Cantor Fitzgerald’s CEO Remembers 9/11 and the Brother He Lost
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, when the planes struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Cantor Fitzgerald was left devastated. The investment firm’s offices spanned the upper floors of the North Tower, leaving no chance of escape. In less than an hour, 658 employees were gone—more lives than any other company lost that day. Among them was the brother of CEO Howard Lutnick. For Lutnick, the grief was immediate and deeply personal, but so was the responsibility. He had to lead a company hollowed out by tragedy while caring for the families who had lost everything. What followed was a story not only of survival, but of loyalty, rebuilding, and the weight of memory. Here, Howard Lutnick reflects on Cantor Fitzgerald’s darkest day and the colleagues and friends who never came home.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | What I told people, I was making a podcast about Benghazi. |
| 0:08.5 | Nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why? |
| 0:15.1 | Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies. |
| 0:18.5 | From prologue projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi. |
| 0:23.6 | What difference at this point does it make? |
| 0:26.6 | Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:33.6 | ...or wherever you get your podcasts. This is our American Stories. This is our American Stories, remembering the anniversary of 9-11. |
| 1:02.0 | Many companies and families lost loved ones that day. |
| 1:06.9 | I lost one of my best friends, co-captain of my high school basketball team for two years. |
| 1:13.2 | There was nothing we didn't do together for so many years, Paul Beatini. |
| 1:19.8 | There was one investment company that lost 658 of its 960 employees. |
| 1:28.0 | Before that day, Cantor Fitzgerald hadn't been all that well known beyond Wall Street. |
| 1:33.6 | However, after 9-11, it was known as the business to have lost the most employees on 9-11. |
| 1:41.7 | Quote, we have death fame, |
| 1:46.4 | CEO Howard Lutnik said. |
| 1:49.6 | A few days after the horrific event, |
| 1:53.9 | Lutnik participated in an emotional interview. |
| 1:57.3 | He didn't just lose all those employees, by the way. |
| 1:59.4 | One of them was his brother. |
| 2:03.6 | Here he is, explaining why he wasn't there. |
| 2:09.3 | My little boy, I have a five-year-old, and it was his first day of kindergarten at Harz Mann, |
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