Think about that, doing everything right, and have things go wrong is a gift you learn from that. And because in many respects, all of those mistakes, the problem that I had turned out much better because they occurred before piece in my mind. And this is really, you got to buy me a bottle of good red wine. We could spend the evening on it. I truly believe. And this is, this is my own way down deep thought process. You only have one constant in your life. It's your inner voice. And you must have a language for your inner voice. This is what I want young people to be talking to them. They talk to themselves, but a lot of it's noise.
Ed Hajim: (20:10)
That's why I developed the four piece. If you say to yourself, what am I passions and passions are an overused word. I know that it's what are your talents? What are your interests and how do they frame with today's world? What are your principles? What are your principles? You know, what, what, what lines won't you cross? I mean, I started in the Catholic schools. So, you know, I got the golden rule with the golden rule or on the knuckles, you know, and they basically made me understand what the good Lord wanted me to do. So that was very good. But principles change throughout your entire life, just like passions, passions, evolve. And I make the point and passions. I started out with, you know, baseball, basketball, math, science, and girls, and, you know, morphed at college. And I can go through that in length if you'd like principals, same way more.
Ed Hajim: (20:56)
But I, you know, early on I had the second golden rule, which is he who has the gold rules. I had great desire become financially independent. And everybody formed that faces that fork in the road. How much of your effort you want to spend on achieving financial resources? And I spent a lot of effort on until I was about 47 and ended up leaving bows. I kind of had just enough money to sort of get through. And I would take a job that I really wanted, which was to be worked with a small firm and have fun. Freedom became more important than money at that point. And of course later on the most important thing, which is tonight is gratitude. Really gratitude is very important. Now the third Pete partners and besides finding [inaudible] you find you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with.
Ed Hajim: (21:42)
I look back at my failures is because I either didn't have a partner or the wrong partner. Whenever I had the right partners, a big tall, six foot, five guy from Dartmouth, his name is Steve Fletcher, who constantly came my office and said, don't do that. You can do this. It's okay. And he took care of the old four-letter firms. And you would have, he would have been associated with this SCC and ASD New York stock exchange. Anybody who came in, he handled it. I was able to do the things I use my partner. One thing, find partners who can do things you can't do, but need to be done. Find partners that things that you can do, but they do it better than you do. Then find partners who do things that you can do very well, but you don't want to do so. What you ended up with is things you like to do that you do well.
Ed Hajim: (22:26)
Think about that. And that's why I structured my partners. Now I have a secret for them that none of four thing is plans, uh, plans, you know, God, you know, man plans and God laughs that's a Chinese expression that the Yiddish people took on. But you know, in many respects, it's not true. I want people to write plans because at least they know where they want it to go. And then take those plans and think about the context of your life. You want to have some fun, spend an evening thinking about somebody born in 1900, like my father and someone born in 1936, like me, the difference in our life context, context, you know, find a waiver, a cycle for our trend or something that basically is going to go up during your lifetime. And if you can find that and get the wind at your back and it fits with your passions and your principles and your partners, you know, boy, you've got like to marry those first three to the fourth one.
Ed Hajim: (23:24)
And I always kid about this friend of mine, you know, loved Alaska, loved gold mining was helping the Indians up there. Everything was going fine. He married someone who hated the coal, you know, does it work? You know, is that kind of thing that you sort of have to deal with? Those are the four piece I used it at Rochester, almost in every one of my graduate. I made 70 graduation speeches. I use most of the time. Cause I really thought that those even missed missing, not necessarily the four piece, but use a language with yourself that you can go back to. And of course the fifth piece is purpose, which all those things, you know, undermine, undermine the underlying purpose for everything you're doing. And so I find this and if you can concentrate on looking at your passion to your eye, my passion changed.
Ed Hajim: (24:06)
I mean, in college I was a very, I'm honored to be a physicist for awhile, but by my junior year, I started to recognize what really turned me on my real passion was helping people. I started the human magazine and I took on partners, helping people be better than they think they can help them to exceed their own expectations. That really got me excited. I didn't know it at the time, looking back, my business grew, I started to recognize that's what turned me on. And you say, why have I made good relationships? Because if people believe that you're really interested in them makes life a lot easier, not easy. And then of course you marry that with the most difficult thing that people do in our businesses. You know, you can reach great Heights if you don't worry about who gets the credit. So if someone feels that you're really interested in them and they're going to get the credit, you have a couple of hundred of those people surrounding you, you will do really well.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:02)
So I mean, again, these are all, these are great pieces of advice. I want to go back to the book for a second because, uh, you live this, you live this in the book. Um, take me back to the Nantucket story because you're 56, 58 years old. You're in that ballpark it's 1994, you're opening, uh, the golf course, uh, take us through the process of getting the zoning approval on that ancient, uh, new England island, if you will, uh, and how you were able to make it all happen.
