Gordon Gekko
Gordon Gekko is a
fictional character from the popular movie
Wall Street. Gekko was portrayed by actor-producer
Michael Douglas, in a performance that was to win him an
Oscar for
Best Actor. In the film, naïve
stock broker Bud Fox, played by
Charlie Sheen, comes to work for the ultra-aggressive, power-hungry Gekko, and ultimately blossoms under the wing of the larger-than-life
stock market guru.
Greed is GOOD
Gekko's famous "Greed is good" speech was, to many, an excellent representation of the state of
investment banking in the late
1980s. Gekko has since become a symbol of 1980s
corporate greed. While the producers of the movie
Wall Street clearly intended to portray this character as a villain, ironically enough, thanks to this movie, Gordon Gekko became a source of inspiration for countless number of investment bankers around the world. It has often been suggested that
Wall Street turned out to be a most effective recruitment tool for the investment banking industry. As well, Gekko's diatribe against corporate mismanagement is just as relevant in the 21st century as in the 1980s.
Gekko made the argument against well-entrenched corporate managers, saying they were taking advantage of
shareholders. He compared the role of early American business leaders like the
Carnegies and
Mellons who only managed businesses in which they had significant investments with that of well paid company senior executives who owned very little of a company's stock, and hence had little stake in the company's performance.
He asserted to shareholders at a company meeting: "You own the company. That's right -- you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these
bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes...
Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents."
He declared that as an asset stripper he was "not a destroyer of companies" but a "
liberator of them." And most famously in the film, he asserted "The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed is GOOD.
Greed is right. Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
Representative Quotes from the Movie Wall Street:"I just got on the board of the Bronx Zoo....Cost me a mil. [Laughs to self] That's the thing about WASPS...they love animals, can't stand people."""Systolic, dyastolic, cheaper than one visit to a doctor.""
""I didn't know we had a meeting today, Sport.""
""Bonjour Monsieur Buddy [to son]""
""Every battle is won before it is ever fought. Sun-tzu, The Art of War""
""It's all about bucks kid, the rest is conversation.""
Gekko is based loosely on corporate raider
Ivan Boesky, who gave a similar speech on
greed at the
University of California in
1986.
In 2002, Gordon Gekko was named one of the
Fifteen Richest Fictional Characters according to
Forbes. Gekko was attributed 650 million dollars.
In 2003,
AFI named him number 24 of the top 50 movie villains of all time
*
Speech before stockholders*
Forbes profile*
Is Gordon Gekko Back in Fashion?
