Cover Story
The Goldstein file
Smart Business Miami | January 2009
Born: Cambridge, Mass.
Education: Princeton University, majored in public policy; J.D. from Harvard and an MBA from INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France
First job: [The] first job I ever got a paycheck for was working at a fitness center at Princeton University when I was a student there.
Whom do you admire most in business and why?
I want to give you the equivalent of the Unknown Soldier. This goes back to how the unfortunate actions of a few have prejudiced the
view of corporate America. There are a lot of people in this country who go to school, do well in school, graduate in the top of their
classes, go to good universities, and at the end of that, they go to work for companies. And they work hard, and they try to do the right
thing, and that’s most of who works in corporate America. Those are the people who really propel our economy forward, those and the
entrepreneurs. And the denigration that is absolutely everywhere of the corporate-character type, to me, is unbelievably misplaced. And
it’s not that I’m in denial about the fact that some people have done really wrong things. But I really admire the people who put in a serious
workweek every week, try to do the right things, try to advance, try to do what their supervisor is asking for, try to help their company out
because there’s millions of people like that and we have a lot of them ourselves.
Favorite vacation spot:
This might be ironic for the head of a cruise company, but I’m pretty much skiing every opportunity I can
get. This year, we’ve got Christmas worked out for everyone, though. Before Christmas, we’re skiing in Park City, [Utah], and after, we’re
going on Independence Of The Seas for an eight-night cruise.
If you could be any superhero, who would you be and why?
Anyone who could help the Eagles win a Super Bowl. ... That remains my first answer. I’m much more a fan of ‘Lord of the Rings’ than
of comic books, so to me the ideal would be somehow the combination of Gandalf and Aragorn that would be the best that you could
be.