Apollo often becomes the largest investor in its own funds, using its retirement services arm and balance sheet. This aligns interests by ensuring the firm experiences the same financial outcomes as its clients, which builds significant trust and demonstrates high conviction.

Early on, Apollo's culture was non-communicative, viewing information as power. As it grew into a public, global firm and entered the highly regulated insurance industry, this became untenable. The firm had to learn to articulate its strategy clearly to align employees and build trust with global regulators.

Apollo's foundational private equity strategy—seeking value, being contrarian, and investing flexibly across the capital structure—was not siloed. This single philosophy of maximizing return per unit of risk now guides every investment decision across their entire platform, including credit and insurance.

With half its AUM being its own captive insurance capital, Apollo's mindset shifts from a third-party manager to an owner-investor. This changes the client conversation from "here's a new product" to "here's what we're investing our own money in, join us." This deep alignment builds significant trust with LPs.

Contrary to the industry's focus on capital raising, Apollo identifies the generation of high-quality investment opportunities ('origination') as the primary bottleneck to its growth. This mindset shifts their focus from fundraising to building and acquiring platforms that can source unique deals at scale.

Instead of only celebrating wins and analyzing losses, Apollo's leadership instituted "near-miss reviews." They analyze successful investments that could have gone wrong "but for the skin of our teeth." This process uncovers hidden risks and flawed assumptions, strengthening the firm's underwriting for future deals.

Instead of taking more credit risk, Apollo leverages the long-term, stable nature of its insurance liabilities (8-9 years on average). This "secret asset" provides the flexibility to invest in complex or less liquid assets, capturing an "excess spread" unavailable to institutions like banks with short-term funding.

A steep yield curve makes fixed annuities more attractive for consumers. Life insurers sell more of these products and invest the proceeds into spread assets like corporate bonds, creating a powerful, non-obvious demand driver for the credit markets.

The 2008 financial crisis created opportunities to buy discounted corporate debt, making Apollo realize that providing capital (credit) is fundamentally linked to providing equity in leveraged situations. This insight led them to build their now-massive integrated platform.