Business School

Just a little housekeeping before I school you in business: My pal Nathan, of Nathan’s Nook and the mind behind Nookish Notes, interviewed me for his newsletter! Read the Q&A here.

I don’t need business school because of the above three books and you definitely don’t need business school because I’m here to give you all of my findings.* Feel free to venmo me $250k at your earliest convenience.

Case Study #1:
When McKinsey Comes to Town** 

It’s a fact of life that consultants, especially of the big, fancy-pants variety, are con-artists who regurgitate the same rolodex of solutions to you and your competitors. Consultants will whisper sweet nothings — higher profit margins, c-suite bonuses, happy shareholders — all while sowing the seeds of your destruction.

Rather than providing fresh ideas to diversify a company’s revenue, consultants will increase the bottom line by advocating lay-offs. These cuts will make key stakeholders happy (i.e. richer) but these are only short term wins. Lay-offs do not equal growth and should not be confused with growth.

While McKinsey publicly and privately espouses its values, one of which is 'the obligation to dissent,' the company will often act dishonorably. For example, McKinsey worked with ICE — first under Obama and then Trump — and their money-savings suggestions were so ruthless ICE employees were aghast. McKinsey’s biggest gripe was ICE’s food and medical costs.

The bedrock of McKinsey’s success is their foundation of secrecy. But, that is not the only key: a lack of federal oversight and a system of decentralized management have also aided the firm. Though McKinsey is an American company, they are now very global with McKinsey hubs operating all around the world. In these satellite companies, McKinsey courts the children of the ruling elite in order to solidify longterm business clients. The result of this is that McKinsey is often working on businesses and initiatives that are in direct opposition to the American agenda.

TLDR: Don’t hire consultants. If you must, look for individuals who can offer bespoke solutions and years of experience. There’s a time and a place for secrecy.

Case Study #2:
The Kingdom of Prep and Glossy 

CEOs should be crazy. Not so crazy that there are nefarious fraudsters à la Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried, but just crazy enough that they might positively change a consumer’s world.

The Crazy CEO is a visionary — a dreamer and builder, communing with the cosmos to bring forth something tangible from the intangible.*** They are exacting stewards of their companies and their herculean efforts do not always bring out the best in them. For example, J. Crew founder Arthur Cinader and his daughter Emily Woods were fanatics for silence. Employees would remove bangles and bracelets before entering a meeting with them because the noise would distract their fearless leaders. One on hand, this is wild. On the other hand, I respect them for creating an environment that boosted their creativity and productivity.

Early employees of J. Crew were often frustrated by Cinader. This is a man who would painstakingly review and revise catalogue copy. Often, rewriting it before the writers and editors on his team. But, early employees also felt like they were working on something special. They were, by virtue of their leaders, able to see the vision and believed it to be a worthy cause.

In the early days of Glossier, the company had a specific vision and were making big moves as the earned unicorn status. But, once Emily Weiss fell into the clutches of Silicon Valley and the language of Girlbossery, she lost sight of her vision and started calling Glossier a tech company. Let’s be clear, Glossier is not a tech company. Most companies are not tech companies and CEOs should not call themselves tech entrepreneurs. This applies for actual tech entrepreneurs as well. Tech is gauche. You’ve heard it here first!

TLDR: The lessons of J. Crew and Glossier can be boiled down to the following:

• Maintain a clear vision of the company.

• Don’t let company leaders become too big for their britches.

• Though it is best to avoid VC funding, be sure to properly vet external funding.

In addition, everything you need to know about business can be found in the below quotes. Pls, spend some time mediating on them:

Naysayers of higher education, bemoan specialization. And, I agree. It’s important for cultured people to have a wide range of reference points. Plus, you can always surprise someone with the random tidbits in your brain. For example, yesterday, I shocked someone by telling them dentists have the highest suicide rate. And then today, I found out I might be wrong about that. But, then I found dentists are number 2! Regardless, below you’ll find some “literary” reads that I hope will give you a well-rounded education which, once you digest the case studies, will serve you well not just in life but also business.

GQ Interview: Chris Black and Natasha Stagg talk criticism and NYC lol. Stagg also believes in reading, she says it’s a helpful tool for switching between writing essays and fiction. She says, “I don't think I’m good at switching gears, but I do. That’s why I am trying to read all the time. I am reading Nabokov, and I've just read Proust. I think that's important for me to do because otherwise, you’re just reading ad copy all day and writing ad copy. It's probably good to inform the ad copy I write with Proust.”

Behold a CNN article from 2022 describing the effect of South Korean tv-shows as more and more single women travel to the country in search of the perfect boyfriend. These “#Gukjecouple” relationship where a Korean man is involved with an American or European partner have also spawned a whole slew of social media accounts and channels. The article ends on this note: “Some women who flew home disappointed told Lee they felt it was their own fault they had not found their ideal man and would come back and try harder next time.”

Honor Levy’s My First Book, non-fiction, will be on shelves May 2024. In anticipation, I read her short story Pillow Angels and discovered death is “an eternal slumber party.” Other stories by Levy include Cancel Me, Internet Girl and Good Boys. From the latter, I enjoyed this line: “Sometimes they make me laugh, but mostly they make me cry. I like laughing, but I love crying.”

This article from LitHub by Devorah Baum about couples watching television together was very interesting because it does seem as if watching shows is a very couple thing to do. For some couples, it’s all they do. Baum admits that, “Few things are more slippery than endeavoring to look at looking.” She also throws in a bunch of Freud and this meme, so it’s all good fun until we get to a damning quote from Zadie Smith who said something along the lines of… During the pandemic, when couples were locked up together, they were forced to look at each and “The only relief is two faces facing forward, towards the screen.”****

Wow! Another GQ article! Will Welch, the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief profiled Tom Ford who discusses selling his company and making movies. Will be reading this one over the weekend.

Simone Weil said, “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” As good business requires a great deal of attention, business is prayer. Work really is worship.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, share it with a friend and spread the love. 🙂 

*I’m simplifying. Obviously, I am, and always have been, a business maven.
**No monetizing of links on my watch! Though good business would demand otherwise, I’m taking a page from Weiss and “building a community.” ❤️ 
***Wouldn’t it be fun if ‘The Crazy CEO’ was a tarot card?
****It wasn’t until I got to the end of the article that I discovered this was an excerpt from a book about marriage - lol! I obviously need the book.