ARROGANCE AVOIDER.

Private-equity kingpin Henry Kravis joined High Point University President Nido Qubein in the Power List interview, a partnership for discussions with influential leaders. Interview videos are available at www.businessnc.com

Henry Kravis isn't on the Power List, but his company's 1988 acquisition ofRJR Nabisco changed Winston-Salem and North Carolina. At the invitation of his friend and Greensboro business leader Bobby Long, he visited the Triad in May to promote the SEO Scholars program, which provides education funding for 48 Guilford County Schools students. The Tulsa, Oklahoma, native joined George Roberts and Jerome Kohlberg at the Bear Stearns investment company, then the trio started their own private-equity Firm in 1978. He is co-executive chairman of KKR.

This story includes excerpts from Kravis' interview and was edited for clarity.

KKR started with $120,000. It now has a market cap of more than $55 billion. How did you do it?

Well, you're going to be a good entrepreneur, what do you do? You re either going to get through the wall or you're going to get over the wall, but you're going to get to the other side somehow.

You got a job at Bear Stearns and became a partner by age 31. Then you and your cousin, George Roberts, left and started KKR. What happened?

George and I were both 32 at the time. We went to the senior partner at Bear Stearns and said, You know we ve been doing (we call it private equity now). They hated it because they were a sales and trading firm and, for them, overnight was long term. They never put a penny into any deal we ever did, but they were happy to get the fees that we would bring in.

Boren day Products of Greensboro was one of our very first investments. That was in 1974.

We said, 'We want to do this and we'd like to do it within Bear Stearns. We'll give you half of this new firm and we'll call it KKR, and we'll take half.' The senior partner, Cy Lewis, said, 'You're either here doing what we want you to do, or you're out.' So, we went back to our office and we said, 'Well, there's our answer. Were out.'

I put up $10,000--that's all the money I had. George put up $10,000. Jerry Kohlbergput up $100,000. The idea was to make long-term investments of five to 10 years and improve businesses.

What fundamentals do you look for in a company?

One thing that's pretty standard is, 'What's the industry, and where does this company fit in the industry?' If it's No. 7 in an industry, and unless you have a pretty...