Living in the Black-stone age

When you’re with a group of private equity professionals, it’s not uncommon to see a few tech gadgets that are behind on the times. The industry has a notorious love of BlackBerrys and, despite the brand’s decline, many buyout execs are clinging to their outdated smartphones rather than getting on board with much hipper Apple or Samsung devices.

But one executive, head of one of the most powerful private equity firms in the world, is carrying around an even more old-fashioned device. Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, the king of private equity himself, uses a flip phone. Namely a Nokia 6350, according to a recent article in Business Insider.

In this day and age, a billionaire with a humble flip phone is a refreshing concept, but there’s something ironic about the CEO of firm that’s bumping up its investments in data and technology sticking with his phone from 2009.

So why would a man with a net worth of $10.7 billion resort to using a six-year-old model? He prefers the device for making and receiving calls, and uses an iPad “for everything else,” a spokesperson said. People still use phones to make calls?