THE GEKKO AWARD: Who is the most EVIL corporate executive of all time???

In My Humble Opinion
1

Now, to begin, I am starting my stopwatch to time how soon some conspiratorial computer geek is going to post “Bill Gates”.

Hey, if you have a good argument that Gates is the personification of evil, feel free to bore us with your explanation. He might not be saint, but any guy that is eventually going to give 10s of billions away in charity is hardly the anti-Christ.

Here’s some nominees for the GORDON GEKKO AWARD:

VINCE MCMAHON
WWF owner. Barely escaped conviction of steroid distribution charges in early 90s. Continued his PPV show after Owen Hart died. Almost punched out Bob Costas. Continues to market childrens toys even though the WWF content is adult material.

CHAINSAW AL DUNLAP
Gained fame and fortune by slashing thousands of jobs and ruining lives at companies such as Scott Towel. Almost drove Sunbeam out of business, eliminating jobs of hard working loyal employees while pocketing millions. Allegedly beat his first wife, and infamous for mercilessly verbally abusing employees .

DANIEL SNYDER
Owner of the Washington Redskins. Yells at employees, and watches Redskins prActices from a special chair on the sidelines like a little king. Charges fans $10.00 to watch training camp. Proof that even the biggest moron could make a billion off the internet.

DON KING
Do I need to explain?

SAM WALTON
Single handedly destroyed small town America with his predatory pricing tactics selling cheaply made products.
OTHER POSSIBLE NAMES: HOWARD HUGHES, GEORGE STEINBRENNER, ROCKEFELLER, JP MORGAN, that guy from IBM who helped Hitler, HENRY FORD . . .

Who else should we consider? Come on, I’m sure there’s at least ONE OR TWO tobacco CEOs out there I’m leaving off!!!

2

I was going to nominate Chainsaw Al, but seeing as how he’s already there, I’ll try Carl Icahn, another great corporate raider who got a controlling interest in TWA, took it private, sucked all the assets out of it and spit it out bankrupt, leaving him with a deal to buy tickets at 55 cents on the dollar and resell them. Oh yeah, when TWA announced it was selling out to American a few weeks ago, Icahn tried to push through his own deal which would have been financed primarily by “employee concessions.”

Question for additional discussion: do we count people like Andrew Carnegie and J.D. Rockefeller who seemed to reform somewhat later in life and gave away great chunks of their fortunes?

3

It can’t be chainsaw.

He was hired to turn Scott around.

He did fire over 11,000 people but he also went to upper management and told them to pack up their stuff and move from a lavish corporate palace to a normal facility.

The corporate headquarters alone sold for $39 million dollars and the savings from downsizing a 750,000 square foot facility to a 30,000 one saved an additional $6 million per year.

He was at Scott for 603 days and increased the stock in total value by $6.5 billion dollars; it averages out to more that $10 million dollars per day.

That is what he was hired to do.

If he yelled at employees I would not be surprised but that doesn’t make him evil, just a hard-nosed hatchet man.

Beating your wife makes you a scumbag but unless his wife was an employee it doesn’t figure in here.

4

Do they have to be Americans? If not, I’d like to nominate Coco (“Nazi Whore”) Chanel. She was the only couturier to keep her house open during the occupation of Paris, lived openly with a Nazi officer and sold to Nazi’s wives, and booted her Jewish partner out of the business, taking his money in the process.

Oh, yeah, she’s also the designer responsible for turning adult women with curves into starving adolescent boys. And she promoted the “knit suit,” for which alone she should have been hanged. Oh, AND she popularized the suntan, causing goodness knows how many cases of skin cancer.

She was just not a nice lady.

5

Do a web search on “Robber Barons” and I guarantee the following names will come up: Jay Gould, Daniel Drew, E.H. Harriman, and Cornelius Vanderbilt. These guys employed business tactics that make today’s corporate baddies look like Sunday school teachers.

6

Originally posted by The Ultimate Scapegoat

Although I don’t like this guy, what is the big deal about this? They shouldn’t be illegal anyway. And who would want to watch average looking guys wrestle anyway? I don’t watch wresting but who would want to watch average looking guys wrestle anyway?

While I am facinated with what this guy accomplish, he did break the back of the small mom and pop business of America.

I have another how about Micheal Eisner. He twisted something that was wonderful developed by Walt into a greedy perverted company.

7

Originally posted by The Ultimate Scapegoat

Although I don’t like this guy, what is the big deal about this? They shouldn’t be illegal anyway. And who would want to watch average looking guys wrestle anyway? I don’t watch wresting but who would want to watch average looking guys wrestle anyway?

While I am facinated with what this guy accomplish, he did break the back of the small mom and pop business of America.

I have another how about Micheal Eisner. He twisted something that was wonderful developed by Walt into a greedy perverted company.

8

My vote for the worst corporate predator: Sir James Goldsmith. This vulture has bought up and dismembered many fine companies-among them General tire. He was even rewarded with a peerage (hence the “Sir”). He was and is the classic asset stripper-the M.O. is always the same:
-gain control by buying enough stock (with borrowed money)
-sell off land, buildings, etc.
-pay out huge bonuses and salaries to yourself and friends
-sell more stock (this is called “watered stock”
-walk away from the debt-ridden corpse that is left

9

Whoever came up with the unholy alliance between Disney and McDonald’s.

10

Quincy.

wonders who’ll get the reference
Spoffy