>> tonight, on "titans at the table," i will be shouting with a former chief executive. i traveled to spend time with this retired wall street titan. >> there aren't many views like this in the world. >> where he owns a vineyard. >> we have a ways to go. >> and recounts how it tur -- how we turned around the company left for dead. >> i had a company with a value of zero. today it is almost $80 billion. >> all well dealing with a personal struggle.

>> with the illness, i have nine months to a year to live. >> that is what they said. >> i said i have an obligation to resign if i cannot handle the chemotherapy. >> robert was born in brooklyn in 1934. early in his childhood his father moved the family moved to the catskill mountains but then died of a heart attack, leaving them a quarter of a million dollars in debt. and with a half-completed hotel. from there, money, having enough of it, became a driving force in his life. soon after graduating, he rose up the ranks of wall street's biggest firms, chase manhattan and metlife, where he became ceo. it was in 2009, three years after he retired from metlife, when he took on his biggest job yet.

turning around the ship at aig. it was in croatia where he accepted the job that would turn him into a key player in the financial crisis and at times one of its most hated characters. in a boat ride, now retired, he explains how we fell in love with the country when visiting. >> we came here in 1987 with about 250 people and 130 producers. >> this is the reward. >> they all thought it was a joke. they came here and said that this is unbelievable. i decided, in 2000, after the war with serbia, i would see if i could buy vineyards. >> in 2006, he did just that.

and bought two plots of land. today, the 12 acres bear fruit and olives. it was fruit harvest season when i went, and he invited me to tag along as he checks the grapes. >> it looks like we will salvage a little something from this terrible season. >> it was here in 2009 when he started getting calls from people in treasury to come back and take over aig. the u.s. was in a violent financial storm. >> it is a lot easier to run a >> it is a lot easier to run a vineyard than it is to run aig. >> walk me through what happened. >> i thought that if aig fail, first and foremost, the insurance industry would never be the same. i'm a big shareholder at metlife. the first thought i had was metlife. they would be in big trouble if aig failed because things are

just going to unravel. that was my first thought. the second was that i thought it was bad for the country. if america cannot show that they can fix business problems and do it the right way, i think it would be bad for meritocracy and capitalism. >> at the time, aig had just received one of the biggest government bailouts in history. $182 billion in exchange for a 92% stake in the company. 3 ceo's in 13 months. few thought it would survive. he started making headlines as soon as he joined, including going on vacation shortly after. >> he left his job to go on vacation. >> and calling lawmakers crazy. >> you said a lot of things at that time. can you name some of them -- can i name some of them? you said you had bigger balls to the government. >> that was at a private meeting.

let me give you the bigger context. the government isn't going to tell me how to run this company. >> when you first accepted the job, you said you would not work for a dollar. you would be paid $10.5 million. when you came back to aig, you did not need the money. >> absolutely not. >> but you insisted on the pay. it set the precedent. from ceo on down, everyone should be paid with they are worth. >> it is the message you are sending. we will pay competitively for a position. the team is 3,000. i need to make sure that my people have hope and opportunity and will be paid competitively if we deliver a free and independent aig.

i did not want my pay to be a cause célèbre about pay being too high. pay should be relative to your performance. the performance of your company and the value you create. >> coming up, going to war over bonuses. >> we spent $100 million spend $162 million to. you tell me, maybe i am wrong, maybe i am crazy. ♪ >> bob's fight over his own

patrons out to be a small battle compared to the full assault. he found himself at war with lawmakers, regulators, and the public over $165 million in bonuses to traders. this was the same unit that almost sank aig.

>> i want to read a quote from david scott from georgia. he said, we are, in a sense, at war. at war over the $165 million worth of bonuses. >> why were there not at war at the $100 million that was spent tween -- between 4 firms to watch the people at aig work, to see if they are doing the right thing? congress says that we spent 100 million watching people that you are paying $165 million to. over the work that they did that they earned. you tell me, maybe i am not. maybe i am the crazy one. >> at least crazy enough to threaten to quit the job you just started if the bonuses were not awarded. >> you threatened to quit, didn't you? >> what i said is that i would announce my retirement in april of 2010. i did not quit. i said that i'm going to say that we are stabilized and it is

time for me to move on, because if i cannot commit to a compensation program -- remember, people were asking me to pay in aig stock. people in the administration and the government did not think we could pay back the government. how much is the stock worth? nothing. so why would you stay if something good comes along? >> he did not step down, the bonuses were handed out. afterwards, most of the highest paid executives agreed to give the money back. but the outrage over the bonuses and benmosch's compensation lingered.