Ed Hajim: (25:39)
It's one of the things I left out of the book and men respect because we were bidding against the very prominent other person in getting the property. And we had to pay a little more than we, we bought a knock out bid at $8 million for the property. And we had constant covenants in there. And in our bid, which we'll ask one was, you know, if we didn't get golf, golf, permitted, then we would basically not buy the property. Well, he took that out in his last bid. So we had to take it out and I had, uh, you know, raised $10 million with 50 people or $200,000 a piece. And I'd go back to them and say, we may not have a golf course. We'll just give you five acres a piece anyway. And so we started the process with, with, uh, with all the agencies.
Ed Hajim: (26:22)
And of course Nantucket was easy because this property was zoned with a goal or two. We could have put 150 units on that property. And we decided we showed them a, uh, a program. We said, here's what we can do 128 units. Here's what we should do. 60 units. Here's what we're going to do. Five units, a clubhouse was four cottages. And so that in tuck us, ran us through pretty quickly. Uh, but Massachusetts, we got caught finally with that endangered species woman who was in charge of that. And she was worried about the Harrier Hawk. And so we had to spend about $800,000 doing all kinds of things for the Harrier Hawk, which went on for 10 years. But anyway, we had about four foot of paper in the permitting process and, you know, $2 million, but we got the job done, took us about almost over a year to get the thing done.
Ed Hajim: (27:15)
And finally, we started with the bulldozers, April the eighth, 1995. It looked like the landing not landing on D-Day with all the backhoes in front hoes and bulldozers coming down, milestone drive. And I still say one of the great things. I'm not, I click a little bit of art, but building a golf course is art with a bulldozer and moving as little dirt as you can. And using as much of the natural undulation, which we could Fred and I stood up Fred green, who deserves all the credit for building the golf course. He's built, we built three golf courses together. One in Vale. Second was Nantucket. The third was in London, but Fred did a fantastic job. He brought in Reese Jones and the whole thing was covered with four or five foot of scrub Oak. We couldn't even see it when we drove through it.
Ed Hajim: (28:02)
And one day we were standing in the middle of it all. He said, why don't we take it all down? I said, what will it cost? He said, well, probably a quarter to a half, a million dollars. We took it all down and found one of the great, just natural undulation. And so we took the bulldozers. Didn't have to do too much work. Anyway, we, uh, we spent two years building the golf course with Reese. It turned out to be the number one private golf course built in 1997. Our clubhouse also won the number one award in golf magazine. And it was a great experience. And I have been hugged by more women because their husband has moved them to Nantucket than anybody in the Western world, because, you know, because nobody would come to golf, come to Nana, took it just as I went, when I got turned down by sanctity, I went back to Barbara's ethic.
Ed Hajim: (28:49)
We're going to have to sell a house. You said, no, can sell a house. Why don't you build a golf course? You built one avail. I said, Bale's got land. Nantucket, doesn't have land. So I went out and I found the land invited Fred out, and the rest is history. We have basically changed the island. We've in fact, I get gave good credit to the, the membership goes about two years. Well, first year we had our first charity event and we raised $400,000. People went crazy, oh, it's 13 requests. The next year we said, stop. We started something called the children's charity a couple of years later, which is the only charitable event at the island. You know, anything else? Nobody can come to the island, raise money except that one night. And now we're into this almost 20 years. We've put 25 kids through college with the largest charity on the island.
Ed Hajim: (29:34)
We support 40 or 50 different charities. Every year. We've made a contribution to the new boys and girls clubs, new hospital. And we now started my new mini crusade, which is vocational education. We now have through vocational scholarships, welders shifts to go to Thompsons. Wells have cost $40,000 a year. So we have two college scholarships and three or four vocational scholarships. Every year we hold one gala. And I think we raised more money per, per capita than almost any place I've ever been in. And it's something it's a model I'd love if I had time to take it to other clubs around the country, because you really become instead of golf club, you come in institution and that really changes everything. And the island, you know, accepts us now as part of it for them. And I think it's very important. And if I wasn't rejected, we probably never would have built the club. And, you know, and I still say one of the great opportunities at all times, all times after to finish nine holes, you go up to the snack bar. You tell Kelly, you want to, you want a muscle milk or a smoothie or something. And she says, what's your number? And you say number one. And that's the best. That's the greatest compliment anyone could ever.
