# Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray on AI, private credit, and big bets — retained record

> Retained news record from news:semafor.

Canonical: https://highsignal.app/data/records/2084eddaf1089c82

[← sources](https://highsignal.app/data)


source: [news](https://highsignal.app/data/news) (news:semafor)  published 2026-08-27 14:14 ingested 2026-08-28 04:48

[original source ↗](https://www.semafor.com/article/08/27/2026/blackstone-jon-gray-ceo-signal)

## retained text



```
Jon Gray, chief operating officer of the $1.3 trillion asset manager Blackstone, says one of the firm’s distinguishing habits is to “go big” when it finds a theme it believes in. But he also says successful convictions need to be challenged, particularly as Blackstone invests heavily around artificial intelligence. “You keep pressing against what you’re doing to confirm that you haven’t just sort of fallen in love,” he says.
In this episode of The CEO Signal, Gray describes investing as “pattern recognition”: finding “good neighborhoods,” and connecting the dots before others do. Hosted by Penny Pritzker and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, the conversation also explores how Blackstone makes investment decisions at scale and why Gray worries strong systems can “stamp out the entrepreneurial spirit.”
Gray also addresses the current debate around private credit. He says lower returns as rates fall and spreads tighten would be a “totally reasonable criticism,” while rejecting claims that the asset class is creating systemic risk or heading for collapse as “not very logical.”
```



document fetched 2026-08-28 04:48 · canonical https://semafor.com/article/08/27/2026/blackstone-jon-gray-ceo-signal