Bloomberg on Bloomberg

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It's not so much that they follow you around to see where you eat, or who you are married to, or whether you are single, it is that they will look into your business dealings and hold you accountable for everything that went on in companies where you had worked in the past, no matter whether you had anything to do with it or not.

That's a very big problem. I have had friends who have said they would like to volunteer or do something in government but they had to pass because you have to fill out these forms. They say, "What? What? I don't want to tell anybody what investments I have, or how much I set aside for my kids, or how much I made last year." And you can argue the public has a right to know, and that may very well be, but one of the costs is that it takes a whole group of people out of consideration.

On valuing his own privacy:

I'm not terribly interesting to write about. I live with an age-appropriate woman. We don't do coke. We don't go to crazy places. So it's not interesting. Nevertheless, I might not have known what it was really going to be like. The press didn't know—what does a billionaire do? Do they put on their pants one leg at a time, or not? Do they eat with their fingers, or a knife and fork? It was at that level.

And then when I said I wasn't going to tell where I was going on some weekends, The New York Times went ballistic. But after three or four weeks they went on to the next subject. You know, even [former California Representative] Gary Condit gets off the front pages eventually. You don't think so at the time, but Monica [Lewinsky] disappeared finally. It took a year, but Monica eventually disappeared.

On what he hopes to leave his successor:

I would hope that the public finds a mayor who is better than me. That would be a wonderful feather in my cap. In business, you measure a manager by how well they pick a successor. I say to a manager, "Who in your organization can succeed you? Well, nobody. O.K., well, you're not getting that promotion. Next…I think a lot of elected officials are afraid to develop somebody under them because that person might come along and challenge them.

That tells you something about their confidence in their own abilities, I suppose. But nevertheless, it's true. I would like to leave a culture of responsibility, accountability, excellence, and honesty. Me and the 300,000 people I work with gave this city a roadmap. We took it partway down that road. But wouldn't it be wonderful if my successor continued on it?