Private Equity firms, once tight-knit partnerships, have broadened their reach substantially, building or acquiring other businesses, from giving mergers advice to managing hedge funds, to underwriting stock and bond offerings. The majority have gone public, offering stock to retail investors, ensuring steady access to more money, and providing a means for which the billionaire founders (most of whom are already in their 60s) to cash out their holdings. This book will take the reader behind the scenes of these firms, understanding their origins and synthesizing the overlapping stories of their creations, evolutions and ambitions into a narrative as they prepare for significant public scrutiny as public companies. The Cast of Characters: Blackstone -- Stephen Scharzman, Tony James: A laid-off Lehman Brothers investment banker teams with his Lehman mentor to create a small advisory boutique. A decade later, he taps a savvy fellow banker who oversees an expansion and pu