Some of the successful CEOs I’ve ever met can barely talk, let alone read! And we all know many overly-academic types who are well read but haven’t got two farthings to rub together. But apparently it’s the deep academic nature of reflective life that means makes CEOs the success they are today. According to the Times a C.E.O’s library reveals the keys to their success. Funnily enough the “CEO” they focus on is not a CEO but a VC and a former journalist.
Fawning over the luck of the super wealthy and calling it something else other than an accident of birth and opportunity seems to be the NY Times latest fad this month. This one follows a disgustingly crass article about the richest of the rich, which went on and on about Sandy Weil of Citicorp without mentioning one pertinent minor fact that Uwe Reinhardt noticed about him. Despite his fabulous wealth Citicorp shareholders paid some $61,000 to cover his family’s out of pocket health expenditures and paid the tax on top of it. (The NY Times letters page beats up Weil and his ilk pretty well—not that he’d care)
I wonder how many of these libraries contain books about humility? Not many that get referred to when the subject of executive compensation comes up.
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“Most pretentious New York Times article ever …”
I think there’s a fair amount of competition in this category. (Ho Ho) This one didn’t strike me as too terrible.
Read the film reviews sometime … or the Hamptons coverage … or an LA focused travel piece … or a story about the … suburbs .. you get the idea.
Sir:
That article was in the business section. Did it ever occur to you that business sections might want to write about the after-hours pursuits of its readers? Which might include book-reading? After all, reading about polo, fox-hunting, and gardening becomes boring, after a time.
As to “accident of birth” — what empirical evidence do you have to back up that statement? As opposed to this —
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-06-cover-ceos_x.htm
By comparison — “accident of birth” is more of an issue in the education of medical doctors:
http://www.unmc.edu/Community/ruralmeded/
Have a nice day.
That’s a huge leap Buzz. I merely am suggesting that you don’t have to be a bibliophile to be a CEO. And that most of them are in that position of power and privilege by an accident of birth.
So .. you don’t want them to read?
Or you want laws that force them to read books that you believe are appropriate? What books might they be?