In the business world, we can point to instances when a lack of integrity has bankrupted entire companies - in sectors as different as finance, telecommunications, manufacturing, and energy.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Generally speaking, companies get into bankruptcy as a kind of meritocracy. Somebody made some sort of big mistake, to get into bankruptcy, and very often, a part of the mistake is too much leverage.
There are lots of businesses that are well in excess of $9 billion that have gone into bankruptcy, that have been mismanaged. And that has not served anyone very well.
However, the economics of our business continued to deteriorate. We barely escaped bankruptcy a year ago, and in the aftermath of that escape we had to make some even tougher decisions.
Failure is inevitable; it happens all the time in a complex economy.
I often say to entrepreneurs, 'If Lehman Brothers were Lehman Brothers & Sisters, it wouldn't have gone into bankruptcy.'
In the absence of sound oversight, responsible businesses are forced to compete against unscrupulous and underhanded businesses, who are unencumbered by any restrictions on activities that might harm the environment, or take advantage of middle-class families, or threaten to bring down the entire financial system.
If you have a mental model that says big corporations are fundamentally greedy and selfish and exploitative, you don't really want to have an exception to that model. It's much easier to say, 'Yes, Whole Foods has been corrupted.'
If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.
When a company goes bankrupt, you as a company have absolutely no say whatsoever as to what happens.
The computer industry is creatively bankrupt.