I want to be called Lord Sugar
Trump is more on the Glengarry Glen Ross spectrum than Fargo.
But is he Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, or Jack Lemon?
You can go a long way in this world by projecting an air of confidence and getting clients to sign on the line which is dotted, and not giving a fuck what happens next.
Hmm, from the plot summary:
On the other hand, I can easily see Trump screaming, “Fuck you, that’s my name!” at people. And on the third hand, Trump’s self-pity is legendary.
According to Wikipedia, Donald started running the Trump Organization in 1971. Construction on Trump Tower started in 1979. Now granted his father started the company. But it would be disingenuous to not give credit to Donald Trump’s massive ego for starting over 500 subsidiary business ventures, of which around half bear his name.
I have no idea. But he seems to have always had a passion and an aptitude for real estate investing.
I used Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran as an example because she created a $60 million dollar real estate empire basically out of nothing. And IMHO she’s not particularly smart or educated (as in she didn’t go to Wharton or anything like that).
So it’s not out of the realm of possibility for me to imagine Donald Trump’s single-minded drive and ego enabling him to be a success, even without help from his father. Especially in the 80s when his particular brand of narcissistic misogyny and elitism would play well.
If one of the current crop of Walton family members opens a new Walmart, that Walmart is still named for the guy who founded the company, Sam Walton. The next generation of Waltons are all worth billions more than Trump, and yet I don’t consider them great business people.
Prison. He would have enough contacts from the before time to get himself into big circles, but not enough money to keep himself out of trouble. He would overextend himself, get sued, overextend himself again, get sued, overextend himself again, and get sent to jail.
The Walton family doesn’t run the company.
Again, I’m not Trump’s biographer or even his advocate. But it would be disingenuous to say he hasn’t successfully run a large real estate company for the past 47 years.
For certain values of “successfully”.
Or a large money laundering scheme. I guess we’ll find out.
How do you define success? Let’s go easy and define it as somebody who performs in the top 50% rather than the bottom 50% - in other words, somebody who performs above average.
Can you offer evidence that Donald Trump has done better than half of the other people who were in his situation?
Yes, he ran a real estate company for several decades. But he didn’t create the company; it was already an established company when he took charge of it.
How has Trump’s performance as a real estate developer been over the course of his career in comparison to other real estate developers during the same period? Did he make more money than the average or less?
Yet their ROI is better than Trump’s. I’d say that, at least, indicates they have superior business acumen to Trump - the acumen to realize there are better business minds if financial returns are the ultimate goal. That’s no small thing. Swallowing your pride and saying “there are people better at this than me” to achieve your goals takes a reasonable amount of discipline and self-honesty.
Of course, ROI is not the whole story. I imagine Donald Trump, like a lot of people in his position, derives considerable enjoyment from being the big wheeler/dealer of a large company whether or not he’s above average at business or not. Clearly, by his own self-reported numbers (which may be inflated anyway), he’s not the sharpest business mind in the shed but it appears he’s achieved his goals - maintain a reasonable amount of wealth to buy notoriety, name recognition, and personal comfort. His children and/or grandchildren (most of whom do not appear to be much better at business - and show distressing signs of somehow being worse) may end up squandering what’s left, but he’ll do ok for himself at least.
No, getting elected President was the worst thing Trump ever did. Not just for the country but for Trump himself.
Buchanan was a skilled diplomat, but who remembers that? Hoover was a respected public official, but that’s been forgotten. Once you become President, your performance in that office is all history will judge you by.
So a hundred years from now, people won’t remember whatever success Donald Trump may have had as a businessman. He’ll be remembered as a failed President.