Anthony Scaramucci: (30:46)
I love, I love, I love the story for so many different reasons has been a lot of clubs that I frankly have been rejected from over my life at, but, but I will say this about Nantucket. Uh, my first trip to Nantucket, uh, I was at a Tufts university, um, and I obviously had gone to Cape Cod. I took the ferry over to Nantucket, uh, fell in love with the island and my wife, my first date with her was on the island of Nantucket. And, uh, I took her there. Uh, we went to the white elephant for breakfast and then, and the white elephants
Ed Hajim: (31:19)
Right there. It's actually down the block from my house. Yeah,
Anthony Scaramucci: (31:22)
The white elephant. Beautiful. Um, and so a few years back, she presented me a map of the island, uh, which was, uh, made in the 1870s. It's a beautiful map, uh, of, uh, and it's in my house here. So I have a lot of fondness for Nantucket. Well,
Ed Hajim: (31:39)
My wife, we got there in 86. We were there for two hours, should get a real estate agent being an island lady. It's that now Nantucket with you just fell in love. And she was one of the prime movers on the whaling museum, but we have a map, but you have to come to our house. We have a map in our house from 1775 of Nantucket, which I bought in London and I have it up there. And another one, we have a couple of maps. I used to collect maps for awhile, but, uh, my wife fell in love with it and talk and she can sit there in our living room, in the rain with a smile on her face. So she's just a happy lady at Nantucket.
Anthony Scaramucci: (32:17)
Well, I got to let John in here. He's got some questions from our audience, but, um, I love the stories at, and I love, I love your life story and I'm so happy that you were able to put it down into words on the road, less traveled, and I'm encouraging all the young people that listen to us, please go out and buy this book. Um, but John, go ahead. Yeah. So you
John Darcie: (32:40)
Obviously had a storied career on wall street at a lot of great organizations, capital group F Hutton, uh, Lehman brothers firm. And Seltz, what did you learn at, at any of those stops about things that, that worked well in terms of organizational culture and process, and some things that you encountered that, uh, that you wish you could have fixed or that you observed that didn't work?
Ed Hajim: (33:02)
Well, I learned, I learned to process. I mean, I'm an engineer by background, so it's, it's observed design do analyze the results. And so you've got to have sort of things you focus on. I do believe the following process it's and Lehman brothers wouldn't agree with this it's culture. First strategy, people, numbers and Lehman rose always, but you know, it was more focused on the numbers. That's why they made me hire. And thank God that did this fell asleep, lectured all the numbers for me, but I work on culture and strategy. Those two, you could do strategy first and culture second, but it's important culture. Usually each strategy, if you don't have the right culture, it doesn't work. And in each case, that's what I try to do. Try to produce a culture by being, by being willing. And a Navy taught me to be willing to do anything that anybody in your shop has done.
Ed Hajim: (33:55)
I was sat in the trading desk. I made sales. I sure as heck did research. I was a research analyst. So running institutional business was really easy. I could relate to any one of them now what I didn't learn. And I, this is the what's next question. Especially in our day and age, got to keep asking that. And each time I changed jobs or made a move was because what's next I left because foaming would not marry my fabulous research department, this banking business. He was an Alice in a gopher as their statisticians and our bankers, you know, they're, they're, you know, they're the people that really work with important people. I said, no, they don't understand analysts know more than anybody about companies. And that's what companies want today and tomorrow. And they also want trading. And so he didn't buy that because he was a retail guy.
Ed Hajim: (34:44)
And I, and I understood that because he wanted enough institutional business not to be embarrassed. And I did that. He wanted me to take over retail and I said, retail is okay. The new game in town, institutional Lehman bros is building a 44, a 400 seat trading room. And that just, that was the next step in our business. And so I knew that and foam is not willing to do it. So I went to Lehman brothers and of course, Lehman brothers, the story's been written too many times. You know, the problems there is cultural complete. They're the smartest guys in the world. I mean, I will never forget getting a phone call from one of our talent partners. He says, you've got to tell me about the economy. I said, where are you? He said, I'm on the Pope's plane. I mean, and I remember working with Peterson, he had it.
