I have been an investor, working alongside management teams to build businesses for over more than twenty years. I started out at Goldman Sachs in London in 1997, switched to investing at The Carlyle Group and subsequently launched the private equity business of Ares Management in Europe.

I was drawn to Elon Musk first by studying his successes at Tesla and SpaceX. But I have always enjoyed working with people who find purpose away from finance and business. This led me, for example, to serve as an adviser to Tony Blair in his capacity as Mid-East envoy to the Quartet, based in Jerusalem. On returning to London, I also became involved with the international nonprofit, Save the Children, and was fortunate to have the chance to serve as its UK chair.

These experiences have made me fascinated about the different ways that people try to find purpose in their lives, and that in turn led me to writing, first about Elon Musk, and – in the future – about Albert Camus.

My approach to writing about people and their ideas is shaped by studying history and philosophy at Cambridge University. There I learned that, if you really want to understand someone, you have to look at them in their own terms and to consider them in the context of their heroes, peers, and enemies.