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If there was a particular moment in time that you realized that you had an eye for... style or fashion or however you think of it like do you remember how old you were and what you were seeing no there's no there was not a tom ford moment where i thought i have sophisticated taste no You took one strap of your Oshkosh Bogosh off and let it down, and then you knew. That's when you knew. Derek Guy, the menswear guy, doesn't really know how it started.
It seems to have started on various internet forums devoted to discussions of fashion and style. How's it going? Well, you don't have to look far on Reddit or Twitter to find discussions around fashion that discuss or are driven by Derek. And maybe that's because he's pithy and snarky and extremely online whilst discussing highfalutin topics with some balance.
So there are some people who think that there is some objective truth in fashion, that this is a better look and that's a bad look. And there are some people who view it as completely subjective, that, you know, well, I just put on whatever makes me feel good or what I think looks good and everything's...
legitimate. Everything that anyone chooses is totally fine. Oh, thank goodness. We're all our own special mannequin. But you best come correct, mannequins, and be thoughtful in your presentation. I think of dress as a kind of cultural language, and just as we use spoken language right now. And I think there is a certain way that you can dress that is not necessarily about...
pure subjectivity or objectivity, but is about whether or not someone is adept at using cultural language. Are they able to communicate something that makes sense to other people around them that expresses something about their identity, whether it's about their gender, sexuality, whether it's about culture. At least for me, I think once you think of dress as cultural language, it then becomes a lot easier so that you're not stuck in these kind of questions of...
Does black go with blue? But does it, Derek? Does it? The reason we ask is, again, because Derek really is now the go-to internet critic of men's fashion. Whether it's a particular blazer on a political figure, the wardrobes of semi-fictional characters in HBO's hit succession, or how to score Grant Stone penny loafers on eBay, Derek Guy is... the guy. And who loves, tweet, and pleats and wanted to talk to him? This guy. And this gal.
I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Anne-Marie Sievertson. And you're listening to Endless Thread. We're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR. Today's episode, Derek Guy. who may have only talked to us because he thinks Endless Thread is a fashion podcast. We're not really sure. We'll set him straight. So your blog and your social media handle are dye workwear. How do you define workwear? Can you put a visual on it for us? And why must it dye, Derek?
Okay, so I started that blog in 2011 on Tumblr, and I put literally like... two seconds into the idea. I mean, it's like, you know, whenever you sign up for a social media site, you just, you have to type in something and like, no, at least not me. I didn't like think of like, oh, I'm going to start this.
blog and it's going to grow and I'm going to, you know, like a massive 1 million following on Twitter. Like I just, at this point, like I can't change the name. Imagine if you named your blog, you know, Poopy McPoop. And then all of a sudden, for the next 15 years, people are asking you, what does Poopy McPoop mean? Oh, I'm so sorry. And you had no idea. Derek's love for clothing started before he was making jokes on his Tumblr about city hipsters wearing... lumberjack and dock worker outfits.
And while over time he's become an official critic, cited or published in various magazines for his takes on menswear, Derek really does think about style and fashion as a form of communication. Which made a lot of sense to us. It's nuanced, right? But that doesn't mean Derek is allergic to a strong opinion or a hot take. In fact, if you ask him how he became the subject of Reddit threads, magazine articles, and retweets galore, he would point to a moment when he put some strong feelings in.
to the world on where else x or as we called it in 2022 and some of us still call it this twitter October of 2022, I believe, I had around 50,000 followers. And at the end of October 2022... Dave Portnoy, who's the founder of Barstool Sports, announced that he had founded another company called Brick Watch. And this was a company where he was trying to sell watches for, I think, around like $2,500.
And they were made in America and he described them as basically the same as Rolex, but you could get it for, you know, something like...
roughly like a tenth of the price or so. And I took a look at the company and I saw that one of the watches, one of the watches had a mechanical movement. The other watch had a quartz movement. And quartz for, you know, for like... people who aren't into watches is basically a battery operated movement and um i went to twitter and i said this is a ripoff i wouldn't even sell this to my enemies i couldn't imagine selling it to
People who support me. And I said, this is made with, this is a $40 watch. What I should have said, and I misspoke, is that it was made with a $40 quartz movement. Because you could buy that Ronda. quartz movement for about $40 from any kind of watch repair shop. And that tweet went kind of viral. And then Dave Portnoy made a video.
in response, which I couldn't believe. And then a bunch of his fans piled into my comments section and said, well, how is this different from what Ralph Lauren does? Ralph Lauren buys... $50 cashmere sweaters, and he sells them for $500. So I screenshotted that person's reply. And you have to know that up to this point, I had been on Twitter for about 11 years. And throughout that entire period, amassing this...
follower of like 50,000 people, I was speaking to other menswear nerds. So I would be purely making self-deprecating jokes about our own obsessions. Yes. And that... When I screenshot that tweet, that was the first time, one, I did a thread where you link a bunch of tweets together to form a story. And then two, I... broke out of quote-unquote character, because at the time I was just making self-deprecating jokes, and then now I was doing a serious threat. I said, well, actually, it doesn't...