Ed Hajim: (35:31)
He would have the federal reserve chairman on hold, talking to somebody else, Kissinger or somebody else. I mean, at lunchtime, you looked at the people coming to lunch. I mean, it was unbelievable. And so it was, it was a sad, sad story when Lehman went down. But what I learned constantly and with Ferman cells, it was what my message was very simple. We're sitting on a Lily pad, we're a bunch of frogs. And if it's a good Lily pad, other people are gonna jump on a slip ed as slowly but surely it's going to sink. We better jump to another one. So we constantly had to stay moving during my 15 years there, before we got bought by ING almost half the firms like us went out of business or more merged out. So we stayed in business by continuing to add businesses by continuing.
Ed Hajim: (36:13)
I mean, I, I built the money management business, really 40, 40 million to 12 billion in that braid before money management was really important to investment banks and so forth. But I learned constantly to keep moving. And by the way, also to constantly give people reason to do their own thing. I mean, they would kill me about another guy. You're bringing them in. You're giving them a desk and telephone. You're going to check them in six months and what are you doing? But that's what really happened. And all my guys really were. And I also credit myself with the compensation problem on wall street for 20 years, I was the highest paid person in the firm. One year, that was a year we sold to Xerox because I really felt I did that when I deserved being paid the most. But then I was not because I think that, and Bob, David Kerns at Xerox told me that when I merged me, he said, you know, I've never been the highest paid person at Xerox. And he was one of the classic guys of all times I've over asked, answered your question. I think it's what's next. Yeah,
John Darcie: (37:14)
It was exactly what I was looking for. And I think it explains a lot of why you were so successful is that, you know, you, you hire good people and you put your trust in them to do what they're expected to do. You create a culture, uh, that, that aligns everyone's incentives and you're willing to do everything within the organization. You're not asking people to do something that you're not willing to do yourself. I think it's also a credit to your, your modest upbringing and how you lifted yourself up by your bootstraps, uh, that, that you're not afraid to get in the hands. You
Ed Hajim: (37:43)
Know, I could have empathy with almost anybody, you know, going, going, you know, having been as poor as I was a kid with my background or a young person, my background, we have, we had, you know, shared experiences. We're in Harvard business school where everybody graduated from Princeton, you know, I had that experience as well. You know, it's an interesting, you know, so you're really lucky. I tell people, young people, I get a lot of questions about people from good, bad, you know, from fine backgrounds. What do I do to make my kids, you know, learn to put him in an uncomfortable position, send them to NOLs, send them to outward bound, nos, natural leadership school, get them a job in a, in a psychiatric hospital in Kentucky, or one of the dads that you know, or, you know, send them to Bangladesh. You know, uh, I got a friend who does, does a spinal surgery in Ethiopia.
Ed Hajim: (38:30)
I would be as assistant for the summer. You know, that kind of thing, but you're right. You make you, John, your Virgo, you picked out all the things I said, I kind of strung them all together. It's truly, and being able to give people credit, you know, make sure they understand that you're not trying to take the credit, give them the credit. And also the compensation. One of the problems is he even give him the credit. They say, well, thanks for the credit. Where's the money. And so you've got to give him the money to, of course I did the one thing, which I still think ties everybody together. Everybody owned a piece of the rock,
John Darcie: (39:01)
Right? Yeah. I think, you know, and I usually give Anthony a hard time on these talks, but two of the things that you just mentioned are things that he drills into us here at SkyBridge one, he has a plaque. I'm actually sitting in his office in our New York headquarters right now. There's a plaque. Ronald Reagan said, it's amazing what you can accomplish, essentially, if you don't care who gets the credit. Um, and, and also leave, you know, he, I
Anthony Scaramucci: (39:23)
Know I don't like John getting the credit for all these good ratings on Saul talks though. Hey Jim, I got a B no enough is enough, right? That's exactly. You can only go so far. Okay. I just want to make that clear, but go ahead, John. John took it a little bit too, literally agent.
