Michael Eisenberg: 

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All right. Welcome everybody. Thank you to everyone for coming. This is actually quite an audience of entrepreneurs, CEOs, people who've been involved in important places in Israel and the war efforts. So we're thrilled that you came out for Mark. I'd like to thank Mark for agreeing to do this. He has a very busy schedule while here in Israel and has been jetsetting around the world.

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But most importantly, his son got married over the weekend. So please join us in wishing him a Mazal Tov. {Applause}. Thank you.

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Marc's just been an incredible friend to me, and to Israel, and to the Jewish people, and a real leader. And we'll, we'll delve into some of that. And I actually want to start in a place that goes back a bunch of years, because there's a lot of younger and successful people here. A bunch of years ago, you got involved in something that was originally called YRF and then called DARCA.

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You want to tell people about it? 

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Marc Rowan:

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Sure. So 38 years ago, standing on the Israel-Lebanon border with the head of Northern Command, I said, “What are you worried about?” And I expected him to be looking out and talking about the threats. And he said, “I'm worried about divisions in Israeli society.” And, ultimately, we traced that back to education, periphery versus central.

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And so 38 years ago, we began an education effort to get the 50 percent of the kids who don't pass the Bagrut at a level to go to university, to pass the Bagrut. And we started with business principles–use other people's money, measure everything, double down on what works, and so on and so on. 

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Fast forward 38 years to charitable takeovers, which not many people have done. We now run 47 schools in Israel. We have 27,000 kids in school. We have 3,000 teachers. Our kids are passing the Bagrut with fours and fives in the 90 percent range. And these are Moroccan, Ethiopian, Yemeni, Bedouin, Druze, Israeli Arabs, even Haredim, and our first Haredim school. It's never the kids. 

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We go into Netivot, the kids are passing the Bagrut at 16%. And you say to the principal, “How could you have a 16 percent Bagrut rate?” He goes, “What do you expect from poor religious Moroccan kids?” And we said, “We expect a new principal.” And two years later, this school is 88%. It's just crazy. And these, by the way, Union teachers, state curriculum, some religious, some secular, all parts of the school system here.

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It's just not that hard. And so, the goal is nothing short of changing the face of Israeli education, because if we can show that it works everywhere with every population, what parent does not want their kid to get a better education? And it's happening. So if we come into a town and we start attracting students, the other schools start losing population.

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We train their principals, we train their teachers. We just want to change the system. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And where do you find the principals from, like–? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Everywhere. I mean, you know, so the head of it is the former principal from Bleech High School. And he just one day woke up and said, “Why am I teaching the children of rich kids?”

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He literally just said that, and he's just used his network, and then we've developed a methodology for training. What we've figured out is that people who go into education are not there for the money. They're there to do good. They become jaded by the system over time. So if you make the place work, they get energized.

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And so people leave successful jobs, successful positions, leave the Ministry of Education and come to work with us because they see what we do works. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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What was the main opposition? I mean, this is, it's a behemoth, the Ministry of Education in this country. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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It's breaking the status quo. What was happening here is the outsourcing had become a business that the supposedly philanthropic entities were taking 15 or 16 percent of revenue to cover their overhead and building big buildings and infrastructures. We went the other way. We said we charge nothing and we pay our own overhead. And we went and we, with Naftali Bennett's help, got transparency to the process.

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Once there was transparency to the process, it liberalized. But it is a business by the way. So we run this thing like a business. The principal who started out as an educator is now like the single best marketer. Like if you had him as a VC pitch, he would in the elevator sell you on what he needs to do.

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He measures, he is–the team is completely awesome and they speak like venture capitalists. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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In the public service, that's not a common way to run this. People don't think of running this like a business. Why did you insist on that? And how is it working in this kind of friction with the public institutions?

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Marc Rowan: 

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There's not, there's not really friction with public institutions. At this point, we're a cooperative part of the system. People know if we're gonna bid on it, bid on a school, that they will lose it unless they adjust. And so we're forcing the market to adjust. And that's what's happened, and running like a business just means we're scaling inexpensively.

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We are, in dollar terms, we're 500 per kid per year. It's nothing in the scheme of things. And it just allows us to be really efficient and to make sure we can do 27,000 kids every year. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Can you fire teachers? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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We cannot fire teachers, but we don't have to fire teachers. We can fire the principal. We can fire, we can hire and fire leadership.

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But if you are the mayor of a town in the periphery–first, 50 percent of our mayors are in jail, or under indictment. They generally do not know how to organize their municipality. They can't organize a school, and so part of what we do is we just come in and we organize. We actually control the budget, we schedule, we plan, and we tell these kids that they're not going to be mechanics, we tell them they're going to be physicists, and we just remove the low expectation.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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What would you tell some of the young budding entrepreneurs and hopefully would-be philanthropists in the room about what they should focus on and when they should get started? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Early. I mean, this is now year 38 for me. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Which is amazing because he's only like 50. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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It's getting bigger and bigger. because people have now seen it work over a long period of time.

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And we started out as a hundred percent U.S. funded. We are now majority Israeli funded, Israeli entrepreneurs, and Israeli entrepreneurs are really skeptical. So Danna Azrieli merged her philanthropy into the organization. We took over, essentially a failing philanthropy from Rashi and put them all together and have gotten synergies, all the things we talk about in mergers that we never get.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And how involved are you in DARCA? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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So initially very involved. I mean, we, we tried and failed numerous strategies, more than Amir has, actually. We, everything we could fail at, we failed at, and we just kept innovating and kept innovating, and we just kept coming at the problem. And over time we saw success and then we doubled down on the things that worked. And the models become great over time.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Why do you think so few young people start out when they're, like, early in their business career doing philanthropy at the young age that you did and what did you see that others didn't? 

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Marc Rowan:

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 So, I think, look, even for us, so we're, the whole group of us that founded the philanthropy are now, I hate to–60s.

