What you'll learn

• 1 (00:03) **Introducing the New Wall Street** - The host sets up the episode's thesis: that a new breed of institutions (private equity, asset managers, trading firms) have overtaken traditional banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, using Apollo Global Management as the prime example.
• 2 (02:40) **Why Apollo? The Characters and the DNA** - Cohan explains his choice to write about Apollo, citing the compelling and misunderstood characters, particularly founder Leon Black, and the firm's deep, scrappy roots in the Drexel credit culture.
• 3 (06:01) **The Drexel Legacy: Risk, Credit, and "Loan to Own"** - The discussion focuses on how the Drexel experience shaped Apollo’s strategy, making them masters of credit analysis and the "loan to own" model, rather than risk-averse operators.
• 4 (11:18) **The Executive Life Deal: A Controversial Fortune** - Cohan details Apollo’s second major fortune from buying a $6 billion junk bond portfolio from the failed Executive Life insurance company for $3 billion, a deal mired in controversy.
• 5 (15:41) **The Insurance Revolution: A New Architecture for Wall Street** - The conversation shifts to what the host identifies as Apollo's true differentiator: using captive insurance companies (specifically Athene) as a stable, long-term source of funding, a model pioneered by CEO Marc Rowan.
• 6 (21:29) **Is It a Better Mousetrap or a Frankenstein?** - The host asks the central question: is Apollo’s new model genuinely less risky, or is it just a new, unregulated form of banking that could also blow up?
• 7 (28:00) **The Absence of Regulators** - The host observes that regulators are conspicuously absent from the Apollo story, raising questions about oversight in the "shadow banking" market.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app