John Darcie: (39:41)
And then, uh, the second piece is from Lee caching. He writes about this in one of his books is, you know, he, he asked Lee Kushing, what is one lesson that you would give me in my career to help me be successful? And, and Lee Kashink told him, leave money on the table for your partners. Don't try to squeeze every dime or every penny out of every transaction that you do with your partners, give them more than they even might expect. And you're going to have, you know, a partner for life and somebody who's going to be a lifelong advocate for you and someone who can unlock value for you. I'll give
Ed Hajim: (40:11)
You another idea or on which I, I did unconsciously deflect credit. They try to give it to you. I w when I was the chairman of president of the alumni association, Harvard business school, they wanted to throw a day for me after I was on the board for 10 years. And we did do, we did do a lot of night, really good things. We did this long, uh, lifelong, lifelong, lifelong learning process, which really actually was very spectacular. You're going to give me a day. So that, that day was my day. I developed a video for Christine who was the assistant director of alumni relations, who was absolutely fantastic. And so I did a video on her and her life and how she helped us and everything else. And after that session, which I did get a lot of credit. One of the women, very senior ladies that are abysmal came up and said, that's the classiest thing I've ever seen.
Ed Hajim: (41:06)
And I did it unconsciously because I really thought that Christine was, she was Christine and Fairchild fabulous lady. And she basically, I quit the board because originally, because I thought it was just a resume builder, she came after me. So you got to come back on the board. It's more than a resume builder. I went on those first two years at another eight years, and I became this president of alumni association, but I deflected it. Same thing I did when I left as the chairman of board of trustees at Rochester, I did something which I think, you know, I think you should copy. And I asked the president for 40 minutes and I gave him a book called, this is, this is the, my moment, which is a book about gratitude. I also got crystal pieces on and I put each person's name, university of Rochester.
Ed Hajim: (41:53)
And thanks, ed. And I said, this is a thank you that can never be destroyed. I can never go away. What you've done for me as a board, we raised 1,000,000,003, which was unbelievable. That's an old historic, what you've done for me and for the school should be remembered forever. And that's why I want to say, thanks for everybody. You know, deflecting credit, you really cashing is exactly right. Leave something on the table, by the way on deals. It's the same way. You know, I, I remember the Xerox deal. I didn't push that. I did push the push, the, the, uh, the ING deal a little bit because I felt they were undervaluing me. I knew what the price they willing to pay for one of my competitors. So I was, I knew that was in their pockets. So I figured I'd, I'd take that.
Ed Hajim: (42:33)
Uh, but you know, I, I left that on the table and also I feel very, very confident. I tried to give back to both Xerox and Diane G, if you read the book, both people, you felt that it was an overpaid deal. In each case, they both did just fine. You read the book. So I'm kind of excited about that, but those are the kinds of a little bit less, but marry those two things, helping people do better than they think they can and not taking the credit and even deflecting the credit want. I tell you it really works and is unconscious. It sounds like manipulation. I did it unconsciously and writing this book and thinking back as a biscuit, Rochester, when I started the book, I started to realize that was what I was doing unconsciously. And I, by the way, I did it because I got a kick out of when someone comes into your office and says, I just did this unbelievable deal that you may have really helped him with or her with, you know, and you see him light up that really turns you on, or, or in the case of kids with, at college.
Ed Hajim: (43:35)
When I got this, by the way, the book looks like to me, could be, I'm hoping I got some emails back from some, some what we call a, a foster home foster home kids up in Boston, who basically, uh, with a group called Wiley. They, they, they, they, they are counseled by this group called wildly. And they're in places like MIT and Harvard and Tufts and so forth. And I got a couple of letters and emails after one of my talks saying, ed, you really inspired me to keep going. That pays all the bills, pays all the bills. You get so much more than you give. No
John Darcie: (44:09)
Matter what, Jonathan, he's pretty good there. Don't he, I don't know about you finally get somebody on, ask the good questions. You know,
Anthony Scaramucci: (44:19)
This is the last time you'll see him on Saul talk. You're fired Darcie. You're fired the, your book again in all seriousness though, ed, not only is he good at this, but he's the head curator of our salt conference, uh, which are two live events that we were doing prior to the pandemic. And so, yeah, no, we've, we've, we've, we've downloaded a lot of responsibility to John. He's done a brilliant job. Yeah. Hey
Ed Hajim: (44:45)
John, I, I give you a great empathy. My daughter is that as a curator for Ted talks, the business or our Ted talks, it's one of the toughest jobs ever. It's like being a Broadway producer with only one night stands. Really. It's very tough. No, I
John Darcie: (44:57)
Mean, we, we strive to be in the stratosphere of Ted talks. You know, salt talks is what we call our series and it's modeled after Ted talks. I think obviously what she's done there to contribute to the success of that organization. I'm sure is amazing. I want to ask you one more question. There's too much wisdom here for me to let you go early. So we're going to go right up to, uh, the end of our allotted time here, but it's about the future. And you know, um, you've talked a lot about how you talked about the Lily pad. You talked about, you know, if you don't jump off the Lily pad to the next Lily pad, you're going to get left behind. And I think generationally, there's a lot of people on wall street in the industry who don't think that way and are trying to hold onto the past.