There is a story of how cashmere comes to the market, and buying cheap cashmere is bad, and here's how you find a good cashmere sweater. You did a well actually, but it was a good well actually. Yeah. So that went up in beginning of November, I believe, of 2022. And that went viral. And then a bunch of journalists contacted me, like the Washington Post contacted me and some other kind of publications.
And then by the end of that year, my count had gone up to about 100,000 followers. Quickly doubling his followers on Twitter may have been the result of Derek's Barstool Sports Guy Bad Watch takedown. But he has another floating theory about something else that may have played a role in helping the menswear guy's online community pop off. In 2023, Twitter also instituted its FYP, For You page. And Derek...
had just gotten a lot of interaction on the platform for his critical thoughts on watches and sweaters. My guess, and I don't know for sure, although some people high up in Twitter have reached out to me, for like clothing advice and I've always wondered like should I ask this person like what went on in the code but I haven't I haven't asked but my guess is that when they instituted
The For You algorithm, and this is only my guess, is that they had to base the algorithm on something. And since I had been going viral in November and December because of my... back and forth with Dave Portnoy, and then the Kashmir thread that maybe they just coded the algorithm, serve whatever was popular in the last two months. And it just happened to be me. And then... That's some good timing, Derek. Yeah, that's what I think happened, but I don't know for sure. I don't know for sure either.
But this For You page episode in 2023 is definitely how I first found Derek. Because, believe it or not, Ben, I was not following menswear. It's not my usual jam, but a thoughtful, well-researched Twitter takedown thread. That very much is my jam. And Derek can deliver in that department. Take, for example, a recent thread about a St. Laurent wallet.
according to Derek's analysis, is machine-sewn instead of hand-sewn and made to look more expensive than it really should be. Or another on Pete Hegseth's fashion choices, explaining the time and place for a light-colored shoe and sock. Spoiler alert, our defense secretary, wrong time, wrong place, Derek says. He does have rules of engagement, though.
Don't sweep the digital legs out from under regular Joes. I would never pull a random person's photo off of like Instagram and blast it to, I wouldn't even do, I didn't even do that even when I had 50,000 followers. I definitely wouldn't do it.
And now I have over a million followers because, you know, like someone's just trying to get dressed like you're just putting on blasts. To me, it's a crazy thing. So I try to only criticize famous people. And then if I have to pull from famous people, I have to. I have to choose somebody. So I tend to choose people who, I'll be honest, I feel less sympathy for. So I'm more likely to use a photo of like Matt Gates or Jordan Peterson than I am, you know, of some random person.
It can get kind of political at times because people will notice like, oh, you're constantly using Matt Gaetz photo. And yeah, because he's widely photographed. There are a lot of photos of him. He often demonstrates something that I think is bad with tailoring. And then he also has gone on record saying that people should be offended and you shouldn't hold back. So, OK, like, you know, and my other feeling is that even if it's a famous person.
I would never, whatever their politics or their beliefs or whether they've, whatever they are, I would never criticize a young person. For me, like even...
Sometimes people send me images and say, can you say something about Barron Trump? I think sometimes he actually looks pretty good in his clothes, depending on the outfit. Like Mitch McConnell wears dress sneakers, which is an item that I... don't think looks very good but you know like he's also taken falls and yeah he's older so like i don't know like just have some common sense you know like you're not gonna put an 80 year old i don't know how
old Mitch McConnell is. But, you know, if he's 80, let's say, I'm not going to put an 80 year old man's photo up and say, like, look at these stupid shoes or like, you know, put an 18 year old and say, look at these dumb pants. That's a crazy thing to do. Barron Trump, Mitch McConnell, it is true that, well, we live in a time when everything feels like a political statement.
And while Derek does try to steer clear of politics, he says in his regular fashion tweets, some of his posts do seem to suggest that Derek is, you know, a little deeper than the lapels on his jacket. And he does post about hot button issues with some regularity, like a recent tweet over whether someone who's in the U.S. illegally can legally receive a social security number from the federal government.
