Lawrence Kudlow was born in New York City, New York. He attended Brooklyn College, where he met and played football with future U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Kudlow then attended Yale University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News and graduated magna cum laude in 1979
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He also served as editor-in-chief of the campus humor publication, The Yale Record. Kudlow was a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University from 1980 to 1981. In 1982, Kudlow joined the Reagan administration as an assistant to White House Chief of Staff James A.
Baker III. In 1984, he was promoted to Deputy Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and then Associate Director for Economic Policy and Director of the Domestic Policy Council until 1987. He then worked in the Treasury Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis and later became Vice President and Chief Economist.
From 1994 through 1999, Kudlow held a number of positions at Bear Stearns & Co., including President and Chief Operating Officer until 1998 when he was named Chairman and CEO. In 1999, he became Chairman and CEO of The Federal Reserve Bank of New York before joining CNBC in 2000 as Senior Economics Analyst, Vice Chairman for Research until 2003 when he became CNBC's chief business correspondent.