John Darcie: (45:34)
You see companies like a Coinbase. I don't know how familiar you are with digital currency and all that stuff. That's going to go live and be a hundred plus billion dollar company. You have Stripe, which is a private, you know, payments company that is worth a hundred billion already in private markets. Both of those either bumping into or exceeding the market cap of a company like Goldman Sachs. But as you look out into the landscape, uh, where do you see the puck moving to use an overused cliche in terms of wall street, in terms of fintechs disruption of old wall street. And how would you give advice to CEOs of some of these, uh, legacy organizations in terms of how not to get left behind,
Ed Hajim: (46:14)
You know, change is, is it's corny, but change is accelerating, but there's more opportunity now than ever before, but you've got to keep changing. I mean, the fact that foam one would not accept the fact that institutional was going to take over from retail and be more important, whether they wouldn't marry the, the, the, the, the research department, you know, to us bankers and so forth. And the fact that, that, that Glucksman, wouldn't recognize that that investment, that asset management was the next step. You know, I don't know how big we could have been. We went from 2 billion to 10 billion to two and a half years with the Lima name. I could have been Larry. I could have been black BlackRock. You know, if you left, it left us alone, maybe anyway, today, AI VR, AR genomics biotech, all this stuff that wall street has to finance over the next, you know, 20, 30 years, there's a book by Julian Paul 2030, which is terribly statistical.
Ed Hajim: (47:12)
And after reading, I'm reading fiction for the first time in my life, so that some of the non-fiction memory is not as, quite as, as, as, as, uh, you know, it's not as juicy as that as fiction, but you know, 20, 30, the next 10 years, what he talks about, the kinds of changes that are going on wall street has to accept. You know, I'm not, you know, I'm not an owner of cryptocurrency because I'm an, I'm an old fogy, you know, you know, but I now recognize that's very, very important, you know, and people, but I traded it in the, over the counter market in the sixties. People said, what are you doing? Hang on. I can trade over the counter stocks. The spreads were so wonderful that my over the counter desk made more money than anybody else, because I had these 40 guys from Staten island, all trading over the counter stuff, you know, anyway.
Ed Hajim: (47:55)
So I think that today wall street has more opportunity than ever before, but it's going to be different that the problem with wall street today is that you have too many, very large companies. And, you know, when you're competing against very large companies, it's just very difficult to operate, but you're getting some new companies like Coinbase. I mean, there'll be other programs like that. I'm recommending most young people, unless they're really fantastic. This the really fight, you know, really, really get excited about finance. Just there's so many other opportunities that I plus the world is now three or four times, as big as it's been before international possible. And internet gives you access to all of that, finding a way, find a cycle, find a wine day, a trend, find an unsatisfied demand, or find a need. That's going to be satisfied. Then the next 20 years you're going to have a lot of fun wall street is, is very, you know, JP Morgan is a fantastic company.
Ed Hajim: (48:50)
It just hard to compete against, and Coinbase has done it, but it's going to be the exception rather than the rule, but it's going to be, I think that in many respects, the financial business has have topped out to some extent. I mean, automobiles have not been so good for a very long time, except for Tesla. You know, it's been a tough one. You know, there were, I mean, how many automobile companies now there are so few of the only two or three in America today. So I think that working for the financial business shouldn't be drawing as many young people as it drew when I was in school. So I think that basically what my advice would be. You should have some group of people in every large company in a skunkworks like Minnesota mining, thinking about what's next and be willing to spend money on it and don't throw out anything.
Ed Hajim: (49:37)
Don't throw out any idea and have it separate from your company. And basically say here's, and this is what capital research did with me. They threw me on this. So you got to go to Greenwich to do a growth fund. We can't have that here, you know, in Los Angeles, I mean, growth fund income fund income, only over there, Greenwich, you know, and they did that. And, and of course I flunked badly. You'll see that in the book I, I got, I got the terminal disease called hubris and they brought back in, but the growth fund of America, which I found and started, ended up being the largest mutual fund in the country at one point, Don, even bigger than fidelity for one period of time and income fund got, I think it was really a hundred billions a day, but that was the completion of that product line.
