NY Times vs. the PE Industry
This is one of many articles where the NY Times has shit on PE in its series covering the industry.
What are your thoughts? Concerns? Is this justified or unjustified? With the NY Times delivering a clear bias to its readers, what do you think the industry can do to prevent uninformed criticisms?
Nytimes is garbage. I wouldn't worry.
Yeah probably some fake news? Alone for this stupid post you bananas should decrease at 25,476
Cool. The nytimes is incredibly biased and not a good source of factual news. Enjoy being mislead or reading crappily written opinion pieces masquerading as reporting.
You do know that the NYT came out after the election and acknowledged that it completely and utterly failed at being politically objective, don't you?
https://www.google.com/amp/nypost.com/2016/11/15/new-york-times-edits-i…
They tried to act like they were objective but they had to retract and reprint the article because they knew the line they had put in about covering both candidates equally was completely false. The NY Post does a great job of running even more salt in the wound.
https://www.google.com/amp/nypost.com/2016/11/11/new-york-times-we-blew…
I didn't vote, didn't support either candidate, but it is incredibly obvious how biased and divisive the mainstream media has become and the NYT is as guilty as anyone.
You mad bro? Lol?
Why does everyone go to one extreme or the other? The New York Times is slightly left, Washington Post is middle, and WSJ is slightly conservative. If you read all three along with The Atlantic, Bloomberg, The Economist, BBC, and The Hill you will be well informed and understand the issue from all sides. One thing is for sure, The New York Times is not garbage by any stretch of the imagination. And one op-ed should not be presented as a reflection of a news site.
no FT :o
Lol. NYT and washpo are all leftist new sources. Same with the Atlantic and the hill. Just go read Huffpo and get it overwith.
Btw Daily Kos has the hill as middle ground which means left to any normal person. Washpo is a Hillary propaganda mouth piece and generally trash.
IMO, anything mainstream is written for a 8th grade reading level and driven by adds. I prefer paying for more in depth reporting that is driven by subscribers vs selling ad revenue.
lol at wapo being in the middle....that is comical
if you read all of those you are prob liberal
That was one of the least accurate articles that I've ever read in my life.
Be careful. It is an OPINION Page. Contributors do not necessarily reflect the "opinion" of a newspaper. So don't blame a newspaper for an op-ed article.
Btw, I read this articles two days ago: funny part is that this guy works in a VC (Partner at Sequoia)
I actually noticed that, which is why I was very confused haha. Why do VC guys deserve carried interest, when LBO guy supposedly don't...?
Because they're part of the Silicon Valley circle jerk that's all about making an impact and building something people want that has this embarrassing side effect of occasionally making people very rich, whereas NY financiers are all scummy douchenozzles intent on financially destroying America for their own gain.
Source: growing up in Silicon Valley
Well, this thread derailed. As someone not in PE/IB, in what way is this article inaccurate?
nothing's inaccurate about it at all. it's an op-ed piece, not a news story. it's written by a billionaire, who has this holier than thou attitude and thinks he's more moral than another billionaire.
users of WSO just want any excuse to start a political argument. this is nothing more than rich guilt and opportunistic bashing because of party lines, a la Warren Buffett, George Soros & Bill Gross. I'm not a fan of Trump, but the hypocrisy by Moritz laughable in this. just write an op-ed about why you think trump sucks, don't bash someone just because they're taking meetings with the POTUS and operate in a different part of the cap structure.
"Mr. Schwarzman has flourished during the four decades that the people Mr. Trump purports to represent have languished."
so have you, Moritz.
"Just like Mr. Trump's real-estate business, groups like Blackstone rely on enormous debt..."
so because you willingly take a piece further down in the capital structure away from an entrepreneur, that makes what you do more moral?
"Then they cut costs - which almost always means making sizable layoffs..."
fair point here, but do you not keep an eye on costs? kinda hard to layoff people at google when it's just 2 people, so not really apples to apples. every good investor looks at the bottom line potential, and before you get to the bottom line, you look at costs.
"...and figure out a way to reward themselves financially."
I believe you've heard of IPOs before. how is what you do any different?
then he slams PE for taking advantage of carried interest/cap gains...when VC gets the same treatment forehead slap
closes with a comment about the 1%...his net worth is 3.1bn.
if he wants to make a philanthropy argument, still meh, but that seems more legit. he's donated a bunch to lower income type scholarship programs. schwarzman has not. he has, however, endowed a scholarship in China, similar to the Rhodes scholar program, and also donated $100mm to the NY Public Library, among other large 9 figure donations.
in short, Moritz hates Trump, and attacks another investor who is working with Trump.
VC are way worse than PE. They constantly attempt to dilute founders and squeeze out other executives that actually work, they add practically no value compared to PE, and on top of that they have the gall to be holier-than-thou about what industry they invest in, despite most of their products being of no intrinsic value whatsoever.
VC criticizing PE and bankers? Pot calling the kettle black. They can fuck off back to their pre-Revenue, global-local-mobile-social, SaaS-based ad-tech stealth portcos, the fucking donkeys.
