Gulfstreams. $14,000 cappuccino machines. A $96M payday—6,666x the median wage he pays employees—while telling managers to cut costs. Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol is the poster boy for CEO narcissism. Here’s why investors should care.
Business
Eureka! The True Value of a McKinsey Consultant
My latest Starkman Approved trilogy:
The true value of a McKinsey consultant—spoiler: it’s not their slide decks.
Corporate America doubles down on toxic stock buybacks while the real economy withers.
Delta Air Lines traps passengers in another tarmac debacle—no air, no toilets, no accountability.
Read and rage — at least that’s my intent.
Why Verizon Deserves to Crash and Burn
Verizon only wants “high-quality” customers, says its $24 million CEO Hans Vestberg. If that’s the goal, investors should demand the immediate deactivation of Vestberg—and the dead-weight board he chairs.
AT&T’s John Stankey Enters CEO Hall of Shame
Mass layoffs. Major data breaches. A disrespected brand. And the architect of one of the worst media deals in recent corporate history.
AT&T CEO John Stankey’s record is a case study in failing upward.
And yet—last week—he told employees they must embrace AT&T’s new performance-based culture.
2024 CEO Pay: Oink, Oink, Piggy, Piggy
America’s CEO aristocracy is delusional if it thinks it can keep gorging on obscene compensation while tossing crumbs to the workers who keep their empires afloat.
At the next meeting of the Business Roundtable—that gilded club of corporate royalty—someone might want to include a short history lesson on a woman named Marie Antoinette.
In-N-Out Burger’s Heart vs. Starbucks’ CEO Hype
If Starbucks’ hotshot CEO Brian Niccol wants to learn what real leadership looks like, he should spend some time shadowing Lynsi Snyder, president of the beloved In-N-Out Burger chain.
While Niccol hopscotches the country in a Gulfstream jet and manages Seattle-based Starbucks remotely from Southern California, Snyder plays bass in a company rock band that raises money to fight substance abuse and human trafficking.
Debunking Delta CEO Ed Bastian’s Superior Ethics
The Department of Justice disclosed this week that Delta agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle the agency’s fraud allegations that the airline violated the False Claims Act by awarding executive compensation exceeding the $425,000 limit Delta agreed to when it received nearly $12 billion in pandemic relief funds from the federal government.
Not what I’d expect from an airline whose CEO is hailed for his supposedly superior ethics.
AI’s Top 10 CEOs Who Should Be Fired
Here’s why CEOs like Ford’s Jim Farley—who recently warned that “artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.”—might want to stop talking about AI’s job-replacement potential.
Former Delta Execs Unleash AI Gouging at Hertz
Imagine if former Delta executives took over a car rental company. Sadly, it’s not a hypothetical—and as Hertz customers are fast learning, the consequences are real, robotic, and painfully expensive.
The Salvadoran Deportees Taking Hyatt’s Calls
Think your Hyatt call center rep sounds like they grew up in Chicago, where the company is based? They might have—before getting deported and rehired in El Salvador.
A deep dive into the dark world of corporate outsourcing—and the backgrounds of the people increasingly handling the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans.