getpost 38 minutes ago

> "The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good." ... few people know that these words are based on an actual commencement speech delivered in 1986 at The speaker? Ivan Boesky, who would be convicted just eighteen months later in an insider trading scandal.

I did not know this! Thank you for posting!

  • parineum 23 minutes ago

    The whole character and his role in pop culture I find very frustrating.

    The guy is the antagonist in the movie so you're not supposed to like him and he's written that way. He's a strawman and his whole speech is how the real version of him would sound filtered through the ears of someone who disagreed with him.

    So you end up with people holding him up as an example that disagree and agree with him but the both of those groups are choosing the sides of a caricature that doesn't understand the point he's trying to make. It's weird.

    • lapcat 6 minutes ago

      Two problems:

      1) Michael Douglas is extremely attractive and charismatic, so people like him even if they're not supposed to. Gekko seduces the viewer to the dark side like he seduced Bud Fox.

      2) The movie never shows Gekko in jail, so you never see the true consequences.

      • paulpauper a few seconds ago

        Prison sentences were so short back then, plus parole, that it was arguably worth it. it worked for Boeseky, Milikin and others.

dingaling911 35 minutes ago

I had two stints at a hedge fund, one a hedge fund supplier.

The fake self promotional bullshit is so tiring. I quit as a result of this. It's the same as big tech, not any different.

Jane Street SUPPOSEDLY follows a flat hierarchy which has less of these games. I'm not sure how true it is.

The way I think about it: you hire people who are literally self driven and then you constrain them for no reason just to make other people feel in control.

Or maybe I'm just not a good employee. My first job ever told me I'm a horrible employee.

tylerdane 3 hours ago

"The same factors that allow leadership to manifest itself through performance and teamwork also allow it to promote goals that lack a moral, ethical, legal, profitable, or even rational basis."