I delved into On the Brink last evening. That’s the new memoir by Hank Paulson, the former Treasury Secretary, about trying to save the world–or at least the global financial system–when Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and AIG were collapsing around him.
The hell, the fear, the physical illness he felt are long past. When I spoke with Paulson on Friday, he seemed mightily relieved about that–and that his book is out too. (Writing was much more difficult than he’d imagined–as most of these masters of the universe-turned-authors find out.)
We talked mainly about what Paulson will do next. The chat wasn’t for publication, so I won’t get into too much detail. But I can tell you that the next big thing for the ex-Treasury Secretary and former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs is to save the world from environmental ruin. Paulson and his ornithologically inclined wife, Wendy (she’s a birdwatcher), plan to spend the rest of their lives working on conservation.
This isn’t surprising. In 2004, I wrote a Fortune profile called “The Secret Life of Hank Paulson.” He was in charge at Goldman then, and also co-chairing the Nature Conservancy’s Asia-Pacific Council. I traveled with the Paulsons and some Conservancy folks to Hong Kong and then Palau, a Pacific nation made up of hundreds of islands, known as a diver’s paradise. Snorkeling and riding through jungles with the man, I saw the real Hank Paulson–the guy who grew up on an Illinois farm and wanted to be a forest ranger until he went off to Dartmouth for college.
Paulson told me on Friday that he intends to go back to his roots, essentially–and use his power and influence to improve the planet. Currently on his book-publicity blitz, he hasn’t had time to figure out what precisely he and Wendy will do, but he seems to be thinking big. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Paulsons mount a global environmental effort. They love traveling to Latin America (where he loves animals and birds of prey–because they live at the top of the food chain, he once told me).
Paulson’s greatest passion is China. Before he left Goldman to go to Treasury in 2006, he helped raise millions of dollars for environmental efforts in China, traveled there often, and embraced a project to save the forests in Yunnan province. This past Sunday, as I read a front-page New York Times story about China’s leadership in the global race to create “clean” power–vs. its poor environmental performance at home–I thought of the secret life of Hank Paulson. With his clout in China, what an impact he could have.
