Investor Talk
5 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2022–2025
8:35 · 1.3M views · Aug 24, 2019
A short clip in which Carl Icahn tells the story of his first activist investment and of firing 12 floors of people, arguing activism need not be short term.
Used as an anecdote in layoff and cost-cutting debates: the company supposedly never noticed what the fired staff had done.
5 comments from Hacker News
The only reason FMCG is an exception was after 3G. The sector used to be a totally bloated mess, then 3G acquired Heinz, fired whole teams of people, and it made no difference to results at all (obv, it all went a bit wrong after but I don't think anyone believes that was due to cost). After that, almost every FMCG started looking at costs (ofc, it also helped that revenue stopped growing). Carl Icahn story about cutting costs: this video - fired a building full of people, never heard about it again. Most companies are run as bureaucracies, dual share classes haven't helped. There is no difference between your average Google employee and a civil servant. Unfortunately, this is a pretty raw deal for shareholders. You cash out insiders, the bureaucrats move in, the amount of cost extends to the revenue base, eventually revenue slows down (bureaucrats don't tend to be good stewards of capital), the rats all leave the ship, you find out the cost base could have been 50% smaller all along, and you are left with a stock on its way to bankruptcy.
I'd love to hear some predictions or metrics to look out for in the next few months/years. Tech valuations and free money have been frothy for so long, no one bothered asking what is actually needed to run a service at a meaningful scale, but we may have the answer soon. I'm reminded of corporate raider Carl Ichan firing 12 floors at of people after spending some time and not being able to figure out what they do. The company was ACM (manufacturing railcars), about 30 years ago. Turns out those 12 floors of people were actually costing jobs in other place just to support them. Well he fired all 12 floors and nothing changed. this video
The strategy is: Shut down everything, and see who complains. If the complaints seem well reasoned, then you adjust course. You can certainly argue that it is crude, but it’s simpler than trying to deeply analyze and understand a very complicated system. Carl Icahn has a story[0] about firing 12 floors of people that seems relevant [0]: this video
I get it, but never forget the flipside. Here is a good anecdotal example of just how wrong things can go: this video
Classic Carl Icahn story about firing a building full of people and never discovering what they did - this video