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And so we've had to recruit the next generation. So, we decided that we would focus on 30-year-olds. And 30 to us was, you had achieved enough success in your career that you were willing to think about something other than yourself, but you were not yet attached to something and you were starting to search for purpose.

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And so, I've taken 300 30-year-olds to Israel, where I'm their tour guide for–and they come at my expense. And now, if you come to an event for YRF or DARCA, it's, 50 percent 30-year-olds and 50 percent 60-year-olds. It's actually quite a funny mix of people and the whole mentorship. And to be honest, you want to do something with friends.

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So scale, make this work with friends. We started this, we were all in our early 20s and mid-20s. This was the best Jewish dating service in New York City. It was absolutely far and away the best. The number of matches we have and dates we have out of this is just off the charts. Because it has to be fun to sustain it over time.

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You have to want to work with people you like working with. And you have to believe in the cause.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Where does your commitment to Israel come from? 

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Marc Rowan:

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You know, it's a funny thing because I didn't, I'm not grown up religious. I never came to Israel as a child, and in my mid-twenties I started in this education project and just, it's been like a building and overwhelming commitment over the years that this is just a unique and special place.And, you know, we are, as they say, the chosen people. Sometimes chosen too often. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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But if you kind of reach deep back, you got involved in your twenties, it was an Israeli school initiative. Like, why did that happen? You could have chosen something in New York. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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So I, we were all in our mid-twenties. We had all exceeded anything we thought we were going to achieve in our lifetimes, financially. And we were all there as a result of education, and we were all Jewish. 

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Your co-founders of Apollo you mean. 

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The co-founders of this philanthropy, all of whom worked at Drexel Burnham. This is pre-Apollo. Pre Apollo. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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So pre-Apollo. That's quite amazing. Tell us, like, from your perspective now, in your 60s–

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Marc Rowan:

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Early 60s, Michael. Watch that. 

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Michael Eisenberg: And for those who don't know, Mark has just taken over as chairman of the UJA, which is the Jewish Federation of New York. In your own words, I'd love to hear from you what you think is the importance of the Jewish state. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Look, I tell you, I say we learn the importance every day. I'm going to start with UJA and how I got there.So just to give you context, UJA Federation was formed to help Jews resettle, the Jews of Europe resettle in New York. Last I looked, there's not a lot of Jews resettling in New York. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Yeah. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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And so these places, these big entities, give you a sense, UJA in New York in a normal year raises 225 million. 225 million.

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This year we'll raise 425 million. It is the largest collective Jewish philanthropy in the world. And has unique political power and unique ability to have a collective. And so, you know, you ask, like, you know, what's the importance of the Jewish state? We find it every day. It's our refuge. It's our refuge.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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So, where did 10/7 find you, October 7th, where, where were you? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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I was probably in Abu Dhabi. 

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Michael Eisenberg: You were probably in Abu Dhabi. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Abu Dhabi, Michael knows this, but Abu Dhabi and the Emirates are by far the largest investors in Apollo

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Michael Eisenberg:

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We're going to come back to that in a second, but, so they found you in Abu Dhabi. And what was your initial reaction? And how did it kind of grab you?

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Marc Rowan:

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I was embarrassed, actually, to think that a failure of this scale could happen, and particularly in the South, where the people already feel neglected.

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I mean, we're in Netivot, where Ofakim, Yerucham, and I spend a decent amount of time there, and, you know, clearly the population feels that the government has not cared about them for a long time. And as a proud supporter of the state of Israel, as someone who looks to the IDF and to what Israel does, the notion that a group of amateurs could cause damage of the scale was embarrassing and then tragic, and then, you know, every crisis then presents opportunity. Which is okay. Now there's an opportunity to, you know, change the equation, and the equation is always, at the end of the day, at least in recent memory, wrong. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And do you think there's enough being done to change that equation? Both here and in the U.S.? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Look, I, the answer is no. I've been incredibly frustrated, but what I see is a just war. And, I mean, just line it up this way, the notion that the world was on Israel's side, that two aircraft carriers were in the med, that basically Israel had carte blanche to come in and do this, and 180 days later, we have kind of lost the narrative, is just insane.

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And I think, you know, I'm, I've been, the world does not quibble with the justice of the war, but we live in a political world. Like I can just speak in US terms. We have an election coming up. That election will be in part decided on Israel and to the extent the population believes that Israel is committing genocide.

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That's not a great thing for the president, and that pushes the president to be tough on Israel, which actually undermines Israel's leverage with hostage negotiations. It undermines its leverage with Hezbollah. It undermines its potential discussions with Saudi. It undermines its access to military and other things, and potentially can unravel what was a great thing.

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And so I am often frustrated here watching, I'll say it differently. In the U.S. we get to play politics because we're in the middle of a political season. And we have two big oceans, so we have a big military and we don't have people on our borders. But the notion that you can both prosecute a war and play politics just seems very frustrating.

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It must be frustrating to all of you. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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When you say ‘play politics,’ you mean domestic politics, just to be clear. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Domestic politics. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Yeah, just to be clear. 10/7 or October 7th also kind of reverberated in the Jewish community in America, particularly in college campuses. For those of you who didn't see it because you were under a rock, there was a congressional hearing led by Elise Stefanik and others, where she grilled the presidents of University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT. 

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Mark is Chairman of the Board of Advisors at the University of Pennsylvania. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Wharton School. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Wharton School, and was super involved, I would say, behind the scenes and in the front of the scenes at some point.

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There's, for those of you who haven't seen it, there's an incredible interview with him on CNBC, a series of letters that he wrote to have the President of Penn removed. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Yes, and the Chairman. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And the Chairman. Do you want to tell people, one, what got you animated, and two, kind of how you went about this? This is a, this is a hard battle. Like, Claudine Gay is still at Harvard. She's no longer the president, but she's still there. And the president of MIT is still there, but you were successful first at Penn. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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So this started in the summer, and we had at Penn a conference that has gone on for a long time, which was a Palestinian literature festival called Palestine Writes.