And you bet this one person who told you basically to, you know, stay in your lane, that if you could prove this to be the case, that you can legally get a social security number. that they would have to donate $5,000 to a particular cat rescue that you support. And if you are wrong, you would donate $5,000 to a charity of that person's choice. And then you open the bet to anyone.
What made you want to put a bet like this on the table, given that it's not the main focus of your content usually? Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of things that are important to me. I don't have an algorithm of when I say something. Immigration is a particularly touchy subject for me. And then I don't know. You know, I don't know.
Just like anybody. I'm literally like anybody else. I don't know what is going to end up going viral. You know, sometimes some tweet gets, you know, a lot of likes. Sometimes a tweet doesn't. That one happened to get a lot. And then there was news that. the IRS is going to cooperate with ICE and give them tax information so that ICE can go and deport these people. I don't know what to say besides I...
feel bad for people in those situations. And so I made a, you know, a bad habit of mine. I mean, the... The good gentlemanly thing to do is to be earnest and say something very respectfully and all that. But I am a very snarky person, so I said... How can this happen? I was told that illegal immigrants don't pay taxes. And then a bunch of people piled in and said they don't pay taxes or they have illegal Social Security numbers.
I know that illegal immigrants can legally get social security numbers. For example, Dreamers, people who were brought here as children, and then they grew up here, and through the Obama administration were given deferred action. that they would not be deported if they came out of the shadows. Through that process, they were able to get a social security number and then they pay taxes. So I don't, you know, I...
I said something snarky and then a bunch of people piled in and I said, well, why don't we make something good out of it? If you really believe this, let's put a wager. And if I can raise $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 for a cat charity. Sure. Like we'll make a spectacle of it. And if I'm wrong and you prove to be right, I'd be happy to donate to a charity. What's the status of this bet at the moment? Some people said, I'll take you up on it. And I DM them.
There are three people who said, I'll take you up on it. Of the three people, two people had their DMs open and I DMed them. I said, OK, here are my terms. Here's what I define as an illegal immigrant. And here's. I basically gave the terms and I said, I would like for both of us to send 5,000 to a trusted intermediary so that they can handle the distribution once this is done. No one can back out. And then I'm waiting for them to reply.
You know, there are a bunch of important issues. Immigration is not the only important issue in the world. Derek, can I just ask you, how come it feels so important to you? I'm curious to understand more. I mean, I'm hearing everything you're saying and it makes sense to me, but it seems to come from a personal place.
I'm a child of immigrants. I grew up in an immigrant community. If you're interested in fashion the way that I am and you go to garment factories, you know that these garment factories are staffed with both legal and illegal immigrants. So it pisses you off when people say that immigrants are like not working or not doing their fair share or not contributing to society. Listen, I am a pragmatist. I know that.
A country has to have borders and that, you know, people in there are going to enforce, you know, immigration rules and all that. I understand all that. I'm just telling you in my heart when I'm moving through the world. I feel for people who have to live in the shadows and have to go through life worried about... any kind of, not even federal agents, but state agents, police approaching them. Some of these people, again, came here as babies.
They may not even speak the language of their parents' home country. They may not know the customs. Like, you're seen as an American because you are an American. You grew up here. So, you know, I don't know what the solution is. I'm not...
While I am sympathetic to all immigrants, both legal and illegal, I understand that practically as a political matter, that is not a winning message to say, just open the borders and let anyone come through. I understand there has to be screening. I understand that some people broke laws and they can't. Mike Davis wrote this, has done brilliant work on cataloging the labor movement across the U.S. and especially Southern California. And I understand that, you know, when...
When companies took in all these immigrants, they used that sometimes for union busting. I understand all of those issues. And I don't want to pretend that all of these immigrants are from Latin America. There are actually a lot of illegal immigrants that are not Latino. So the story is much more complicated. But I feel for anyone who migrated, as my family did, from Vietnam.
After the war or during the war, when their city was being bombed, that they fled from Vietnam to Cambodia to Iran to Canada and then the United States. I feel I understand that pain. Yeah. And when you say Mike Davis, you're talking about the author of City of Courts. Yes. Yeah. I understand all of the complaints. I'm just saying that I don't know what...
I don't know what to say. You know, like when my parents' city was being bombed, I don't know. You want them to sit there and be bombed? I don't know. But, you know, when I say that online, people say you're an immigrant, you have no... You have no right to say what goes on in this country. Fine. Just expressing my opinion on a platform. I'm just a guy who built a platform. How dare you express your opinion on Twitter? That's ridiculous. How dare you, sir? Yeah. Coming up.
