Here’s a quick note from Howard Lindzon who’s equally unenthused about the GM loan for the s*-squared merger as Greg Newton (prior post).
‘Too Small To Fail’…The Layoff Lie
A rare great post from Valleywag. Owen sums up perfectly how I feel about all the poser CEO these days:
I’m declaring the layoff window shut. Big companies lay people off because of economic conditions; startups lay people off because their managers have fundamentally misjudged some aspect of their business. Any startup CEO who lays people off, from here on out, should be held accountable for his own mistakes. Blaming the economy for your cuts? So mid-October 2008.
New Rule: It takes $4 and a web connection to start a web business these days. If you need more, you must start-up a biotech company looking to clear ‘adult’ acne or cure cancer.
In fact, screw most of the bullshit CEO’s blaming the economy for the layoffs too. They took their bonuses and wrote their books for profit during the boom. Give those back before you layoff one more person.
‘Too Big To Fail’ is the big myth that’s been busted the last few years. There are a ton of companies that YOU think are too big to fail, that WILL fail and soon. In fact, the sooner they do it, the better. The market creeps lower because we doubt the government will let them fail.
Airlines keep failing and the government keeps trying to save them. That’s why the skies are filled with planes from 1970.
GM’s Rick Wagonner, who I would not let manage Mahalo’s 401k plan, is in Washington pleading his case for the latest ‘SHIT Squared ‘ merger. I want to punch him so f#$@king hard it hurts. What a putz. They have not made a product that anybody has wanted in decades so what does money do except put off the inevitable. I say build some airports and fix some cities and give us health care rather than save this POS business. It’s no more socialist to give away cash to people on the streets than to save GM.
Those part of this community know that the ‘funding window’ is not shut for businesses ‘Too Small to Fail’.
Also amusing, by Howard Lindzon, a recipe for blowing up a hedge fund: Dissecting Hedge Fund Blow-Ups.