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And this year the festival was hijacked and essentially outsourced to a known anti-Semite and Hamas sympathizer named Susan Abulhawa. And this is ahead of the conference, and so I wrote to and called the President of UPenn, and said to her, “I'm a free speech absolutist. I don't think you should prevent these people from speaking, I actually think people can say whatever they want, but your professors are sponsoring it, your students are being forced to go, your buildings are hosting it, your university's paying for it, and your logo is on it. It seems to me like you're imprimatur.  I think you need to remove your imprimatur from this conference. Because you're not, this is not a question of free speech, this is a question of favored speech.” 

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And I gave her a number of examples where a law professor named Amy Wax had said things like, “Minority students don't do as well in my class on tests as non-minority students.” That's seen–and that she's under discipline, it's been a huge scandal at UPenn and other things.

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And through a series of letters back and forth, ultimately, she concluded that she didn't agree with me. She actually said to me, “Well, 30 professors disagree with you.” And so with Hope Tates’ help and the help of a small group alumni, we animated the alumni, and we ultimately had nearly 8,000 alumni step forward and say they were not going to fund the University of Pennsylvania until both the Chairman and the President were removed. 

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And it became viral. Jon Huntsman, the ambassador Jon Huntsman was in Japan minding his own business. In the middle of the night, the President and I get a joint email where Jon Huntsman says, “I'm embarrassed that my name is associated with the university and I will not, my family will not fund this anymore while you're here.”

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And what we were seeing was in part support for people fighting antisemitism, but I really want to couch what's happening in the U.S. It's not anti Semitism. It is anti-Americanism. We are in the middle of a takeover of our elite academic institutions by a dominant narrative that you can call post-colonial education.

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Oppressed versus oppressor, powerful or powerless, and the narrative goes as follows. If you're the oppressed, by any means possible, it does not, facts don't matter. It just matters in outcomes. And so Israel is seen as powerful. Israel is seen as colonizing. And therefore it does not matter whether the facts support or don't support Israel.

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And if you've had 20 years of this on university campuses, it does not surprise me that the population on university campuses in particular that generate our next generation of leaders has grown up this way. And what's happened is, you have this dominant narrative on the campuses and that dominant narrative affects students, because most students who come to college want to learn and have a good time.

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They don't arrive to be political activists, but when the cool kids are all out protesting, they're out protesting from the river to the sea. And then you ask them, “What river and what sea?” and “Who lives between the river and the sea, and how do they get there?” No one knows anything, but they're still out there protesting.

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And we can laugh at that, and I do laugh at that, but I do think this is what we're fighting. And some people combine this with DEI, which I think has been an accelerant to this. But anytime we choose people based a favored class characteristic, and not treat you as an individual–who decided which class is favored and not favored? 

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And that's really what we have on these college campuses. And what I tried to do, by being public, was actually just give people the courage to step forward and take this on. And that's what's happening. You're seeing it at Harvard. Larry Summers was fired because he had a bit of a faculty revolt.

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So presidents of universities learned to fear faculty. Now that Liz Magill and Claudine are out, presidents of universities now fear alumni and faculty. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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So I spoke at Harvard on Monday night to Jewish student leaders, and after the talk that I gave, which was primarily about courage of standing up against the zeitgeist, primarily about courage, about not letting, so to speak, the winds of history and the zeitgeist of whatever's in the university overwhelm them and be able to stand up.

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One of the student leaders said, “Can I ask a question?” I said, “Yes.” And he says, “Do you have any practical advice on how to develop courage?” And I was kind of stunned and I like, looked around at the table, you know–I've had four kids fighting in Gaza, and everyone else here has as well. And I looked around the table, and I said, “Is this an important question?”

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And everyone said, “Yes.” 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Oh, it's not just the students, it's the faculty. I mean, I have, I have chairmen of departments, tenure professors who call me, or you know, I see them on the street and they hug me, “Thank you.” And I'm like, “Well, where have you been?” |Well, you know, I don't want to lose my research dollars. I don't want to lose this.” 

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People are fearful. And I think the only, I don't know that we can give people the tools to have courage. I think all we can do is set the example, and begin to put this in reverse. And so when I speak, and I've done this a bunch now, I go through how we got here, and I said, “Actually, telling the truth feels great. All of you should try it sometime.” And then I go through, I said, I, and Hope's heard this before, I'm in Dallas, Texas, or Houston, Texas, a month or two ago, and I get off the elevator, and some guy is like, you know, nose to nose, I mean, he looks at me, he says, “Are you Mark Rowan?” 

And I'm thinking to myself, 50–50. We live in a crazy world. 

And I say “Yes,” and literally he just hugs me. “Thank you.” And that's been, if I look at my emails and texts, I have 4,000 emails and texts, which basically just say ‘thank you.’ The amount of outpouring of support from employees. 

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And so what I've been doing is literally just telling people like, there are no repercussions to telling the truth, because you actually are being looked at as having a moral position. And the more people who we can get to show examples of leadership and model leadership is the best chance, I think, we have of showing these people how to have courage. Cause I don't think we can get, there's no magic pill for them.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Why is it so hard to have courage? Like faculty members, you mentioned, these are well-educated people, many business people. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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This, this is the same thing we have, like this, this relates to investing too. Like this is everything that we do. There's something that goes on for so long, for a long time, and you, you have fear of missing out, FOMO.

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And we've had this net dominant narrative on these campuses. And if you really dissect it, it is not trustees or alumni versus faculty. There's actually three parties at the table. There's faculty. There's trustees, alumni, and then there's administration. If you actually analyze what's happened on college campuses–administrators, administration has actually taken the faculty freedom away.

