As we embrace major changes unseen in a century, many see the importance of cultivating future leaders of the world who can respond to the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century. Among those making concrete efforts is Stephen A. Schwarzman, founding trustee of the Schwarzman Scholars. This year, Schwarzman Scholars is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Over 1,300 scholars now in or already graduated from the program gathered recently in Beijing for this special moment. Schwarzman Scholars are from more than 100 countries and regions. Over a decade, the program has been based in Tsinghua University, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It has become a training ground for future leaders promoting the need to understand China's position in the global economy in order to grapple with almost any issue of international consequences.
I had an in-depth conversation with Stephen A. Schwarzman when he was celebrating this occasion with many scholars from all over the world. Steve, good to see you.
And congratulations, Amy, as well. 10th anniversary, wow.
Well, it is really amazing. We had a wonderful ceremony this morning and some of the astonishing kids here who are graduates now out in the real world.
Crazy applause and cheering in the hall.
Yeah. What is it like for you 10 years? Dream come true?
Uh, it's better than the dream.
It is the dream. But it's the dream on steroids. It's really a phenomenal group effort between people at Tsinghua and ourselves to create something that doesn't exist any other place in China or the United States.
And thanks to people like Amy and many others in the team as well. Yeah.
Well, Amy made it happen, along with the terrific people from Tsinghua who worked here, the Shu Wan, others. So, it's been like a dream come true.
Exactly. Dream big, as you said.
You have to. Okay, I got that.
So, I guess you're all on CCTV.
Congratulations, everyone.
This is our C10. Some of them.
That's Waka. Hope you recover soon. One of our absolute favorites. Good to see you.
So good to see you. You guys rock in the morning, huh? Great. Thank you so much. Amy, what is it like, you know, to be always surrounded by all these students, these scholars?
It's what wakes me up every day. Wouldn't do it if it weren't for them. And there was the dream.
Yes. Steve, good to see you.
What have you learned over the past 24 hours?
Well, I've learned we have a lot of happy alumni. And we have a lot of happy students at the Schwarzman Scholar program. And when we started the program, I knew this would be very impactful for the people who are in it and hopefully impactful for the world. And I didn't understand how deeply impactful it actually would be because we had 90% of the graduates want to come back for a 10th reunion because we assemble people in a normal year from 40 countries but over the 10-year life we've had people from 100 different countries come from 500 universities. So, the experience that these kind of highly unusual super achievers have is something that you can't get anywhere else because as I tell them, it's the only time in your life you'll be with people like yourself and we don't have the same rigorous grade competition that you'd normally have in the university. So, you don't have to dislike anybody and you can learn from anybody. And so, it's a pretty intense experience but the fact is that the students who go there not only have great education but they bond with each other and what surprised me is after they leave they tend to live together. And they communicate at least once a month with us in the existing program and I always believed that when we set this up this should be a lifetime engagement.
So, from a dream that came true to make it a lasting legacy in a shifting world, what are some of the challenges and solutions, Steve, you are thinking about these days about Schwarzman Scholars?
