James Surowiecki Quotes

The corporate killer downsizing is directly responsive to what the mutual funds have wanted.

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money.

If you're the CEO of a publicly traded company, you're worried about quarterly returns.

There is no denying that downsizing can happen when a company receives private equity funding. It is unfortunate and hard on everyone who is affected.

Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today's world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.

You can fire your workers, close your factories, export your jobs overseas, and get a tax deduction for doing it.

Why are CEO's who slash jobs so proud of themselves? Instead of bragging about 'cutting fat,' they ought to be getting up before their employees and saying, We did such a lousy job of planning and hiring that we have more people than work. And we are so broke and so dim-witted that we can't come up with any way to get more work. So our only solution is to send a lot of good people home. I am ashamed and I am sorry.

The IT bubble is the IT bubble, and of course, we became a company that contracted dramatically in 2001 and 2002: we basically came down by 45,000 people - a dramatic ramp-down.

If we take care of the customers and associates and grow the business, Wall Street will be pleased.

The big companies are the private industry. But they're faced with a short-term need to show a profit in short-term.

When the value of the company clearly has fallen below what its assets are worth, having a shareholder who says, 'Let's get a better board' can be helpful.

You have to ask what is going to happen to a lot of companies when there is not a lot more money to be gotten. That changes everybody's perspective, I think.

Much of what is called investment is actually nothing more than mergers and acquisitions, and of course mergers and acquisitions are generally accompanied by downsizing.

Things are bad in 2001 at Yahoo. There's been layoffs, restructuring, lots of people left.

If the goal is to build companies that maximize long-term equity value, then optimizing corporate performance in a way that Wall Street appreciates is obviously critical to that goal.

Back in the '80s and '90s, when GM was consistently posting giant profits, they were simultaneously firing tens of thousands of workers in my hometown of Flint and across Michigan.

The two words, in the American lexicon, are never good. Pink slip. The first time I ever heard it when I was young was when Kaiser Steel handed out pink slips to many of my neighbors and relatives. Layoffs were about efficiency, sales figures for raw materials or refrigerators.

Job loss is coming like a tsunami.

Consolidation means less equipment, less networks, and less jobs.

I know CEOs, and they get sick when they have to lay people off, especially around Christmas.

Whether you stay private or go public, after all is said and done, a CEO's job is to create lasting shareholder value.

The minute you do any layoffs, you might as well lay off the whole joint because everybody forgets about the customer and worries about their job security.

The ability to please your shareholders comes because of what you do for clients.

Nothing kills your company's culture like layoffs.

I've stood in front of 500 extremely angry people in Waterford when we closed a call centre there. That's not fun, and the day you think it is fun is the day you shouldn't be doing it.