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It is not the trustees. The trustees are the countervailing force. Because if you look at Penn as a microcosm–and I'll get to your question on courage–if you're a professor at Wharton, you want to get back to academic excellence and merit. If you are a professor in the engineering school, academic excellence and merit.

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If you're in the medical school, academic excellence and merit. That is a majority of the professors at the entirety of the University of Pennsylvania. And then in the social sciences, not so much. Okay. But I don't think everyone has to share the same view, but the notion that they're fighting City Hall because the narrative is so dominant that it squelched conservative voices or merit-oriented voices to the point where they're just non-existent and so there's no camaraderie through self-selection–and so an outside force, trustees, I believe, need to come in and help re-center some of these institutions. But also there's been no price to pay for being an antisemite, for instance.

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These kids who are marching, they don't think about it, because there's been no price to pay. But if you come to Apollo, I would not hire you if you were anti-black. I wouldn't hire you if you were anti-gay. I wouldn't hire you if you were anti-anything. Why would I hire an anti-semite? Why should we hire in finance, in insurance, in consulting, in banking, or law, any of these kids?

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I think one of the things we should do is make sure there's a cost for being an antisemite. I think we should call out the 20 worst universities, the 20 worst civic organizations, the 20 worst philanthropic institutions. We should make it embarrassing to serve as a director on these boards and trustees.

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Because being an antisemite has been costless. One side, positive side effect of 10/7, the Jewish community in the U.S. is off the sidelines. They are engaged. And now they just need to be directed. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And to exact a price. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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And I think that will be part of it. You know, it's not just about retribution.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Yeah. 

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Marc Rowan: 

I think there has to be a bunch of positives in education and other, other things. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Do you think it's safe for kids on college campuses, Jewish kids on college campuses now? 

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Marc Rowan: I do believe it is safe, but I think there are places that are more safe than others. I mean, we're, I think we're going to watch a rotation of schools in terms of what we think is great.

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I mean, if I look just at the competition amongst business schools, I think UChicago is doing the best job of any business school today. They are ascendant everywhere. They are winning in terms of PhDs. They're winning in terms of new professorships and otherwise. And as much as I want–and I believe Wharton can be dominant–until Wharton finds its direction and actually picks a path, I don't think it's going to change the trajectory of the school. Because if you get in a negative fundraising loop, the Dean loses power, professors don't–see their research not getting funded, you start getting the best appointments, the best kids can go anywhere, and I think we're gonna see real upticks in Vanderbilt, Brandeis, Duke, UF, UT. There are a lot of good places to go to school. You don't have to go to eight schools. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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How about Tel Aviv University or Hebrew University, we get an uptick there? 

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Marc Rowan:

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Maybe. Maybe, we'll see. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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You said before that the future leadership of America comes out of these institutions. You think about 20 years of indoctrination and a lot of these things are fear-based. How does that bode, if you think these are people who fill administration jobs or congressional jobs, how does that bode both for the US-Israel relationship and for the position of Jews in America? 

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Marc Rowan:

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Look, I think it's not a positive. I think if you, I’ll start this way. The majority of the country is sensible on every issue. When polled, the majority of the country is supportive of Israel's position, supportive of Israel, going into Rafah and wiping out Hamas, supportive of appropriate limits on abortion, supportive of almost every controversial issue that has plagued, you know, U.S. political life.

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The consensus–we just don't have a consensus political system. You have your own problems. We have our own problems. We have a primary system. In the primary system, most Democrat, the most, most seats for Congress are determined in the primary. They're not determined in the general election. And therefore, the only risk you have if you're a Democrat in a Democratic district is that another Democrat runs against you.

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And so you're, you run in fear of the progressive left. And if you're in a Republican district, the only fear you have is that a very right wing Republican runs against you. And so I don't view these issues as issues of substance. I literally do not. And why do Republicans support Israel? Well, the Republican primaries, in part, are determined by evangelicals, and evangelicals are very supportive of Israel.

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Therefore, Republicans are more apt to support Israel, in addition to all the good and practical reasons that many of them do, as a valued partner in other things. And on the Democratic side, you have these issues in reverse. But you have such a splintering and polarization of politics that these views can be very damaging to Israel.

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And I think there is a sophisticated appreciation on the part of some in the Israeli administration of how these issues play. I mean, I've heard advisors to the current prime minister articulate roughly what I've said. On the other hand, the pressure of domestic politics here sometimes leads to policies and practices which are very popular here electorally, but are incredibly damaging strategically to the country.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

And if you were to give one piece of advice to the Israeli government and the American government on trying to break the tensions here, what would it be? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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I think it's now, the onus right now is on the Israeli government to take steps to not tell Biden no at every turn. I mean, appreciate the position that he is in, which is a political position, and do that which is necessary to garner support for what needs to be done.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Which is take out Hamas and finish the job. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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Yes.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I want to take a sharp turn, to– 

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Marc Rowan: 

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As sharp as possible.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Okay. So once in a prior conversation that we had, I think we were walking at 57th Street, you said to me that “I've been doing this for, business for like 30 plus years, but I only made money in some small number of them.”

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I think it was nine you said, but I don't remember. But it's worked out fine. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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It's worked out fine. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So what should somebody take away about the investing business from that comment? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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So I don't, I want to, I don't want to be too literal, but I'll break it down. So the business, what I said applied specifically to private equity, which has a lot of similarities to venture capital in company selection and, and I–

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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We make money in fewer years, just to be clear.

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Marc Rowan: 

‍

Okay. But if you think about the private equity business, you make 10 decisions a year. Maximum. Everything else is ceremony. And how is money made? Well, over a long period of time in private equity, it appears that the secret to success is buying a good company at a low price and then selling it at a higher price.

‍

Okay, so when do the sophisticated investors spend most of our money? Given that we know low price is important, we spend most of our time buying companies when prices are high, because that's when financing is available, that's when people feel great, that's when people have confidence. And we do this cycle after cycle.

