His mother was from a family of cocoa merchants in Bahia, who were more ambitious, Lemann said during the interview with Falconi. That was where he got his drive.
Now he has a great relationship with Harvard, setting up scholarships for Brazilian students.
Though he now regrets not taking more advantage of the faculty at Harvard, for example speaking with Henry Kissinger or Paul Samuelson, according to a speech Lemann made to his foundation, Estudar, translated by Forbes.
“If he had continued being a journalist, he was going to be a Joe Schmo,” said Alberto Dines, 78, the former managing editor of the Rio de Janeiro-based newspaper, to Bloomberg.
Carl Icahn would later ask Lemann to play a game, to which Lemann smiled and replied, "perhaps."
After learning from Alex Behring that Lemann used to play professionally, Ichan said, "Forget the betting!"
Lemann wanted to turn it into Brazil's Goldman Sachs by adopting the American firm's partnership model. But the interview process was unusual. Partners would look for people who were poor, smart, with a deep desire to get rich. And they would ask odd or offensive questions — one interviewee was asked if he had sex with his girlfriend, Bloomberg reported.
He met his current partners, Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Herrmann Telles, also at that brokerage firm. (They are also now billionaires, by the way.)
The trio, known as the "Three Musketeers" would go on to buy Lojas Americanas SA, a now huge chain of retail stores in Brazil, in 1982 for $24 million. It was Brazil's first hostile takeover.
He grew the bank for years until more than $100 million in trading losses pushed him to sell.
According to The Wall Street Journal, this helped spur Brazil's armored-car industry.
All the while, GP Investimentos was growing into what would be the biggest listed private equity firm in Latin America.
According to Reuters.
They also control 15.6% of China's beer market — having bought Fujian Sedrin Brewery in 2006.
Sidenote: You can thank Lemann for getting rid of that creepy Burger King king: He fired the ad firm that came up with it.
SABMiller had also been expanding in the time AB InBev became a giant — in 2011, it bought Australia's largest brewer, Fosters Group, for $13 billion. In 2014, it tried and failed to buy out Heineken.
The red areas show countries where AB InBev dominates; orange-colored areas are where the two brewing giants share the market, and yellow represents areas of SABMiller dominance. The post-merger company will produce one-third of the world's beer.
Unilever has a market capitalisation of around £112 billion ($139 billion), while Kraft Heinz is worth around £85 billion ($106 billion) at the most recent estimate. That puts the value of a combined company at close to $250 billion.
A Unilever statement said that the offer represented an 18% premium on the company's value, but seemed to pour water on any chance that a merger of the two companies is likely.
But don't be surprised if Kraft Heinz returns to the table with an improved offer. Morgan Stanley analysts said last year that Kraft Heinz could strike a huge deal in 2017.
"Similar to 3G's approach in other industries such as beer, we regard its early food acquisitions as only initial steps to a long-term consolidation strategy," the note said.
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