Interview with Eric Grossman
Eric Grossman is Morgan Stanley’s Chief Legal Officer.
Steak and Concerts
Max Raskin: Where I wanted to start was something you do better than anyone I know, which is stay in touch with people and do it genuinely. How do you do it?
Contents
Eric Grossman: For the most part, people do things for two reasons. One, because it makes them feel good. Or two, because they think it's good for them. Sometimes those things overlap, but if you're only doing things in category two, then it takes effort. And it takes process, a regime.
There are lots of people that methodically go through their contacts every month to say, “Have I talked to this one? Have I talked to that one?”
But if you're more focused on category one, which is staying connected to people and enjoying them and their interactions, you don't really need a process or a method.
“What about today is worth sharing with somebody else? Who do I know who likes steak?” Okay, I'm gonna send them the video of the Brazilian picanha cut that I cooked on my Big Green Egg over the weekend. I probably sent that to 10 people. I don't use Instagram or Facebook to non-discriminately broadcast out my comings and goings. That's a third category. And I don't like that category. I think it has all the negative consequences of social media.
MR: What did you do before phones made this kind of sharing possible – like in the 80’s?
EG: You'd wait till you're at the pub with your pals and you tell the story about the great butcher you found. To some extent the price of the ability to broadcast this stuff out almost immediately is that you spend less time talking about it, or even feel the need to get together to talk about it. On the other hand, the ability to connect with my brother in real time about what I'm cooking is pretty nifty.
MR: Do you worry about spending more time filming the steak rather than enjoying it?
EG: I don't ever let my own personal enjoyment of the moment be compromised. I’m not one of those people who waits to eat the pizza to get a good shot of it.
MR: What about at concerts, do you film concerts?
EG: Now that I’ve found Relisten, much less. Even before, I never recorded a full song. I only do it for my benefit to remember. But now I can download and get most of what I go to.
MR: I was walking down the street the other day, and there was this beautiful sunset. And the only reason I noticed it was because I saw seven people with their cameras taking a picture of it. And I'm thinking, “What are you really going to do with that picture?”
EG: I mean I get the urge, because I like beautiful photography. And when you see someone else's, there is something. Again, it's all in balance. I think if you see a beautiful sunset, and you're able to quickly capture for one second one photo, and then you share that with people, I get that.
MR: Do you have any good concerts to recommend on Relisten?
EG: Anything by the Tedeschi Trucks Band.
MR: What was on your most listened to playlist from Spotify from 2020?
EG: Top three songs were Keep on Growing (Live - 9/9/2016) by the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Hypnotize by the Notorious B.I.G., and Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard by Paul Simon.
Walnuts, Coconuts, and Making Your Bed
MR: What's the first thing you read in the morning?
EG: It depends, but I’d say that the first thing I tend to look at is Mike Allen’s Axios AM Top Ten.
MR: Do you check your phone in the middle of the night?
EG: Almost never.
MR: Are you a morning person?
EG: I like the night, but I can’t read anything other than pleasure during the night. I can’t do dishes at night, but I can wake up and love to do dishes in the morning. I hate making beds, but I love cleaning dishes.
MR: Why do you hate making beds but love doing dishes?
EG: Not only do I find it personally satisfying to have a clean kitchen, but it’s like a walk down memory lane of how much fun I had eating and cooking the night before.
But I just hate making beds. I’m the opposite of Admiral McRaven. But I admire his theory immensely.
MR: What’s your creative outlet?
EG: Food.
MR: Is there anything on principle you wouldn’t eat?
EG: Dog.
MR: Were you always into food? Were your parents into it?
EG: My parents always ate everything, they weren’t fussy eaters. My dad had a couple of odd things he didn’t like and I inherited one or two of those odd things from him – like my dad doesn’t like walnuts. But over time I’m less hostile to walnuts than I used to be. I used to be very hostile to coconut, too. But I’m less hostile to coconut.
MR: Why do you think people like you so much?