‍

And then when things get bad, everyone's overpaid, everyone's on defense. The ability to be a counter-cyclical thinker in this business, I think, is very hard, and it requires, you know, just a commitment throughout the institution to a style of investing that can be unpopular. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

And how do you train counter-cyclical thinking and being unpopular? A little bit comes back to the courage thing as well, right? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

It's, you know, so I look at what we try to do at Apollo and there are, you know, four or five things, but making sure we are a safe place for counter-cyclical thinking, for contrarian thought, is great. And part of that is a healthy tolerance of intellectual insubordination, which is different than outright insubordination.

‍

But–

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

What is intellectual insubordination? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

That means you can take on any, if you're a young professional in the firm and we're discussing an investment, you can take on anyone over the investment on facts, and have it out. And it is not only tolerated, it's expected. You can have deal teams disagree with each other.

‍

As long as the facts are on the table, we make investments as a partnership, and we win and we lose. But let's face it, we–how do we know who is a good investor over the last 10 years, exclude the last two? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

I think it's very difficult. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

I think track record is useless. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah, so do I. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Like, look at the U. S. We printed 8 trillion from 2008 until 2020. When we print 8 trillion, what, what happens? Everything goes up and to the right. And everything did go up and to the right, good stuff and bad stuff. Okay. Like, if I picked out some names, which I'm not going to since we're recording this, and I asked you three years ago if they were good investors, everybody would be like, “Oh yeah, they're amazing.”

‍

And now if I ask, you know, three years later, “No, they were just lucky.” 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Many of them are out of jobs. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Yes. Many of them are out of jobs. So I, I do think that that is an element of being an investor, which by the way, is different than running the business that I run today. The business that I run today is–the ability to be a good investor is paramount, but the ability to identify big societal shifts, trends, and get yourself in front of these trends is much more important than that.

‍

So we had, we gathered the whole partnership in Abu Dhabi in January, all 201 Apollo partners. First, the fact that 70% of them had never been to Abu Dhabi and they're our largest investor is itself an issue. But we, we've now, we've now rectified that, and I put up a slide that showed that in 2008 we were 40 billion of AUM.

‍

And in 2023 we were 650 billion. So we grew 14 times. And then I said, “We outgrew Apple. We outgrew Microsoft. We outgrew everyone.” Second slide. Were we lucky or smart? We were lucky. How could you possibly plan on growing a business 14 times? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

In a financial management business, yeah. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

And right. We were just, we positioned ourselves in front of really big trends, and we were therefore taken along with those big trends.

‍

So what happened? You had a financial crisis in 2008. Financial institutions were on their back foot. They were weak. We stepped in when they, when they couldn't do things. The world was pushing banks to do less. As banks did less, we did more. Interest rates went to zero, everyone needed returns, we provided,--they were willing to look different places for returns, we provided returns.

‍

So it changed the shape of our business. The business today is 500 billion of credit, and 150 billion of equity. And so– 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Just for context, how much is JP Morgan providing credit on an annual basis?

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

They would be, you know, three trillion. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Three trillion. So you're at one sixth, that's not bad. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

But the point being is that in the context of our, like, it sounds big in this room, but in the context of the market that we serve, it's just not that big. The big bank CEOs don't wake up every day wondering what the mighty Apollo is doing. And I do think that that is, in your business, it's about identifying the trends specifically around, is it AI?

‍

Is it power? Is it other things? In our business, it's what's going to happen next. So we look at the world, and banks are still being asked to do less. Basel III Endgame, everything else, that's going to be a big trend. The Western world is getting older. We're short retirement income. The provision of retirement income on a guaranteed basis is going to be a big business.

‍

Then I look at things that have happened in the stock market. Does the U.S. have a stock market? Do we have price discovery? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

No. 

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

I don't know that we do. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Especially not for small cap companies, for what it's worth.

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

So 80 percent of trading is S&P 500, 10 companies are 35 percent of the S&P. Those 10 companies traded astronomical P/Es.

‍

The whole market is basically levered to NVIDIA and Apple. And I'm not sure we do. And so in a world– I think the public markets have become mostly beta, and the reason I know that is, I look at all active management of debt and equity. It's failed to beat the market 90 percent of the time for 20 years. 

‍

I don't think we're going to have as much active management going forward. I think that we're watching in the next 10 years, the demise of active management. I think it becomes more passive and more boutique, of which we are boutique. 

‍

And I also think we're rethinking the whole notion of public and private. We grew up, and I grew up thinking that private was risky and public was safe. And when I started it was. Private was three products: Venture capital, hedge funds, private equity. And public were diversified portfolios of stocks and bonds. Now, private goes from double A to levered equity. It is both risky and safe and public.

‍

We used to have 8,000 public companies. We now have 4,000 public companies– 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

And shrinking. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

–going down, and we have massive concentration. And so shouldn't we, first, should we recognize that public is both risky and safe? And second, shouldn't we expect more private, given that half the market is now private?

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Well, maybe what's the other side of that argument, which is if you want to kind of be counter to the trend, there needs to be a market that develops for smaller cap companies and for active management. You don't think that happens?

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

I don't, I don't know. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

That's bad news for the whole room here, just so we're clear.

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

I think it's going the other way. I think the question is one of exit. I think the private market, I think gets–wins at the expense of the public market. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Because of regulation? Like, why does it happen? Because the big pools of capital are just passive and algorithmic? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Because big pools of capital are passive and algorithmic.

‍

Now, the negative for our business, and it's your business and my business, is I think IPOs are going to be the minority exit for all businesses, and I think we're going to have to be really careful about how we invest to make sure that what we're doing is incubating for public companies to buy. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

You talked about getting ahead of trends. One of the big shifts in the market since interest rates went up is all of a sudden a focus on cash flow and profitability. In the room are people who are growth-minded rather than cash-flow minded. Every startup is growth-minded. If you were advising the room, what would you tell them, how would you tell them to think about that problem?

