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Company reading list | Reading time: 1 minute | Updated March 2026 | 4 resources

Inside Blackstone: Books on Private Equity, Steve Schwarzman, and Alternative Assets

What It Takes, King of Capital, PE industry histories—beside FTN's Blackstone and Goldman playbooks.

Blackstone represents alternative asset management at scale: private equity, real estate, credit, and hedge fund solutions under one brand. FTN's Blackstone and finance-cluster playbooks contextualise the firm; this list covers founder memoir, industry narrative, and the broader PE canon.

Blackstone-Specific

What It Takes

Steve Schwarzman · Book

Schwarzman's rules, dealmaking stories, and philanthropic ambitions—read as self-portraiture with lessons on negotiation and risk management.

King of Capital

David Carey and John E. Morris · Book

Journalistic history—LBOs, IPO drama, and the firm's evolution from buyout shop to global asset manager.

PE Industry Canon

Barbarians at the Gate

Bryan Burrough and John Helyar · Book

RJR Nabisco LBO—the narrative that defined leveraged buyouts in popular imagination.

PE / alternative asset primers

Various · Essay

Fee structures, fund mechanics, and J-curve—essential if you want quantitative literacy alongside narrative.

Go deeper in the FTN Library

BlackstoneGoldman Sachs

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