More opinions from Derek. And more history, including the metrosexual origins of manospheric fashion? Yep, that's in a minute. Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from BU Questrom School of Business. A recent episode explores the potential dangers of short-termism when companies chase quick wins and lose sight of long-term goals.
I think it's a huge problem because I think it's a behavioral issue not a systemic issue and when I see these kinds of systemic ideas of changing capitalism it scares me. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a sneak preview.
Personal finance isn't just about spreadsheets and investing. It's emotional. Talking to your partner about money, negotiating a raise. Even the smallest decisions, like splitting a bill, can bring up feelings of shame or anxiety. I'm Rima Reis, host of This is Uncomfortable, a podcast from Marketplace about life and how money messes with it. In this season, we get into topics like workplace drama, tough financial trade-offs.
and the quiet tension that builds when love and finances collide. Listen to This Is Uncomfortable wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we've been talking to big on Twitter menswear aficionado Derek Guy, who, as you may have guessed by now, is not the middle-aged white guy with glasses and a side part his online avatar might lead you to believe.
That is of a fashion icon of Derek's, who is not trying to be a fashion icon at all. There's this guy named Elliot Richardson, who worked in the Nixon administration, who I think was just... beautifully dressed and he wore The hallmarks of that classic American look, the shape of the shoulders, the construction of the waist, the types of ties that he wore, the way that he wore his tie knot, the way that he dressed so perfectly encapsulates what I think is beautiful, a classic.
American tailoring. And as you also might have noticed by now, a conversation with Derek about fashion is also a conversation about history. Take, for example, a recent thread of his that started as a discussion of the perfect suit for the writer Gary Steingart. and turned into a lesson about classic American tailoring and lapel buttonholes and the silk weaving skills of the Huguenots. A Derek Guy thread isn't so much about what's right or wrong in fashion. It's about...
where specific aesthetic choices come from. I want to write stories about, like, 1970s hikers and soldiers in this war and, like, how did these...
How did these people dress and how did it affect how we dress today? You know, I recently wrote an article for... uh bloomberg about the creation of alpha male aesthetic which is like basically how andrew tate dresses he's a bit more extreme but there's a lot of like really muscled guys wearing these really tight suits and so it's like driving expensive cars and so and so forth so i wrote this article
Bloomberg. And to me, a really amazing thing about that look is that you can, I will say, getting back to that, that editor reached out to me and said, can you do 2,000 words on the creation of the alphabet? alpha male aesthetic, I submitted 3,700 words because I wanted to start at the story of the Industrial Revolution. And I said, like, when they're trimming this down, which I...
I could not praise my editors enough for their patience and skills. And they've trimmed it down quite a bit. But as they were trying to cut, I was like, no, I really need to talk about, you know, the outdoorsman in like the late, you know, like.
19th century. So I think when you use clothes in this way and you see something, often if you just tug at, you know, not to... make too corny of an analogy but if you tug at the yarn a little bit you'll find out there's this like amazing history that connects you to all of this cultural history of you know like why are his pants that tight well it goes back to what I think is this early
2000s history of the rise of the metrosexual. Why does he, you know, bodybuild in this way? Well, it goes back to the 1970s and during the Industrial Revolution, how we started to think of muscle culture and so on and so forth. when you think of aesthetics in this way, you can get at issues that a lot of people are interested in, which are ideas of politics, economics, community, identity, society, culture. And so it's not just...
random trends. You know, the way that we dress is often a reflection of, you know, the kind of spirit of our age. And that is the spirit of our age is very much shaped by politics and economics and whatnot. these larger forces. Derek points out that in the early 1800s, because of the Romanticism movement, the Western European standard for male beauty was specifically that you did not...
look like you ever worked out. A day in your life, you were a melancholy, romantic, gentle man. This was the ideal male body. Pasty and pudgy is what peak performance looked like. And then the Industrial Revolution and the age of the machine changed that. As did the 1970s and feminism and the reaction to feminism and on and on. So even though Andrew Tate and other drivers of the Manosphere might say that an incredibly tight-fitting suit is quote-unquote traditionally male,
in my view, is not necessarily traditional. It's really shaped by the last 20 years of culture wars, although it pulls from earlier movements selectively. And I think that is just a reaction to... discussions that we have of trans rights and then from that discussions of whether or not there is such thing as gender as performance and in my view what Andrew Tate is doing is essentially performing His view of gender. Do you like movies? Is there like a specific movie that to you...
has like a fashion or style language that is like delicious? Well, the corny, there are two corny answers, but... Corny? I'm down for corny. Whatever you want. Okay. The corny and obvious answer is Talented Mr. Ripley. Anyone who's into men's style is going to say Talented Mr. Ripley. That's the super obvious one. If you look at that film, you'll...
