How to Invest

When he founded BlackRock in 1988, Larry Fink didn’t think he’d become rich.

Fink’s firm now controls $9.6 trillion in assets, and he’s so revered for his financial acumen that many think he should become US Treasury Secretary or Federal Reserve chairman. But Fink insists that his ambitions were modest when he launched a bond fund; he wanted simply to build a viable firm. Fink started BlackRock after becoming disillusioned at his first job as a trader at First Boston. After years of profitable returns, Fink became a pariah at the company because his trading group hit a rough patch and lost $100 million. Fink was disappointed that the bank scapegoated him, and he decided to go out on his own.

BlackRock’s rise has come in large part because of the growth of its iShares exchange-traded funds. In 2009, Fink negotiated to buy Barclays Global Investors and its iShares ETF unit. At the time, iShares held client assets totaling $340 billion; by 2022, that figure was $3 trillion. Despite BlackRock’s size, Fink sees room to grow – the company holds less than 2% of all assets globally. Fink contrasts that with banks, which might hold 10% to ...