Ed Hajim: (50:24)
So today let's get those snuck works, working, don't throw out anything. And unfortunately, which is one of the most difficult thing it's international, you must be international. And unfortunately New York has given away its prominence. I, I, I complained about America, a couple of veins. We should've never given away that marketplace. We should have kept it. We should have sponsored it now. You know, when it was a point in time, you couldn't do a hundred million dollar bigger than a hundred million dollar deal outside the United States. Now Hong Kong could do it. London can do it. So you've gotta be international and you gotta get people that are willing to get on the plane and get out and go, go see those places. And you have to have international. You have to have international, uh, uh, you know, employees constantly. And there are two ways to do that. Even for a little firm in sales, ended up with offices in Tokyo, uh, Sydney and San Francisco. There was all those foreign places and London. We had big offices in London. I remember going to the Tokyo to visit, visit my office. And I bumped into Bob Greenhill from Morgan Stanley and he said, uh, you're here. What are you doing? I said, I'm busy. My office is so much. I said, how many people do you have? You said 800. How many do you have? I said one.
Ed Hajim: (51:37)
And in the world of remote work,
John Darcie: (51:39)
You know, having a global distributed workforce has gotten easier. That's the last thing.
Ed Hajim: (51:44)
That's the last thing today? People in the financial business recognized the COVID like every other difficult situation has huge positives. Tell them that telemedicine is going to explode FinTech, just what you mentioned. But ed tech, FinTech and med tech are going to be just huge explosive areas. And it may not require as much capital. We may have to sort of change things. A bit funding may have to be smaller and maybe some new businesses that, that all these companies go into and some may be too small with some of the big companies. So some of the smaller companies can do a better job.
John Darcie: (52:18)
All right. Well, ed, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on, um, you know, we'll have to meet up on the golf course or at the salt conference. I know Anthony's not much of a golfer, but uh, yeah, I'd love to tee it up with you either down there on ocean, read for Nan talk or you can come see us on long island. Uh, I'm up actually in the town that Anthony grew up in port Washington. Um, the club, uh, the, the club that I play is called sands point and golf club. A Tillinghast beautiful, a Linksys style course. Um, it's great. Just, just around the corner from my house.
Ed Hajim: (52:51)
Well, if you get to then talk and I'll give you an afternoon at the Nantucket golf club, uh, uh, Anthony, you can come, we, we can sit and let them play and we can sit and watch him, but
John Darcie: (53:00)
Then he can do the landscaping, see that he's,
Anthony Scaramucci: (53:03)
He's gonna want me out there pulling the weeds and that's how these guys are. Yeah, no,
Ed Hajim: (53:07)
But it, it it's a sanctuary.
Anthony Scaramucci: (53:10)
It's an absolutely breathtaking course. Uh, I was up there, uh, with Wayne high zag now, uh, legendary Wayne Isaiah, uh, in 1997. Uh, and it was the year that he had won the world series. I remember he had the, he took the Florida Marlins when he owned it to the world series in 97 and then eventually sold the team. But, uh, yeah, absolutely legendary, beautiful course, ed, uh, on the road, less traveled, uh, amazing book, an unlikely journey from an orphanage to the boardroom. And, uh, I love the cover ed, but I love more of the content of what's in this book and I'm recommending it to everybody. And I want to thank you personally, on behalf of all of us, for joining salt talk today.
Ed Hajim: (53:56)
Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. And the good questions was a lot of fun. Thanks
John Darcie: (54:01)
Very much. Likewise. And thank you everybody for tuning into today's salt. Talk with the great ed. Hey Jim, just a reminder, if you missed any part of this talk or any of our previous talks, you can access them on our website. It's salt.org backslash talks or on our YouTube channel, which is called salt tube. We've made all of these episodes free and available for everyone to watch. So please spread the word. We love educating people, uh, young and old from great people like ed who have incredible lessons to teach from their long careers, successful careers on wall street and elsewhere. Uh, just a reminder. We're also on social media at salt conferences where we're most active on Twitter, and we'd love for you to give us a follow up, but we're also on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook as well. But on behalf of Anthony and the entire salt team, this is John Darcie signing off from salt talks for today. We hope to see you back here again soon.