"Tragic" is the only word that does justice to the events described by this article.
The most interesting aspect of the story for me is how the company's culture has changed for the worst over time.
Johnson & Johnson was started and for many decades was run by sincerely idealistic do-no-evil entrepreneurs, who wanted to focus on "patients first and profits last"... but now this business is run by executives who seem to be doing the exact opposite while claiming to abide by the same values.
This is a huge challenge for successful founders: how does one ensure that a company's culture and values don't degrade long after the original team is gone?
The author, Steven Brill, a successful entrepreneur and writer[1], wrote another powerful long-form article about the insanity of healthcare bills in the US a couple of years ago:
"This is a huge challenge for successful founders: how does one ensure that a company's culture and values don't degrade long after the original team is gone?"
More than just a founder problem. This has been a defining problem for empires throughout history: how to make sure the next guy doesn't mess it up.
Kind of a tangent but this point has really been demonstrated to me by the game Crusader Kings 2. Where I'm trying to carve out a huge empire, only to have my guy die and my heirs divide up the land and mess things up. It ends up being really hard to have the empire continue as a whole.
In another way I'm also reminded by the family companies (hotels?) in Japan that have been going for a thousand years, where they adopt grown people into the family to continue the family business.
To me that implies more that people who are bad at their job get promoted. Ive met plenty of vps, politicians, etc.. and the majority will not hesitate to challenge your very livelihood if they feel it gets them a leg up on the world. Hell, most will make passive aggressive comments with a smile.
The most interesting aspect of the story for me is how the company's culture has changed for the worst over time.
Johnson & Johnson was started and for many decades was run by sincerely idealistic do-no-evil entrepreneurs, who wanted to focus on "patients first and profits last"... but now this business is run by executives who seem to be doing the exact opposite while claiming to abide by the same values.
This is a huge challenge for successful founders: how does one ensure that a company's culture and values don't degrade long after the original team is gone?
The author, Steven Brill, a successful entrepreneur and writer[1], wrote another powerful long-form article about the insanity of healthcare bills in the US a couple of years ago:
http://time.com/198/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killin...
Highly recommended if this is of interest to you.
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Brill_(journalist)