Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Don't be like this rich guy

What is hell? It's dying knowing that after your death you'll be remembered as having been a bad person, if you're remembered at all. A bad person died five days ago and his name was Albert J. Dunlap, often called "Chainsaw Al."
He was famous for gutting companies and making them, in the short term, profitable in a way that made him beloved by Wall Street. If you're liked and admired by Wall Street, you're very probably not a good person. Not definitely; probably.
From Dunlap's obituary in the Washington Post:
“In all my years of reporting, I had never come across an executive as manipulative, ruthless, and destructive as Al Dunlap,” journalist John A. Byrne, author of the 1999 Dunlap biography “Chainsaw,” later wrote in Fast Company magazine. Mr. Dunlap, he added, “sucked the very life and soul out of companies and people. He stole dignity, purpose, and sense out of organizations and replaced those ideals with fear and intimidation.”
Imagine something like that being in your obituary!
Dunlap was eighty-one when he died and in his later years he contributed much of his fortune to Florida State University. Chances are they threw parties for him and said great things about him, never mentioning the countless lives he diminished if not ruined. 
Dunlap probably died at peace, thinking he was, overall, a good person. That's one definition of heaven.

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