The following video is part of our "Motley Fool Exclusive Interview" series. In this segment, Fool.com analyst Brendan Byrnes interviews author and Bloomberg reporter Jason Kelly about his recent book, The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything.

Leveraged buyouts have always been hugely important for private equity firms such as KKR, Blackstone, Bain, and Carlyle. In the following video, Jason explains how leveraged buyouts work, and how they've been evolving over the past several years.