Here are names like Badastoni, which is this famous tailoring shop in Italy. You'll see like really classic, both American and Italian tailoring. Beautiful proportions. Really good casual looks as well. It's not just suits and sport coats. see like, you know, just like really cool retro knits. And then the other obvious answer is any film with like Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper. When you look at those films, especially Fred Astaire, that man is like...
twirling in the air. And his suit is always staying exactly. It's color hugs the neck, beautiful form. And it's like...
It's just incredible. If you really get into tailoring, you look at his films, it's incredible. Gary Cooper, same thing. You look at the way Gary Cooper dressed, Cary Grant, I mean, they're all... really cliche answers but really when you see those films you're like wow that looks fantastic um i do think that sometimes people say like how are there any books that you recommend for how to dress and
One, if you're talking about tailored clothing, just go back to those old black and white films. You don't have to dress like a 1940s detective if you don't want to. I don't think you have to look like one that looks like. detectives as flipping a coin in the air. But you'll get a sense of fit and proportion that you can translate into a more modern context.
Of course, that more modern context is very different from the monoculture of Fred Astaire and Gary Cooper. So does Derek feel any loss about that change? In classic form, he's mixed. And he has some further reading to suggest. When I started following Mensber on the internet, it went from forums and blogs to now social media, like...
like Instagram and X. And then now I think we're in this other phase where a lot of content is now migrating to private Discord forums and paid sub stacks. I think that is not good. I think forums and blogs offered something unique. One exchange of ideas between equally nerdy kind of people. If you're wondering how to, I don't know, buy a suit or something, you could...
stumble upon a blog by Googling, it wouldn't be hidden behind a Discord channel or a Slack server or paid substack. And then I sort of feel that social media is a very superficial form. You know, I do these long threads, but Twitter only allows you, reasonably, to only string together 20 tweets into a thread. If you copy and pasted all of the text and put them into a Word document...
it'd be like, I don't know, like maybe half a page. That's nothing. That's like a normal post on a forum, and it's maybe one three hundredth of a book. So... You know, again, I think the internet's pretty neutral. It's like how you end up using it. The internet can be great if you use it well. I do think that some of the trends are not great.
I feel that the forums and blog days were better than where we are now. Well, earlier you talked about this idea of like monoculture, right? The internet has also helped to bring about... death of monoculture in a way. And there are some good things about that, right? When it comes to fashion and style.
Yeah, you know, really good for your listeners, if they want to look up the essay, Kathy Horn, C-A-T-H-Y and then H-O-R-Y-N. She wrote an article, I believe, for Times, the New York Times Magazine.
And it's called The End of Trends. And her thesis was that essentially so much of our culture is now online and that it's no longer the case that... that Vogue editors and GQ editors are dictating fashion, people can participate in online fashion conversations, and that people are essentially curating their own feeds, and they exist in...
different kind of cultural communities so that micro trends, you know, kind of exist in these small communities and they don't necessarily seep into other communities. And this diversity of culture online means that we've reached the end of hegemonic trends that were in the. 1960s, you can say this was a look. In the 1970s, there was a look. In the 1980s, 90s.
But since then, a friend of mine who wrote a really wonderful book called Culture and Status, it might be called Culture and Status or Status and Culture, I always forget. But his name is David Marks, M-A-R-X, same as Karl Marks. But his name is David Marks. His book is about how we create culture by pursuing status. And one thing that he said to me once is that if you go back and look at old episodes of Friends...
You know, Friends was in the 90s and they kind of dressed like how people do today. There's like small differences, but it hasn't changed that much. And that there are all of these other communities that then have their own distinct kind of style subcultures, and they have not necessarily taken over all of culture, and the general zeitgeist has kind of been the same.
So it's one kind of modern culture in the sense that we don't have these like constant moves of like 60s, 70s, 80s style shifts. But it's also that it's much more diverse that there are smaller things that don't necessarily take over everything. but we all exist in these small communities. And I agree that is generally a good thing. There is more diversity. I always think that, I do believe that the best time in fashion and culture is today.
