Tuesday, July 25, 2023

McKinsey omits Walt Bogdanich book from summer reading list. (The Messenger)

Love to read about corporate oligarchs, a subject I've been investigating since I was 10.  

My parents encouraged my interests, which I cultivated in high school, at Camden County College, at Georgetown University, at Memphis State University Law School, and as an investigative reporter and whistleblower lawyer (or "attorney for the damned," as some called the late Clarence Darrow).

McKinsey was flayed by New York Times journalist Walt Bogdanich, but his epic book will never darken the McKinsey reading list (even as he was never allowed into either Russia or China). 

Three cheers for Walt Bogdanich!

To Hell with oleaginous oligopolists, and all their works and pomps;

From  The Messenger:

Here’s What CEOs and Power Brokers Are Reading This Summer

McKinsey released its influential summer reading guide, and poetry is offering comfort in a stressful world

Published 07/24/23 07:05 PM ET|Updated 07/24/23 07:05 PM ET
Bruce Gil

Consulting powerhouse McKinsey released its annual summer book guide, and some of the topics on this year’s hotly anticipated list are grim.

Think emerging danger from the rise of artificial intelligence, threats to democracy in Ukraine and Hungary and rising China-U.S. tensions. One of the top-recommended books, The Age of AI and Our Human Future, by former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, former Google executive Eric Schmidt and Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist Daniel Huttenlocher, predicts AI will result in “the alteration of human identity and the human experience of reality at levels not experienced since the dawn of the modern age.”

In a blurb on the book, part of a curated list McKinsey published Monday, former IBM Chair and Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said that it “reinforces why we must focus on stewarding good tech.”

Another top McKinsey pick, Trust, by fiction writer Hernan Diaz, explores the illusions of wealth in “an unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception,” the Pulitzer Prizes committee said when it awarded the book its top honor in May.


Here’s What CEOs and Power Brokers Are Reading This Summer

McKinsey released its influential summer reading guide, and poetry is offering comfort in a stressful world

Published 07/24/23 07:05 PM ET|Updated 07/24/23 07:05 PM ET
Bruce Gil

Consulting powerhouse McKinsey released its annual summer book guide, and some of the topics on this year’s hotly anticipated list are grim.

Think emerging danger from the rise of artificial intelligence, threats to democracy in Ukraine and Hungary and rising China-U.S. tensions. One of the top-recommended books, The Age of AI and Our Human Future, by former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, former Google executive Eric Schmidt and Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist Daniel Huttenlocher, predicts AI will result in “the alteration of human identity and the human experience of reality at levels not experienced since the dawn of the modern age.”

In a blurb on the book, part of a curated list McKinsey published Monday, former IBM Chair and Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said that it “reinforces why we must focus on stewarding good tech.”

Another top McKinsey pick, Trust, by fiction writer Hernan Diaz, explores the illusions of wealth in “an unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception,” the Pulitzer Prizes committee said when it awarded the book its top honor in May.

Each year, McKinsey asks corporate executives, startup founders, world leaders and A-list editors what’s on their reading desks and night stands. The compilation, it said, reflects the firm’s assessment of the most important books “for everyone trying to make sense of today’s evolving world.” 

One notable book not on the list: last year’s When McKinsey Comes to Town, an investigation by New York Times reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe of how the consulting firm “has accrued an inordinate amount of influence chasing profits at the expense of moral principle.”

McKinsey’s recommendations, covering mainly politics, history, innovation and business workplace culture, are closely watched by executives, leaders and wealthy intellectuals who want to know what power brokers are reading while they’re relaxing in the Hamptons or cruising the Greek isles.

And what they may be reading appears to reflect the notion that right now, reality seems uncertain and dangerous.

“Perhaps as a sign of much-needed respite, the most popular genre this year was fiction and poetry,” McKinsey said.

LinkedIn Cofounder Reid Hoffman’s top pick was The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma, by Jennifer Pahlka, the founder and former executive director of Code for America.

McKinsey Senior Partner and Managing Partner Homayoun Hatami chose the 2005 biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,by writers and historians Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb and now the subject of a blockbuster movie, had his security clearance to work on atomic energy revoked in 1954 on suspicions of harboring leftist ties.


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