‍

And you have one of your entrepreneurs in the room too.

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

That's exactly what I tell them, which is get to cash flow. We have to recognize that the money we will raise will be limited by the willingness of private capital to finance success. So get out and show success, and then you'll get the next round of capital.

‍

We just had this conversation over a drink here. Which is, okay, you're showing success, you're going to get the next round of capital. And I do think that that's really important today as opposed to, we're adding customers, we're scaling, but there's a big hole. Big holes cannot be filled. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

How do you think about AI? You have this giant portfolio of companies, right? How do you think about the emergence of AI in these big companies? Some of which are industrial, some of which are hospitality, some of which are insurance.  

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

So for us, you know, again, I won't hold us out as experts in technology, but what I, we see primarily right now is a massive cost lever, and I'll give you the first use case for us.

‍

So we run a very large call center for our insurance operation. Every call center everywhere in the world has 30 percent turnover. If they're good. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

30 percent turnover butts in seats. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Annually. That means everyone in the call center knows nothing, because they haven't been there. And therefore, you're not displacing a knowledgeable individual.

‍

And so, we will initially start with an AI co-pilot, with a person, because we're in a regulated business. And we will, over time, replace our call centers with AI. Okay. We are now, for all our simple legal documents, they asked on the first draft of everything, which is a massive cost reduction. It's not yet at a decision making point in our business.

‍

I think it will be. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

What did you do to get Apollo ready for this? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

It's primarily been putting the team on the field and giving them the opportunity to be wrong. So I'll come back to, like, management, management style. So the business is, it's a business. It can be really hard or can be really simple. What's really simple?

‍

What do we, what do we offer clients? What do you offer clients? You offer them judgment. That's all you offer them. And I think judgment comes over a long period of time seeing what you do and don't do. Therefore once you are at Apollo, I want you to spend your whole career at Apollo. Otherwise I lose your judgment.

‍

So the North Star of how we run the business is to make Apollo the single best place to be a partner in financial services. Okay. Second, in private equity or venture capital, you make 10 decisions a year, and you can therefore have every senior person around the table and make those 10 decisions.

‍

When the business gets to scale, if you try to make that, the line outside your office gets really long and the quality of your decision making goes down and the frustration level goes up. So you have to go the other way. You have to tell people where you're going. You have to tell them what they can do to get there.

‍

You have to give them the do's and don'ts of what your corporate code is, and then you have to make it safe to fail. Because if I'm right two thirds of the time–that's a lot–that means I'm wrong every third decision. But I just fail and fix it quickly. And I tell people, you don't get fired for making a bad decision, you get fired for making no decision.

‍

Or you get fired for bringing not all the information to the table to confirm some bias that you have. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

How do you deal with people's confirmation biases? 

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

You just over time, like this, this is, it is remarkable. I live with a quote behind me from Teddy Roosevelt, which is how you see, how you see the world once you've made up your mind.

‍

Every piece of data you just shape to fit your, you know, predetermined conclusion. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

That's like, that's like closing the circle with October 7th in many ways, right? 

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

Right, and so here, you know, look, what we try and do is just to make sure we're always challenging. We're always being contrary. I grew up, when I was coming up in the business, if I wanted to do something, the senior team never wanted to do it.

‍

They just were contrary for the sake of it. And it forced better decisions. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Did you become defensive? 

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

No, that's, that's the side of it, which is you just, you knew that you had to kind of get through a gauntlet. And you were just ready for it intellectually. And you know, you, you tried not to be locked in, but as you know, it's really hard.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

You've both invested personally in Israeli technology companies for most part. And Apollo, I believe bought Playtika, bought Playtika at some point. What's the difference in your view between the Israeli companies you've invested in, worked with, and the American ones? 

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

First, it's so much more efficient.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

It's so much more like hands on, get dirty, get it done. Rawr! Like night and day. Night and day. And therefore?

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

And therefore, like getting from startup to proof of concept to showing customers is, is actually, I think easier here. Getting it to scale is easier there.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

 Is there a bug in the Israeli genetic pool that you can't get to scale? Is there like, a heavenly decree–you the chosen people can't scale? I mean, there's very few of us, it's true. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

I might, I have, I have cultural observations where people are willing to sell for short dollars. That's one. That's, that's one. The second is you grow up in a market where you are, unless you are international, when you're a few, you grow up thinking small, because it's a small market as opposed to in the U.S. where you grow up thinking, you know, you have a big market to go test and, and do in. 

‍

I also think the scale of capital that's available in the U.S. to allow you to start some of these things is just, has been bigger, but itself is self-correcting. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

You know, I've often thought the second point you made is correct, which is when you grow up in a smaller country, your notion of what scale is, is just smaller. How would you correct for that? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Well, I don't think you, it's not going to correct for it any other way. I do–look, I think the entrepreneur system here is incredible, but because of the late start as a result of military service and other things, and particularly people who, at re the best part of their career, they've served more than their required three years or anything else–by the time they have financial success, they're older and they want to cash in on their financial success. And I find a real bias to ring the cash register early for that first win here. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

And how would you solve for that? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

I think that there is not a great solution. I'll tell you what, at Playtika, I'll tell you what we did.

‍

We just started paying out a percentage of profits. And like, before we exited and other things, we just wanted the entrepreneurs to relax. Like, yes, Robert, buy a car. Yes, Robert, buy a house, you know, and so it made them more willing to swing. We were swinging the bat, and we saw something that, and we didn't want them to kind of lose confidence as a result of their personal financial situation.

‍

Cause sometimes, you know, the notion that the investor wants the entrepreneur to be all in is great–up until the entrepreneur is all in and becomes risk averse. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

And that's, we try to, you know, find the balance between the two. I'm going to say it's, look, things have changed here.Whatever, whatever, however attractive Israel was pre-October seventh, it is less attractive now. And that just has to be a recognition, but it's also an opportunity. And so I, and I'm just going to go off piece for a second, touring Europe and speaking to regulators for the last few days in financial services.

