BlackRock's Rick Rieder: Inside the Mind of a $3.3 Trillion Investor

**Eric Becker** (0:00)
Today's guest is one of the most influential decision makers in finance today.

**Rick Rieder** (0:04)
I think you got to do the work. Markets are vicious. When they know you're in a bad spot, they tend to find you.

**Eric Becker** (0:10)
He helped oversee a $2.4 trillion portfolio for the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock.

**Rick Rieder** (0:17)
My team knows, I say this all the time, what am I missing?

**Eric Becker** (0:20)
And I'm really thrilled to have Rick Rieder with me for The Long Game.

**Rick Rieder** (0:24)
You got to be in the mess. That to me is like somebody who's a builder.

**Eric Becker** (0:29)
How do you do it? Do you sleep at all? And how do you manage your day?

**Rick Rieder** (0:33)
I think sleep's a waste of time.

**Eric Becker** (0:36)
Welcome to The Long Game podcast. I'm Eric Becker. I'm an author, an entrepreneur, and I'm founder and chairman of Cresset, a family office that we built to serve founders, multi-gen business owners, and their families.
For all the entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs, for leaders and CEOs, The Long Game is for you. It's the practices, it's the leadership skills, it's the culture that can stand the test of time. I'm Eric Becker, and this is The Long Game.
BlackRock is one of the most talked about and studied businesses today, and I'm really thrilled to have Rick Rieder with me for The Long Game. With a career that's seen boom, bust, downturns, recovery, Rick has built a reputation for disciplined, long game investing. Welcome, Rick Rieder.

**Rick Rieder** (1:27)
Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

**Eric Becker** (1:29)
Absolutely.
So for our audience, which are CEO founders, Cresset community, we love understanding the origins of where of the beginning. And so let's talk about your background. I heard that as a kid, you were obsessed with sports stats and even bet your lunch money on games. Do you think that that pulled you into this amazing career?

**Rick Rieder** (1:52)
Yeah, I've always I have loved sports and then, you know, I love, I guess since I was a little kid, I remember I used to study all the statistics and I used to study how football teams played on turf or indoors or how the Bengals played against the Browns. And anyway, I thought I had an edge. I didn't. But maybe I did against my friends that I was betting on, but I really didn't. And anyway, but I think, you know, early on, I knew that I love the excitement. I love the chance to actually make what I would call, you know, take risk, but maybe do it hopefully in a more educated way. And then I became a financial analyst, and I wasn't going to become a trader. And literally, I got crazy lucky because a woman that was running an interview, the training program at EF Hutton, which I don't know if anybody ever still remembers. It was her first training, first and last training program. Anyway, the woman said, you know, I was going to be a financial analyst again, and I love doing analysis. And, you know, and I don't know how she knew my background.
And then she said, why don't you give trading a shot? And I remember my dad said, trading is not, it's a hobby. It's not a career. And anyway, I'm almost four decades into my hobby now. And anyway, I still love it. I mean, I still love it. And by the way, you know, you go through like periods, like it's a hard business and it's frustrating at times. And you can do all the analysis you want. And then like stuff happens.
So anyway, hopefully getting more right than wrong.
So yeah, that was the origin.

**Eric Becker** (3:26)
That's awesome. And you went to Wharton for Business School, and at some point were at Lehman Brothers, including during the great financial crisis of 2008 What did you learn from the great financial crisis and the end of Lehman that as time goes by, it guides how you're thinking about and how you invest today?

**Rick Rieder** (3:47)
Well, I left five, six months before the financial crisis. I started a hedge fund, and I didn't think you'd have the duress you had during that period. And I thought it was one of the most interesting periods. Some of it did. We have some volatility in credit. And anyway, so I certainly wouldn't have started my fund back then. But listen, I was on the sell side for 20 years.
I learned a ton being on the sell side about, one thing you do when you're on the sell side, get to know your clients, and why do some people invest this way? And my clients are now my competitors.