Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick said the most important thing to him on each Sept. 11 is very simple.
"It's the number. People say, 'Well, what do you mean by the number?' The number of money we're going to give to families," Lutnick said in a CNBC " Squawk on the Street " interview at the company's 9/11 Charity Day event.
The company created the event as a way to remember the 658 Cantor employees who lost their lives during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center 14 years ago. The event is also designed to collect donations for a number of different charities and to help support the families affected by the attacks.
"If I didn't have today as Charity Day, I would pull the covers over my head, so this way I get to do good and turn something negative into something beautiful," Lutnick said.
Since its inception, the event has raised over $100 million, and has garnered support from several celebrities, including actress Whoopi Goldberg and actor Michael J. Fox.
"The day and the days following 9/11, the stories about Cantor Fitzgerald came out and the man that was running the company was doing amazing things for not just for folks who survived, but for the families of everyone, and he really … seemed to be fighting through all the crap that was dumped on us," Goldberg said in another "Squawk on the Street" interview.
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