Regarding the philanthropy part, Schwarzman actually has more to his credit than the Scholars program. He's funded some public education causes in NY. Goes so far as to read report cards of the middle school kids his program funds and writes a custom letter to each of them. Although I'll admit, Schwarzman's philanthropy is more old-school, while Moritz is more new-agey, hipster.
As for the last line, this might be relevant : (www) dot bloomberg dot com/view/articles/2017-02-08/steve-schwarzman-explains-why-he-counsels-trump
Still doesn't give the VC the higher moral ground. I've seen people being able to keep their homes thanks to Blackstone, while other PEs would've evicted them, and I've seen Sequoia screw over dozens of cofounders, to the point of poaching away good people from their portfolio startups.
The writer of this opinion piece is nearly on his way to Schwarzman's wealth. And the focus is mainly on the treatment of debt, which is just funny because I'm sure that he knows how to use these structures to his own advantage, very well. Maybe he would do better spending his time educating and mentoring people so they too can be as fortunate.
"Mr. Schwarzman and his brethren have become symbols for the economic inequality that Mr. Trump deplored during his campaign. They are able to borrow billions and deduct interest payments from their corporate tax bills while $75,000-a-year wage earners in Ohio, Michigan or Pennsylvania are unable to secure a mortgage and get no tax break on their monthly rent."
What kind of entitled crap is this??? Why the fuck would anyone get a tax break on rent. What the fuck does anyone's personal tax situation have to do with corporate taxes policies intended to incent Schwarzman et. al. to buy mismanaged businesses and make them more efficient with a net positive impact on the entire fucking economy? I'm VERY surprised to see one of the leading VCs spewing such garbage. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but this really makes my blood boil.
Very interesting that Moritz lambastes leverage for its social evils but hardly says anything about cap gains breaks. The pot is calling the kettle black here, folks.
He probably sympathizes with that whole populist thing...
I heard he's part of that whole Yale thing too
taking an op-ed as news was your first mistake.
a VC investor worth 3bn talking shit about a PE investor worth 11bn is just comical. it'd be like if Arnold talked shit to Ronnie Coleman for doing steroids.
thanks for the laugh OP
noticed this trend too over the past year and Fortress seems to be the new scapegoat of the megafunds.
1) Op-ed articles are often absolute bollocks. Have you seen Forbes' op-ed pieces? Some of them make me want to claw my eyes out.
2) This guy is just a slightly differently-flavoured PE investor, so I'm not sure what he's all on about. Sure, there are some instances where PEs have done shady things, but in the grand scheme of things the PE industry drives growth by identifying high-value companies and providing them with much-needed capital and expertise.
3) Ant your rabidly anti-left is a little unsettling. I can understand having a conservative stance on some issues, including lower taxes, smaller government, and even limiting immigration. May not necessarily agree with all of 'em, but I can understand them. When you're at the point where you're calling the NYT and WashPo "garbage" and "trash", respectively, you're just shitting on your own credibility. These two publications between them have some ~150 Pulitzers, and have broken some of the most important stories of all time - Watergate, much? Your dismissal of them only serves to indicate a complete unwillingness to even attempt to approach things in a fair, unbiased manner.
4) For what it's worth, I like to get my news from a wide variety of sources. I'll read articles from the NYT and WashPo, from Al Jazeera and the BBC, plus even some on Snapchat on HuffPo (not sure which is the less reputable of the two), but I'll also read articles from Fox News. Hell, every once in a while I'll even check in on Breitbart, just to see their take on things.
I'm sorry but 3 good stories 40 years ago and a bunch of awards given by liberal media tools, to liberal media tools, for being liberal media tools is not an impressive resume.
Nytime and washpo used to be good. They've sucked for a long time (pre trump as well). I like informative news and articles on important issues. With that criteria, NYT and WPO are garbage in my book. It's even more sad considering the greatness they've fallen from.
That said, I'll look at the travel or wine section of th NYTimes. Everything non news or non socially liberal has good coverage.
My opinions of them reflect someone who hates slanted, inflammatory journalism driven by selling adds or pushing an agenda. I dislike fox for that reason as well. I'm also hardly a conservative as I support abortion, social programs, unions (to an extent) and am pretty much agnostic religiously.
The left has gone from a party of labor and helping those in need to a party that fights over bathroom rights and free college for everyone. Trump moved th republicans to the middle (he's non religious, isn't anti gay rights, is pro labor, and vocally anti nation building). These are all classic democratic stances.
But yeah, I'm an off kilter fundie neocon because I don't give the NYTimes a pass on their biased and crap reporting because of some solid journalism 30-40 years ago.
I love all the liberal idiots in this thread kissing the NY Times ass. The NY Times is a FORMER Newspaper. Even when it was in print it was still totally biased garbage and a tool of the liberal political machine. Now that it is only a website it is closer to Teen Vogue for people who want to feel informed.
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