“One of the fundamental challenges of private equity is so much of what they are about is efficiency and extracting value from their portfolio companies. And what that translates into is generating more productivity with less expense. So, basically, firing people, laying people off,” he said. “We know the productivity of the last twenty years has been not to the benefit of workers. Workers’ income is flat.” Those resources were “extracted,” he said, and now show up as returns for firms like KKR. Some of that money will end up in charity, soothing the wounds it helped to cut.