>> can you understand it public frustration even now? with pay? can you understand that point of view? >> i understand a part of it. but you have to understand, you gave me $10 billion a year -- $10 million a year, and at the end it you thought i had a company of zero value. and today the market cap, the market value, not the equity, the market value of aig is almost $80 billion. if i said to the american public i will create you and $80 billion company and give it back you with a profit, but i want 1% or 2% of that, they would give it to me. >> americans don't see it that way, right? >> they do not understand what was created. they think somehow it gets created -- >> they think that the rich are getting ri -- richer. that the rich are enriching their friends. >> they see that. in 2009, march 2009, i took

every penny that i had, and every margin of security i had, and i bet on the market. i will not discuss the number. no thank you. i did that. several americans did it too. they bet on this market. and it paid off. if you look at what is happened in the five-year period a time there has been huge growth. when i am saying is that you have to take risks in life. and you will have to make a decision. if you take a risk and you win, you should not be blamed for winning. >> coming up, what he found in aig's books. >> i didn't think it was that bad. ♪

>> compared to other wall street titans, robert benmosche is less recognizable but you couldn't tell on the streets of old dubrovnik. where people came up to the ceo to take photos. >> i'm really nobody. >> he recalled the first time he -- the first moment he took on the job with aig. when you first got your hands on the books, what was going on in the company? >> i did not look in the books. i had a good idea of what was represented by what was in the books. because i spend a lot of time with jim milstein. jim was the restructuring executive who was handling this for the u.s. treasury. and i spent a lot of time with

sarah, the person handling it for the new york fed. i questioned them about the financials. my assumption was that they did their due diligence. >> when they briefed you on what was going on, with a better or worse than you thought? >> the world thought they were worse than they were. >> you did not? >> i didn't think it was that bad. but it is a question of, if the outside world thinks it is that bad, i have to get you to stop talking about how bad it is. >> and bad it was. aig was expected to be broken up and the best parts sold off. then-treasury secretary tim geithner said he wanted aig just successful enough so the taxpayer can get out. benmosche had different plans. he was going to revive the company and pay the taxpayer back. >> did you ever think you would not? >> no, i did not think i could

not get it done. what i said was, in september of 2009, i think what you are going to be left with is a $70 billion company. if you have $70 billion as your margin of error, there is no doubt. >> that was your back of the envelope. >> that was my back of the envelope calculation. i was wrong. it is $100 billion. and our market cap is $80 billion. >> when aig finally pay back the american taxpayers with a $23 billion profit, the committee took out ads taking the american people. -- thanking the american people. but benmosche felt the thanks

-- the thank-yous to him from officials to him fell short. >> was that the first time you had lunch with him? >> the only time. they met with me when they signed the deal that gave them 92% ownership of aig. the question was, how are we going to sell all the shares? they had lunch with me -- when they saw me at the end of 2012, that would have been more meaningful. >> why? >> they should have said, what we put the people of aig through was horrific. i want to say that it is -- that we appreciate their hard work and it is incredible what they have accomplished. to not only pay us back, give us the $23 billion profit, but you have kept all the americans employed. you have kept them as effective citizens of our country. and we thank you for that. >> they never said that. >> they never said that. >> it almost sounds like you are looking for an apology.

>> people should recognize they did a great job under the worst of conditions. >> today, aig is a slimmed-down version of itself, and profitable. does it still pose a threat to the financial system? >> i don't another aig will happen. >> we are not going to see another aig crisis. >> no. we have been in this position for over two years. i don't think we will see a bank failure that we have seen. i don't think you'll see a security industries failure like bear or lehman. >> you give a thumbs up to the regulators. >> i give them a thumbs up for getting the job done but a thumbs down for failing to tell the public. i have criticized people in washington. at all levels. why don't you talk about how much progress you have made? since 2008? their answer is, we are not sure something cannot go wrong.

