Rowan notes major innovation companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe all remain private despite US capital market strength.
“But I'll go through the companies who are creating massive change. SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Stripe, Cursor, Cognition, Andoril. What do all of them have in common?”
Rowan says people join firms but stay for culture, and innovation requires accepting mistakes.
“People join firms, but they stay for cultures. Now we have to be really intentional about who we are and what we want to be. To innovate, you have to have a culture that’s prepared to make a few mistakes along the way.”
Rowan says Apollo and Athene have focused on innovation driven by their retirement mission for over thirty years and prefer to lead change rather than react to it.
“At Apollo and Athene, we help meet the capital needs of companies and economies, while enabling people to retire with confidence. That mission has driven our innovation for more than three decades, and this new presence is a continuation of that DNA. Change is the only constant, and we'd rather lead it than react to it,”