EG: Who says they do?
MR: They do. You have your list you give out. You are definitely a mentor to many people.
EG: I don’t know, Max, you should ask yourself that question, not me.
MR: Were you a leader in middle school or high school?
EG: Sure.
North Carolina
MR: Were you ever a bully?
EG: I did bully one kid, it was fourth or fifth grade. I got in major trouble for this when I was living in North Carolina, and so I got paddled by the principal.
MR: I didn’t know you lived in North Carolina, what was that like?
EG: I went to an all-white school – my mom didn’t know it at the time, but it was a school founded by bigots after school integration in the south – the kids weren’t necessarily bigots, but their parents were.
MR: What was that like being Jewish in that environment?
EG: The experience of being a Jew in North Carolina definitely impacted my view – what I observed in North Carolina, the bigotry that I observed and didn’t process until later. Once I started running things, I saw I had an ability to be meaningfully impactful, which is a bit of a cop out because you can be impactful in advancing the causes of racial equality no matter what you do. But I felt I can make things happen here and it became clear that it was something I needed to do.
MR: What about all you do with Fordham Law?
EG: Well, that’s just me paying it back. Fordham took me in. I didn’t have the best grades in college. Fordham was the best law school I got into and they gave me financial aid. So, for me it’s just returning the favor. Same thing for Hamilton College.
You know, fundamentally – think about how lucky I am. I mean, just as a human being, I'm lucky how fortunate I am. What a lot of it is is this country, what this country allows us to do.
MR: What do you think you’re luckiest about?
EG: My family, of course. Like I met my wife in my small mini-section at Law School. But I think I've also had very good career luck. I can look back on my career and see five or six forks in the road that would have taken me in an entirely different direction. Luckily, lots of those decisions turned out to be really good ones.
MR: What do you think about therapy?
EG: I think everyone should go to therapy. I think therapy is very, very beneficial, having someone who is trained to listen, who understands better than the average person the workings of the human mind. Because the greatest challenge to personal interactions is not what's going on in your own head – many times it's actually understanding what's going on in somebody else's head. Why they're behaving that way, what's driving them, and what are you doing to drive their behavior. Therapists can be very helpful in helping you understand what's going on in your head, but also helping you understand what you're seeing and observing in others.
Civil War and Biography
MR: Do you read any of these psychology books?
EG: No. I read a lot of biography.
MR: What are you reading right now?
EG: I usually have multiple books going at the same time. Right now, I’m in the middle of Chernow’s Washington biography on the iPad; I’m listening to Andrew Roberts’ new Churchill: Walking with Destiny while I run; and in hard copy, I’m smack in the middle of Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route.
MR: Why are you so interested in the Civil War?
EG: Because I think it's the most important historical event in maybe in the history of mankind – certainly in the history of the United States. Before the Civil War it used to be “the United States of America are” now it’s a “is.” We righted the great sin of the Constitution – one of the greatest documents of all time – but the original sin of slavery was preserved. The greatest president of all time emerged at just the moment needed him. It was the first modern war.
I was way into World War II when I was younger. I used to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the battles and the generals and that was to the detriment of my Civil War appreciation and studies. If you asked me the three most important historical things to me when I was younger, it would be World War II, Revolutionary War, Civil War. Now it’s reversed.
MR: I had the same thing happen. I was fascinated by World War II and a couple years ago I watched that Ken Burns documentary and just fell in love with Shelby Foote and the whole thing.
EG: Have you ever been to Gettysburg?
MR: Never.
EG: How is that possible? I’ll go with you, we’ll hire a guide.
MR: Let’s do it.
MR: What about who you would have dinner with?
EG: I mean, Lincoln, it’s not even close. I think he’s the greatest historical figure of all time.
MR: What’s your favorite World War II movie?
EG: Midway.
MR: I would have thought you were a Patton guy.
EG: I loved Patton, close second, followed by A Bridge Too Far and Saving Private Ryan. Too many?