i say, shame on you. because you should be sure. i am sure. >> when we come back, robert benmosche's villa splendid lives up to its name. >> there are not many views like this in the world. >> and he gets personal about his fight with cancer. >> they told me i have nine months to a year to live. ♪

>> how are you? >> hi, betty. >> great to meet you. show me around your beautiful villa. >> in 2001, he began looking for a place to retire and settled on an abandoned the villa. in dubrovnik. >> this whole space is a wreck. cracked tiles. but i looked at the view and said, wow. there aren't very many views like this in the world. >> they bought the property for

about $1 million and spent millions more fixing it up. >> all i preserved was the outside walls. and every thing was built from inside. >> on a cliff above the sea, it has 12 bedrooms, eight bedrooms, and three kitchens. it is aptly named villa splendid. when he bought the place, he imagined himself relaxing and hosting parties. what he did not expect was the terrible news that came in 2010. cancer. >> it is a terrible diagnosis. but one thing i learned in the life insurance business is everybody dies. we are just not told a timeframe. and so you have the luxury of imagining years beyond where today is. >> did the doctors say you have x number of years? you have x amount of time. in general for this illness, cancer? >> in general, i have nine months to a year to live is what

i was told. then they put me on aggressive chemotherapy. normally, you are supposed to get it over three days. i asked them to do it in a day. to see what effects it will have on me. i have an obligation to resign if i couldn't handle it. they said, ok we can but we do not like to do it. than we did a scan and it had no effect. zero.>> they put him on an experimental treatment which did work. his 12 month prognosis stretched to three years. you never disclosed which cancer you had. >> i did not. >> will you ever? >> if i were comfortable disclosing it, and it would help people, i would. and so i don't want to give people the concern that he will not be here long.

because i have obviously beat those odds. and secondly, i don't want to be able to tell people, i want to do what he did. because it worked for him. there is no miracle drugs here. it is the pipeline that counts. i think it is premature to get into a conversation about it. >> but the treatment stopped working. >> they reset the clock nine months to a year. >> when? >> back in may. and the board and i met in april. we said, i think you need to do some major changes in the organization. they were concerned about me changing the organization dramatically. and then we announced a new ceo. give the new ceo a chance. i said, that is great. we were thinking about the first quarter of next year. and i said, i'm not going to play the odds and changes have to be made now. not later. i said, let's accelerate my retirement.

the board was happy to do that. >> on september 1, he turned over the ceo role to his chosen successor, peter hancock. the transition was smooth and quiet. hardly noticed. a vast difference from the days when he took over. >> if there's some sort of secret that you can dispel for somebody with a diagnosis like that -- but still able to turn around a multibillion dollar company -- how do you do that? when you are faced with a diagnosis like that? >> you have to focus on living. there are times in my life that had the diagnosis, and the consequence of death came, it would have been devastating. had it happened in the middle of getting aig to the point that we completed the restructuring. completed the 92% ownership of common shares to the government. that would have been devastating. it would have been devastating in 2005, when i was still

getting this house finished and ready for my retirement. so when you think about your death, think about what you have accomplished. if there are things that are worrying you about legacy, my father left behind a wife with four children. no will. $250,000 in debt. that is a horrible legacy to leave your children and your wife. >> you did not want to repeat history? >> i did not want to repeat history. >> that makes sense. were there moments where you sat down and thought about that? went to a dark place? >> i was never in a dark place. i felt the hardest thing is telling denise. then telling my son and daughter. it was very hard on me and then close friends.

to be able to say to them that, unfortunately, there's going to be a timeframe here. let's think about all the things we can celebrate of what we have already done. >> and done with the corporate world. now it is time to enjoy everything he has. >> my mother said, enjoy life when you are healthy. do not wait too long. >> could you have enjoyed this 20 years ago? >> no, i did not have as much money. [laughter] >> it comes back to money with you. ♪

>> from pier three in san francisco, welcome to a special edition of "bloomberg west, the alibaba story." alibaba's founder jack ma once said, "ebay is a shark in the ocean. we are a crocodile in the yangtze river. if we fight in the ocean, we will lose. but if we fight in the river, we will win." over the next half hour, we take you inside the alibaba group to find out how this company founded by 18 people in jack ma's small apartment has grown into a company that has grown bigger than amazon and ebay combined.