‍

And everywhere I went in Europe, they were talking about, am I seeing the UK really reforming to reach out for business to try to build? And I said, “No, not a single sign of it.” Brexit, you know, they, they never got themselves behind what Brexit opportunity was. They never became the Singapore of Europe.

‍

They went the other way. They had all the costs of breakage, and then they emulated the system that they were breaking from, if not the same, worse. And so I look at a break–October 7th is Israel's own break. Okay, how do you take stock of what is really good here and is really strong and how do you make it more attractive?

‍

How do you actually go to the four or five industries that dominate here and say, what are the impediments to success? And how do we use this opportunity–because it is going to be an opportunity–when the dust settles, how do we use this opportunity to change the landscape and actually do it?

‍

And as I've talked to you and others in the group, the shocking lack of thought of how long-term economic policy is done is, is just shocking. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

What would be your top two pieces of advice to get after that? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Look, I think we live in a global world. I mean, you look at the–I'd go industry by industry, and I'd go, you have oil and gas, you have defense, you have technology, you have tourism, and you–it does not have to be tech.

‍

You know, I jokingly said to both you and Eyal before, I said, “Okay, show me where the hotel school is in Israel.” Everyone's like, “Huh? Hotel school?” I was like, “Exactly.” This is the, this is the typical stepping stone for blue collar to white collar employment. And it doesn't exist here. And yet, everywhere I go, there's being, there's hotels being built.

‍

Last I looked, people actually serve people in hotels. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

And we're not, we're not training them. We don't do it. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

The robots are coming. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

But these are just like–go industry by industry, and what are the four or five things that are the biggest impediment to life? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

That's a good segue to my last two questions, and then I'll take a couple of audience questions. You mentioned before the GCC and Abu Dhabi and going there, and that's where you were. Where we're sitting right now, what do you think is the opportunity and challenge for this region? Saudi, Emirates, Israel, maybe India and others right now. And how would you prosecute it?

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

I think it's to make it livable. I mean, so I'll give you my observation. So, I've been going to Abu Dhabi and to the Emirates for a really long time. And the first generation of expats who were there were people who failed in Western companies. This was the only place you could get a job. 

‍

This generation of expats are everyone who's the best of the best.

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

First class people, yeah. 

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

People, despite the climate, despite being a form of government that is not, you know, how most of us have grown up, Abu Dhabi, Dubai have become really attractive places to live. And they have gotten the dividend of talent, and reinforcement, and local investment, and the ability to take knowledge, industries and to have people invest–because they've always had plenty of money. And now they have money, and a livable place, and they're reaping the benefits from that. 

‍

I think Saudi is going to reap the benefits from that too, as–like I, five years ago, if I had to go to Saudi, I would literally be dreading the trip. Now I feel almost like going to Abu Dhabi. Like if I look, women are out and about everywhere in Saudi society, 50 percent of my professional contacts in Saudi are female.

‍

200,000 Saudis a year moving back to Saudi, mostly educated women whose parents had sent them abroad. The energy level of young Saudis, young, even for me, is just off the charts. Is it as embedded in Saudi as it is in Abu Dhabi? Absolutely not. But the resorts, the tolerance, the openness, the acceptance of Jews, of Israel, and other things amongst educated people, this is an unbelievable dividend. And the Emirates is three and a half million people?  

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

Yeah. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

It's 30 million people. Like Riyadh alone is going to, it's going from 9 million to 13 million people. It is hopeful to go there and it is becoming livable. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

And, where are we 10 years from now in this relationship? This is all a question of, you know, how Israel gets itself–I mean, in some ways you have a common enemy and a common opportunity. I mean, this is a, you know, why do people want to make peace with Israel? You can come up with a list of reasons, which is, you know, technology, defense, standing up to common enemies, relationship with the U.S. Okay, those are things that, you know, Israel has to continue to invest in defense, continue to invest in technology. Relationship with the U.S. I think you will still have a common enemy. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

One last question for you. You mentioned earlier that you think getting people guaranteed retirement income is going to be a big deal. Do you think that the social welfare state is kind of dead? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

No, I think that that's what people want.

‍

I think that's Europe. I mean, I do think, and the remark was made to me, is Britain had the opportunity to be Singapore, except the people decided they wanted to be a social welfare state. So, I think it is starting to fray around the edges. Because the requirement–I mean, think about the challenge Europe faces of defense, of investment in their economies, of energy transition, climate, oh, and an aging population and providing for the social welfare state.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

With no kids. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Yeah. With no kids. I mean, they've had, and they have not done a great job assimilating immigrants into their society. They've basically not assimilated them into their society. And so I think there are challenges around the world. But I don't, I think that the need for guaranteed retirement income is not primarily it from governments.

‍

I think governments are just going to do less. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

Right. They'll shrink. The social welfare state will shrink, but we'll need other solutions. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Look, this is, it is possible. I mean, go to the, where, who has done the best job anywhere in the world? Australia. Australia just did a simple thing. They did something called superannuation, which is nothing more than putting professional managers who are fiduciaries over people's savings, and allowing them access to 30 percent private markets over a long period of time with compounding.

‍

And in the U.S., just to tell you, Israel's not alone in not addressing this. In fact, Israel is closer to the Australian system than we are. So, what's the largest pool of capital in the world? 401K in the U.S. 13 trillion dollars. What's it invested in? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

The index, maybe. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Daily liquid stock index funds for 50 years. Why? No one knows. 50 years ago, we decided this was what they should own, and we haven't changed yet. So, if we had invested social security in anything other than government bonds, we'd be talking about surpluses. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

Questions from the audience? Liza? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

I can't believe people raised their hands, actually. Oh my God.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah, I'm surprised Yael raised her hand. Yael runs AI for Walmart and Walmart Israel, among other things that she does that we won't talk about. 

