• Blackstone's president, Jon Gray, said bigger firms offer a lot of opportunity for growth.
• Gray said hiring, firing, and promotion decisions are key to a company's growth.
• Some have said young employees should opt for smaller companies, where they can maximize impact.

Jonathan Gray, the president and COO of Blackstone, said large companies offer a key benefit to ambitious employees.

Gray, the president and COO of Blackstone, said bigger employees give people more runway to rise the ranks, since there's not as clear a ceiling to growth.

"One of the problems with smaller firms is, there's not a space. That smaller tree can't get sunlight," he said in an interview with Bloomberg that aired on Monday.

Gray would know. He started at the firm at just 22 and said he was taken seriously from the start. Gray, who made more than $96 million last year, has spent more than 34 years at the private-markets giant, which manages more than $1.3 trillion in assets and employed more than 5,200 people at the end of last year.

Now, he said, leaders make a point of calling out innovative, creative efforts in group meetings and rewarding the people behind them.

Promoting employees who take strategic risks and exemplify the firm's culture provides younger people with a clear model for climbing the corporate ladder, he added.

Ultimately, he said, people want to work somewhere where they have responsibility, are well-paid, and like their colleagues. As for himself, Gray said he's never considered leaving, partly because he walks into the office every day "intellectually challenged."

This talent strategy also leads to growth, Gray said: "People often think, 'How do I get an organization to head in a certain direction?' It's not by putting plaques up on the wall with mottos. Who you hire, who you fire, who you promote."

Getting hired at Blackstone as a younger person is no easy feat, though, especially recently. Gray said during a September presentation that the firm's acceptance rate for the 2025 analyst class fell to 0.2% —  around 57,000 people applied for only 138 entry-level roles. Many of the jobs were filled by former summer interns, the firm's head of campus recruiting previously said.

While Gray touted the merits of working with a big employer, some have argued that smaller companies are ideal for younger employees, many of whom prioritize the remote work flexibility more common at leaner businesses. Mark Cuban, the entrepreneur, said in December that new graduates should work at small- or medium-sized companies where they can add the most value, especially in terms of AI.