If you were a cartoon character, Derek, and you had to wear the same outfit every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? Again, super corny. I can't... escape my corniness, but if I had to choose to be a brown tweed jacket, tanned whipcord trousers, black tassel loafers, black calfskin tassel loafers,
light blue oxford button-down shirt um you know i i was asking for watch recommendations from a friend who collects watches he gave me this recommendation he said that's kind of like a more intellectual watch and
I think what he meant was that you're a nerd. And I thought it was funny because there are sometimes, as we all do, we buy clothes because we aspire to be a certain figure. So there are like things in my wardrobe I bought. I was like, oh, I'm going to be a tough guy and I'm going to buy.
you know this like leather jacket or whatever but I've recognized that like in my heart of hearts like I feel most comfortable as a nerd and I am a nerd and people see me as a nerd and like it's very transparent so that probably would be what I would wear for the rest of my life. Nerdery seemed like the most appropriate place to end. An important word in our cultural language. Amory, what is your favorite menswear outfit?
to wear yourself or see on a man or person of any gender? I don't know. I've got a good vest. I like a good dress vest. that you can wear just as a vest. You mean like with a hole for a pocket watch? Like that kind of vest? Not quite that fancy, but just like a shirtless vest situation. We do not need a shirt. We just need a vest. You know? That's it. Just a vest.
Just Donald ducking in a vest? Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah, and a monocle, just for good measure. A vest and a monocle, nothing else. Is it? Yep. All right. What about you? I don't think I could top that, to be honest. I feel very... No, I... All right. I think I love, I will say that I was very skeptical of athleisure, but I think there is a way to do it stylishly. I mean, this is an obvious statement, but like I recently I've been like some really nice cushy sneakers.
And like a pair of pants that are, you know, that have some elastic in all the right places, but also like cut a nice shape. you know, for the legs, a sort of technical sweatshirt or like a very plush hoodie and, and a ball cap and a square ball cap. And just throw in a monocle for good measure. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what? At leisure and a monocle. Throw on a monocle. All right. I'm in. I'm in.
This episode was written by me, Ben Brock Johnson, and produced by me and Amory Sievertson with production assistance from Grace Tatter. It was co-hosted by me and... Me, Anne-Marie Sievertson. It was mixed and sound designed by our production manager, Paul Vykus, and edited by Meg Kramer. The rest of our team is Frannie Monaghan, Dean Russell, Emily Jankowski, and our managing producer...
Samata Joshi. Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between online communities and athleisure with a vest and a monocle. If you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, or another wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. Endless thread at WBUR.org. Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from BU Questrom School of Business. How should companies balance short-term pressures with long-term interests?
In the relentless pursuit of profits in the present, are we sacrificing the future? These are questions posed at a recent panel hosted by BU Questrom School of Business. The full conversation is available on the Is Business Broken podcast. Just in your mind, what is short-termism? If there's a picture in the dictionary, what's the picture? I'll start with one ugly one. When I was... still doing activism, was global head of activism and defense. So banker defending corporations.
I worked with Toshiba in Japan, and those guys had five different activists, each one of which had a very different idea of what they should do right now, like short term. Very different perspectives. And unfortunately, under pressure from the shareholders, the company had to go through two different rounds of breaking itself up, selling itself and going for shareholder votes. I mean, that company was effectively broken.
the leadership had to yield under the pressure of shareholders who couldn't even agree on what's needed in the short term. So to me, that is when this behavioral problem, you're under pressure and you can't think long term, becomes real. real disaster tony you didn't have a board like that i mean the obvious ones i mean you look at um there's quarterly earnings we all know that you have businesses that will
do everything they can to make a quarterly earning, right? And then we'll get into analysts and what causes that. I'm not even going to go there. But there's also, there's a lot of pressure on businesses to, if you've got a portfolio of businesses, sell off an element of that portfolio. And as a manager, you say, wait, this is a really good business. Might be down this.
year. Might be, but it's a great business. Another one is R&D spending. You can cut your R&D spend if you want to, and you can make your numbers for a year or two, but we all know where that's going to lead a company. And you can see those decisions every day, and you can see businesses that don't make that sacrifice. And I think in the long term, they win. Andy, I'm going to turn to you. Maybe you want to give an example of people complaining about short-termism that you think isn't.
I don't really believe it exists. I mean, again, I don't really even understand what it is. But what I hear is we take some stories and then we impose on them this idea that had they behaved differently... thought about the long term, they would have behaved differently. That's not really science. Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets, and Society at ibms.bu.edu.