‍

Yael Visel (guest): 

‍

Most innovative startup-ish company in the world, I would say, right now. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

Always harder to innovate in a big company. Yeah. 

‍

Yael Visel (guest): 

‍

Yeah. Yeah. First of all, thanks for coming here and sharing your insights with us and coming to Israel. I want to go back– 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

This is not a hardship, by the way. I have to be honest. 

‍

Yael (guest): 

‍

I'm glad to hear.

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

I'm staying down the block. It's all good. Yeah. 

‍

Yael Visel (guest): 

‍

Getting back to campuses. So when you look at the young Jewish generation, where are they on the, you know, spectrum of supporting Israel? Or protesting, or feeling that they are not necessarily supporting, you know, the actions, and what Israel is doing and what–

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

Massive resurgence of support for being Jewish and for Israel. And I think there's always the fringe, but after October 7th, there's, people are just off the sidelines. And 

‍

Yael Visel (guest): 

‍

And do they feel closer to Israel? Because–

‍

Marc Rowan:

‍

I don't know, what do you think? I'm looking at Hope. She spends most of the time with the kids. 

‍

Hope Taitz (guest):

‍

No, they're getting, as Micah said, they're getting more courage.

‍

They're getting more, as we get them out–they, they want to come, by the way, they want to, they haven't been able to come during the academic year. We're trying to get the College Campuses united, loud, together, but the support is really there in every way, shape, or form. And anybody who wants to connect on this subject, we are, we want them here, and we want, and we want you guys to know how supported you are.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Other questions? Idan? 

‍

Idan Tendler (guest): 

‍

You mentioned, you talked about the colleges, but actually I want to hear your thoughts about the relationship between Israel and the Jewish community in the U.S. post October 7th. 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

You know, it's an interesting thing. So pre October 7th, everyone had their own, you know, things.

‍

I mean, most of the U.S. is Reform or Conservative, and it's divided that way. And I would think the support for Israel, while always there, is the Orthodox are more supportive, the Reform are less supportive. They don't feel as welcome. I think post October 7th, that conversation is completely and totally on the sidelines.

‍

I mean, I wanna say, I'll say it in the nicest possible way. Reform Jewry, of which I was a member of–I would listen to the rabbis and the rabbinate for the whole movement, and they basically had bought into the whole, you know, social justice, DEI narrative. And after October 7th, the LGBT community didn't come out, the women's community didn't come out, the black community didn't come out, the Hispanic community, the immigrant community, everyone they supported kind of deserted them.

‍

This was a massive wake up call. Some of them got the joke, and some of them didn't, but everyone is being forced to rethink their position. So, there's obviously a lot of dispute, just as there is here, with respect to leadership and the style of leadership. But I think that support for Israel amongst the Jewish community has gone up.

‍

I mean, I look at it just in numbers. You know, look at fundraising at UJA. People have come off, people who never gave to UJA just want to help. 

‍

Idan Tendler (guest): 

‍

And do you think we will see a change regarding to the politics in Israel? More involvement, more pressure? 

‍

Marc Rowan: 

‍

How do you, you know, we, we're all helpless, except for you guys. You guys are not helpless, but I find it so, it's actually a really funny thing, like in the U.S., I actually think we can affect change in U.S. politics, and yet I come here and you guys are so resigned to, oh, the system. It's so crazy. I mean, the notion that there's not going to be substantive change after what's happened here, I can't, I just can't believe.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

There will be. Go ahead.

‍

Yuval Golan (guest): 

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Thanks for being here. It's very insightful. And I wanted to ask a question because we're discussing a lot of aspects of education. So most of us, I guess, grew up reading books and being critical. The biggest issue that I see today is how to deal with the next generation and how to deal with all the amounts of data, that many of that is fake, and how to teach them to criticize and ask the right questions to draw the right conclusions before they go to those protests or other events that happen, either against us as Jews or others? And how do we deal with the next generation of education and teach them? 

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Marc Rowan: 

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I don't, I'm going to say I don't have an answer for you. I think it's a real problem. And I think it's a problem for us.  I no longer know what's true. I don't think The New York Times is true, I don't think the Wall Street Journal is true, I don't know where news is true. You have to get news from every source you possibly can, and by the end of the day, decide for yourself what's true. But at least we grow up thinking about that critical reasoning. This next generation gets their news in snippets, and we can rail against that, which I think we should over a long term.

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But in the short term, the notion that we, this generation, technological group of geniuses in this country, that we've ceded social media and we've lost the terms. We're not seen as indigenous. We're colonists. For the way we, the way the army operates, and versus the rest of the world, the notion that there's genocide and the notion that this is an apartheid state.

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I mean, we've actually ceded those three words, and we've ceded the social media battle. And I just, I don't see the resources of this state, which should be awesome, applied in that context. I really don't. I mean, there's obviously lots of need for that today. And every effort I've seen here has been kind of nascent and not well thought out.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I’ll finish with this last question, then we have to wrap up. No, I'm going to ask it and be done. The interviewer’s prerogative. 

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So there's a bunch of people in the room who have been in reserves since October 7th, and some in uniform here. From looking from the outside in, what's the one thing you'd like to tell them or empower the people who have been in Gaza or in reserve duty, and from your job as chairman of UJA, the work you've done there?

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Marc Rowan:

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Look, this is unbelievable. I mean, how many places in the world are there where people actually fight for something they believe in? I forget who said it to me yesterday. If I'm, if you said it to me yesterday, I don't want to steal what you've said, but you know, if you're a Belgian, are you fighting for Belgium?

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Probably not. This is like an amazing place, where people want to preserve what they have. And it's, it's doubted and appreciated. I mean, there's very few places in the world where you have a citizen army. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Yeah. 

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Marc Rowan: 

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It's really impressive. 

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Mark. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for coming.

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