Bloomberg Surveillance · Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Bill Cohen reveals that Leon Black's decision to pursue a career in finance was largely influenced by the suicide of his father. Initially a philosophy major considering a different path, Black felt compelled to become the family's breadwinner after his father's financial ruin and death. This personal tragedy ultimately redirected him towards Wall Street, where he found considerable success.
“He had been a philosophy major at Dartmouth, and I don't think wanted to go into Wall Street at all. His father had sort of urged him and convinced him to go to business school. He was such a good student at Dartmouth that he got into Harvard Business School relatively easily. He didn't like it. I don't think he wanted to go into finance. But after his father committed suicide, and that's an incredible story, which was How I start the book had to start it that way because, you know, it's had such a huge impact on his life, as you would expect.”
“Then he felt like, you know, he was the breadwinner. His mother was an artist. His sister was a teacher. So it fell on to him to, you know, keep the family, you know, and the you know, the fortune of the family was pretty much lost after his father died. jumped out of the Pan Am building because his fortune was tied to the stock of United Brands, which tanked after that incident. And so Leon decided, I'm going to Wall Street. And it turned out that he was really good at it.”