Malcolm Gladwell. Subtitle: "How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed." Ted Turner "inherited the largest outdoor advertising firm in the South." "He could advertise his new station for free." "Within two years, the station was breaking even." "In a recent study." "The truly successful businessman... is a predator." "Wall Street thought that [John] Paulson was crazy." "But Paulson wasn't crazy at all." "'There's never been an opportunity like this,' Paulson gushed to a colleague, as he made one bet after another. By 'never' he meant never ever." "Paulson's story also casts a harsh light on the prevailing assumptions behind corporate compensation policies.... to turn executives into risk-takers." "Many entrepreneurs take plenty of risks-but those are generally the failed entrepreneurs." "Failed entrepreneurs tend to be wildly undercapitalized." "Famous experiment with kindergarten children." "People who work for themselves are far happier than the rest of us."
Monday, January 11, 2010
14
Yes, that's about right! Now you don't have to poop today.
"'Us' is how I see myself when I'm able to focus on my role as a cultural signifier."
I do accept that kindergarteners are happier than the rest of us.
Blog idea: "Fuck a Paywall, Fuck a Print Mag: NYer Abstracts Done Right"
"This thing is like this thing. Except that it isn't, but I want it to be, so that my idea, which is obvious, basks in the complexity of my analogy, which is ridiculous."
!!!!
Sorry. I just read a lot of awful papers on Gladwell last semester, and my students were totally bamboozled by him. They couldn't analyze the stuff at all.
O but !!!! = total enthusiasm for your comment.
He is the WORST. I feel like I am taking crazy pills every time someone mentions him with a straight face.
Isn't Gladwell just taken too seriously by people? He's just a magazine features writer, you know? None of it exactly makes sense, but, I mean, come on, the guy's just trying to crank out some content.
Okay, a certain class of people who fancy themselves deep thinkers while only actually thinking like 40% - 60% deeply think he's fascinating, but, shit, they think John Stewart is Thomas Jefferson, you know? Let them play with their shiny thing.
I think it's that he gets the NYer platform/imprimatur. I mean, the occasional Patricia Marx consumer reports article aside, you generally expect an article to be coherent at least. If he had a byline in GQ/Time, I would have no problem.
Also - as someone who works in business, Gladwell is literally the only contemporary public intellectual anyone ever mentions casually, so I am overstated in my annoyance.
Only thing I've read by him was the thing where he told ghetto grandmas not to worry about stray pit bulls because a kind of racism is behind anti-pit bull sentiment. Yeah tell that to Miss Wanda when she's got six teeth sunk into her booty, Malcolm.
Unless they're light-skinned, well-spoken pit bulls.
When well it be cool to disparage Matt Taibbi? I'm getting impatient.