One of the major sticking points of the inevitable Wall Street bailout was executive pay — but the New York Times says that Treasury Secretary and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Henry M. Paulson Jr., has agreed to compensation caps for the executives of firms that benefit from the bailout.
CEOs
United's Pilots Would Like You To Help Them Fire Their CEO
By 8.12.08
United Airlines’ pilots have had enough of Glenn Tilton, the CEO of United, and have started a website that calls for his resignation. In addition to listing Mr. Tilton’s various faults, the website asks you, the consumer, to help them by submitting your United Airlines horror stories. (CC: The Consumerist, naturally…)
By 6.20.08
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Ex-Sears CEO Aylwin Lewis has taken a position as CEO of Chicago’s delicious Potbelly Sandwich Works. Reader Tim asks: “Should I be worried that he will destroy this great sandwich chain?” Hmmm. Maybe, but we think Chairman Eddie Lampert is the real source of evil at Sears. And now we’re hungry. [Chicago Tribune]
By 6.11.08
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United Airlines is a total disaster! Unless you’re the CEO… [MSNBC](Thanks, Deborah!)
"Golden Coffins" Make CEOs Modern-Day Pharaohs
By 6.10.08
Thanks to a change in federal rules 18 months ago, it’s now much easier to find out details of so-called “golden coffins,” which are—yes, this is real—posthumous payouts to CEOs that can climb into the hundreds of millions. Brian Roberts of Comcast will receive $298.1 million if he dies in office; Robert Iger of Disney will receive $62.4 million; Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon will receive $43.4 million. Ha ha, life insurance is for paupers!
CEOs Who Lost Their Jobs Talk About What Went Wrong
By 6.6.08
Fortune’s new article “Lessons of the fall” is interesting and entertaining for two reasons. First, it humanizes brings a human face to the usually remote CEO, in this case the exes at Motorola, Starbucks, and Jet Blue. But more important if you’re a wage slave who can admit to a little schadenfreude, it describes how each man was fired from his job. Former Starbucks CEO Jim Donald, who’s in his fifties, says the hardest thing was letting his mother know:
Emailing The CEO Of DirecTV Solves All Your Installation Problems
By 5.30.08
Reader Mark ordered DirecTV and waited patently for the installer. And waited. And rescheduled. And waited. Luckily, Mark knew that he might want to order DirecTV in the future, and he’d made a note of CEO Chase Carey’s email address when we posted it.
Citi CEO Emails To Inform You Of Citi's "Bold Steps," Neglects To Tell You What The "Bold Steps" Are
By 5.14.08
Reader Ben writes:
HTFC Mortgage Company CEO Has A Potty Mouth
By 3.20.08
GMAC Bank is suing mortgage company HTFC for selling improperly secured loans, which lead to the hilariously blue and aggressive deposition from HTFC CEO Aron Wider. Wider dropped the f-bomb 73 times, frustrating the opposing counsel’s attempts to get him to answer difficult questions like “Where are you currently employed?” Some of the more colorful and creative expletives from the testimony of Mr. Wider, who, according to his company website, serves as company Coprorate Information [sic], CEO / Senior Underwriter, and Radio Engineer, inside…
Congress To Subprime CEOs: How Come You Got Paid Millions To Wreck The Economy? Hm?
By 3.7.08
Congress got to ask the subprime CEOs what everyone else is thinking: Why did you get millions and millions of dollars to fail so spectacularly?
EECB Scores Direct Hit On T-Mobile
By 3.5.08
Reader Rob got some bad information from a T-Mobile sales rep and it resulted in a huge text messaging bill. He launched an EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) and got a very pleasant response:
By 1.16.08
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Actual headline: JP Morgan: It Could’ve Been Worse “JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon seemed relieved, but issued a cautious outlook for the year. ‘Our lower quarterly results were affected by the investment bank’s markdowns in subprime-related positions and weaker trading. In addition, our consumer home equity and subprime loan portfolios performed worse than we expected,’ he said. ‘If the economy weakens substantially from here-for which, as a company, we need to be prepared-it will negatively affect business volumes and drive credit costs higher.'” [Forbes]
American Airlines Ex-CEO Bob Crandall Shares His Crazy Cost-Saving Strategy
By 1.12.08
Former American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall fired a guard dog at a Caribbean outpost to keep costs down. Just look at the self-satisfied gleam in Crandall’s eye. This is no mere cocktail party story, but a defining act of corporate leadership for his grandkids to cherish.
Best Buy CEO Admits They'll Probably Screw Up Digital TV Switchover
By 1.10.08
Well, at least he’s being honest—Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson announced at CES today that the 2009 switchover from analog to digital television (still a year away) poses “one of the biggest risks our industry has,” whatever that means. “The number of converter boxes that is going to be required could put tremendous pressure on us.” Oh, you mean because you’ll have to have them in stock? Interpretation: if you’re going to need a converter box or two, you’d better plan on buying them elsewhere.
By 1.8.08
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Embattled Starbucks fired CEO Jim Donald and brought back company founder Howard Shultz. Maybe they’ll be forced to close down some stores. Won’t that be the day. [Economist]
By 1.8.08
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Krispy Kreme’s CEO has quit. Colleagues say he just didn’t have it in himself any more, whenever he thought about going to work, his eyes would just glaze over. [NYT]
