The rise and fall (and possible rise again) of Nikola Corp., an aspiring electric truck company with imaginary products and virtually no revenues, exemplifies the “Greater Fool Theory” and explains why knowledgeable market insiders like CNBC’s Jim Cramer dismiss retail investors as “dumb money.”
Digital marketing is all the rage, but Ron Wynn became one of America’s top real estate brokers relying on an instrument that was pioneered in the Stone Age.
Nonprofit companies prey on the public’s mistaken belief they are altruistic organizations doing God’s work. Much too often, they are merely legal tax dodge schemes. Some, like Consumer Reports, engage in business practices they purport to oppose.
Given the current climate to support black businesses and entrepreneurs, one might expect that it would be a walk in the park for Khalid David to raise a modest $500,000 for his fledgling software company. David’s pioneering app is already being used by a major construction company and his educational background includes degrees from MIT and Columbia.
David is working harder than ever on his fund-raising efforts. His biggest challenge? Overcoming white stereotypes of black entrepreneurs.
She’s back! Eighteen months after a damning report revealing that Sheryl Sandberg was a ruthless executive ultimately responsible for smearing a prominent Facebook critic and Holocaust survivor with false accusations of anti-Semitism, Sandberg is again fashioning herself as a feminist activist and promoting a dubious Facebook small business program. These are good “make work” activities because indications are Sandberg has quietly been shunted aside.
Do the names Tim Bray and Christian Smalls mean anything to you? If you’re concerned about the pervasiveness of corporate wrongdoing and the widespread toadyism that enables it, they should.
David Zapolsky, Amazon’s general counsel and a corporate officer, thought it a great idea to publicly trash a warehouse supervisor with only a high school degree, calling the worker “not smart or articulate.” The worker, Christian Smalls, may lack Zapolsky’s Ivy League education, but thanks to a leaked memo he’s out finessed Amazon’s entire senior management. Yet another example of what happens when lawyers gain control of a company’s PR practices.
U.S. airlines are reportedly negotiating a $50 billion bailout with the Trump Administration. I say: Let them eat the stale, salted peanuts they deserve.
Boeing’s grounded 737 MAX, which experienced two crashes and claimed 346 lives, was a cost saving move to tweak an existing airplane design rather than develop a new plane from scratch. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that nearly half of the Boeing directors who approved the initiative have ties to private equity. One of them is David Calhoun, who took over as Boeing’s CEO on Monday.
The flying public can take great comfort knowing that Calhoun is an accountant by training, as are two of the three Boeing directors who comprise the board’s aerospace safety committee. What more could possibly go wrong?
Mike Bloomberg on Christmas Eve immediately terminated his campaign’s involvement with a call center staffed with inmates after The Intercept reported on the initiative. While it’s possible Bloomberg’s campaign used exploited prison workers, Microsoft and other Fortune 500 technology companies are proudly involved with programs that successfully give inmates second chances. Here’s an example of the potential damaged caused when reporters make assumptions about issues they know little or nothing about.
I’m a journalist and television pilot writer. I previously was president of a New York City-based PR and crisis communications firm. Earlier, I was a business reporter with major newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. I also worked as an advertising copywriter. Born and raised in Toronto, I’ve lived in London (the one famous for snowsqualls), Montreal, Boston, Detroit, New York, San Francisco, and Marin County. I post regularly on LinkedIn and can be reached at: