Speaker 1: You know, we talk about it occasionally on our show
Speaker 1: here the kind of stuff we would be doing if
Speaker 1: we weren't doing podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, consulting about podcasts.
Speaker 3: Join our new podcast consultancy.
Speaker 2: Which is actually kind of part of our job descriptions,
Speaker 2: which is weird.
Speaker 4: Technically is it?
Speaker 1: Technically is we do develop shows? And it's not because
Speaker 1: we are some you know, moseses on the mountaintop who
Speaker 1: know what, who know everything. It's because we've been around
Speaker 1: long enough that if there is a mistake, we have
Speaker 1: made that mistake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're the idea guys, because we messed up a
Speaker 2: lot pretty often.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the one of the questions we got
Speaker 1: in correspondence several years ago was about consultancy, right, the
Speaker 1: idea of being a consultant. It's a heck of a
Speaker 1: group term, and it means it can mean a lot
Speaker 1: of things.
Speaker 2: I don't want to spoil this one at all, this one,
Speaker 2: this episode unfolds. I think we should just let it happen.
Speaker 3: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 3: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 3: learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome, back to the show. My name is Matt
Speaker 2: Our co host Noel Is on Adventures.
Speaker 4: They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission Control
Speaker 1: dec At most importantly, you are you, You are here,
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Matt,
Speaker 1: do you ever contemplate alternative timelines or alternate timelines? Do
Speaker 1: you ever think of who you might be and what
Speaker 1: you might be doing in a universe just to the
Speaker 1: left of ours.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have a similar thing to that. It's a
Speaker 2: it's a it's a yes but which is a weird thing.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't shouldn't do yes butts. But my wife and I
Speaker 2: have this theory that we jumped timelines sometime in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: that all of Earth jumped the timeline, and somehow we've
Speaker 2: were in this alternate reality now where where just things
Speaker 2: are a little bit off of what they were before,
Speaker 2: and we we don't really know because it's that whole
Speaker 2: Mandela effect thing where our memories are a little different.
Speaker 2: But in this timeline, it's all been this way forever.
Speaker 1: And that's that's an interesting argument. It's more common than
Speaker 1: you might think, especially here in the West. Quite a
Speaker 1: few people have on an individual level floated something like
Speaker 1: that with me. I'm I guess my timeline question for
Speaker 1: you and for you listeners today is hinging on these
Speaker 1: these sorts of thought experiments that we have, these Walter
Speaker 1: Mitti esque moments where we think, you know, what is
Speaker 1: my life in this other universe, like where I am
Speaker 1: an astronaut or where I am a touring percussionist for
Speaker 1: I don't know what. What's a dream band that people
Speaker 1: want to play percussion for.
Speaker 2: I always knew that you were going to do that
Speaker 2: one day. I knew it. Dave Matthews Man.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I met one of their touring drummers, not
Speaker 1: the main guy, but I met one of their touring
Speaker 1: drummers a while back. Really nice guy. Uh That is
Speaker 1: the end of that story. But the reason I ask
Speaker 1: is because you met Carter. What's you met Carter?
Speaker 4: No, not the main drummer.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, no, no, one of the like one of
Speaker 3: the bongo guys.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the percussionist gus Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So, way back in a different version of my
Speaker 1: own life, I was on track to be an employee
Speaker 1: of something very much like the company that we are
Speaker 1: examining today. Thankfully, this is just my opinion. Thankfully I
Speaker 1: didn't do it, and my thoughts and prayers go out
Speaker 1: to whatever Benboland lives in an a version of the
Speaker 1: timeline where the cards fell differently.
Speaker 2: And instead we got into this.
Speaker 1: And instead we ended up doing this. Yes, when we
Speaker 1: think of global powers, we usually think of nations, right, governments, religions,
Speaker 1: huge multinational corporations and so on, and we understand in
Speaker 1: a very general way how all of these work. You
Speaker 1: don't need to be a president or prime minister to
Speaker 1: understand that nations on paper seek to make life better
Speaker 1: for their citizens.
Speaker 4: On paper, and you.
Speaker 1: Don't need to or maybe a certain segment of their citizenry.
Speaker 1: You don't need to be a priest, a patriarch or
Speaker 1: a pope to understand that religions typically strive to make
Speaker 1: new converts and spread their teachings, their philosophies and souls
Speaker 1: and save souls, yeah, depending on the religion, while a
Speaker 1: corporation will work to expand its market share and ultimately
Speaker 1: its bottom line. And all of these things are fine
Speaker 1: in theory, right, but none of them are inherently good
Speaker 1: or evil, which I know can ruffle some feathers, especially
Speaker 1: when we talk about religion. We're not talking about a
Speaker 1: specific religion, just the concept none are inherently good or evil.
Speaker 1: Because some nations might improve life for their citizens or
Speaker 1: some percentage of their population by making things worse for
Speaker 1: other people in another country, or indeed in the same country.
Speaker 1: And some religions may advocate slavery or death for non
Speaker 1: believers that may be the best way to save their souls,
Speaker 1: according to some teaching or interpretation thereof. And as we know,
Speaker 1: some corporations may reak tremendous havoc chasing that bottom line
Speaker 1: and even ultimately shoot themselves in the foot, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 2: But today's story is about something else entirely, not a religion,
Speaker 2: not a nation, perhaps not even really a corporation, at
Speaker 2: least in the way that we would traditionally think about
Speaker 2: one of those. Today's episode is about a mysterious consultancy
Speaker 2: firm called the McKenzie Group, but to those in the know,
Speaker 2: it's simply called the Firm. Ooh, I like that movie
Speaker 2: with Tom Cruise, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also the book, a book The Firm. There's Chrishiam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a documentary about Mackenzie called The Firm. So
Speaker 1: let's look at the history first. Here are the facts.
Speaker 1: This thing is very, very old. The Mackenzie Group was
Speaker 1: founded in nineteen twenty six by a fellow named James O.
Speaker 4: McKenzie.
Speaker 1: He was a University of Chicago professor and an expert
Speaker 1: on what's known as management accounting. He worked his way
Speaker 1: up from the bottom.
Speaker 2: Okay, management accounting, So I guess a manager of sorts?
Speaker 2: Mart I guess in this case he is a consultant.
Speaker 1: High level accounting. Right, how do we best understand a
Speaker 1: budget for an organization?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: How do we streamline that budget? How do we grow
Speaker 1: certain parts of it?
Speaker 4: And so on.
Speaker 1: He was born way back in eighteen eighty nine. He
Speaker 1: grew up in fairly modest means in a three room
Speaker 1: house in the Ozarks. And this kind of these kind
Speaker 1: of humble beginnings are talking points that a lot of
Speaker 1: companies of this nature love to hit, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Large corporations love to talk about the humble
Speaker 1: beginnings and therefore the implied genius of their founder. Right,
Speaker 1: this was an extraordinary person, whatever their name is, because
Speaker 1: through nothing but their own intellect and gumption they rose
Speaker 1: to the top.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his grip on his bootstraps is very strong.
Speaker 1: This is this is very popular. This is this is
Speaker 1: an iteration of the American myth, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it's no wonder that that's one of the first
Speaker 1: things you'll read about the founder in any of the
Speaker 1: official literature.
Speaker 2: It is interesting he started as a professor. That that
Speaker 2: fascinates me.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: He's a learned man who's already teaching people something there.
Speaker 2: I feel like this may be just completely naivete on
Speaker 2: my part, but to be a professor or a teacher
Speaker 2: of any kind, I feel like there has to be
Speaker 2: a certain amount of selflessness in somebody. But maybe I'm
Speaker 2: wrong about that.
Speaker 1: I'm professors are people, Matt. You know, people have a
Speaker 1: terrible track record, Okay, but which I mean?
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: I share the same I share the same bias in
Speaker 1: many ways because I am one of those people who,
Speaker 1: like you, I believe, looks up to professors, people who
Speaker 1: dedicate such a large portion of their life to learning
Speaker 1: a specific discipline or even a specific subset of a
Speaker 1: specific discipline, you know.
Speaker 2: And then not necessarily using all of that hard work
Speaker 2: for your own means, you're using it to teach other
Speaker 2: people to do what you have learned so much about
Speaker 2: I don't know that. To me, it speaks to somebody's
Speaker 2: character and I guess at a base level.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: It also brings us to I mean, this may be
Speaker 1: a story for a different day, but it brings us
Speaker 1: to the idea of academic wars, wars of ideology, which
Speaker 1: are fought in the ivory towers as we record this episode.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, what is the nature of humanity?
Speaker 1: How does that translate philosophically to the best economic model?
Speaker 1: Things like that, right, people have been People still choose
Speaker 1: which hill they want.
Speaker 4: To die on in this debate.
Speaker 1: And it can sound dry and academic, but we have
Speaker 1: to remember that the same people who are opposing one
Speaker 1: another in these sorts of things, anywhere from more political
Speaker 1: philosophy to more economic philosophy, these people end up in
Speaker 1: the halls of power. They end up making laws, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, or having a very very strong
Speaker 1: influence on the laws that are made. So it can
Speaker 1: seem dry, but at the end of the day, it
Speaker 1: does impact you, and it impacts everyone around you, at
Speaker 1: least who lives in that government, and sometimes often people
Speaker 1: who at least in the case of the US, people
Speaker 1: who don't have anything to do with the US get
Speaker 1: impacted by these beliefs. McKenzie's original, I guess breakout single
Speaker 1: was the principles of what's called scientific management. It was
Speaker 1: an early practitioner this and this will sound very familiar
Speaker 1: understandable to all of us. It's just the detailed study
Speaker 1: of workflow and the division of labor. So we have
Speaker 1: X amount of employees, why amount of task? How do
Speaker 1: we translate this into the most efficient process?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Which you know we're explaining in a very simple way,
Speaker 1: but you can see how this becomes incredibly complicated incredibly quickly.
Speaker 1: But it turns out mackenzie was really good at it.
Speaker 1: And we all know when we heard that date nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six, we all know that there was a context.
Speaker 1: There was a disaster looming on the horizon. Just a
Speaker 1: few years after the foundation of the McKenzie group.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not really a great time to found something.
Speaker 4: Right, the Great Depression occurred.
Speaker 2: But here's the deal. Under Mackenzie's leadership, this group, this
Speaker 2: organization that he created, it didn't just survive the depression.
Speaker 2: It didn't just make it through. This sucker thrived When
Speaker 2: the founder, James O. McKenzie died in nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 2: a gentleman named Marvin Bauer took the firm, and he
Speaker 2: took it basically beyond what James had been able to
Speaker 2: take it to some would say glory over the next
Speaker 2: thirty years. In part, though, this is part of an
Speaker 2: obsession with being quote unquote professional in appearance and tone
Speaker 2: and conduct, so really creating an outward image of what
Speaker 2: this firm is, what a representative of the McKenzie group
Speaker 2: would be.
Speaker 1: And an pretty specific, right and pretty meticulous. One word
Speaker 1: that you would use in a corporate boardroom to describe
Speaker 1: this would be granular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk about some argyle socks. Who gets
Speaker 2: to wear them? Who doesn't get to wear them? Argyle?
Speaker 2: What's your take, mister, mister Bauer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Bauer once forbade all junior consultants from wearing
Speaker 1: argyle socks because he thought they would distract clients, And
Speaker 1: the firm's consultants were all required to wear fedoras at
Speaker 1: this time. They were all if we were all probably
Speaker 1: dudes until President Kennedy stopped wearing them.
Speaker 2: Wow, I see now that I don't know why it
Speaker 2: just reminds I do know why. It reminds you of
Speaker 2: the peaky blinders. That's what I'm seeing in my head.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: Also, this is interesting because it feels like the guy's
Speaker 1: creating a uniform, right, Yeah, he is creating a uniform,
Speaker 1: not just a fabric, but also of minds. Marvin Bauer
Speaker 1: Is can be considered the head brand visionary or propagandist
Speaker 1: internal propagandist for McKenzie. He's the one who told everybody
Speaker 1: to start calling it the firm. He established the terminology, jargon, nomenclature,
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call it that the employees
Speaker 1: would use going forward. One example would be the all
Speaker 1: employees of a certain type were called partners.
Speaker 4: That was him.
Speaker 1: It gives everybody some prestige, especially from a client basis.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not working with an employee now, I'm
Speaker 1: not spending millions of dollars on that.
Speaker 2: I'm working with a partner. That's my partner man.
Speaker 1: And additionally, he is responsible for a corporate culture that
Speaker 1: continues by all reports today, you'll hear former mckensey employees
Speaker 1: say things like there are only three great institutions remaining
Speaker 1: in the world, the Marines, the Catholic Church and mackenzie
Speaker 1: and they're serious.
Speaker 4: Whoa they believe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this kind of loyalty, fervent loyalty and belief in
Speaker 1: the company is baked into every single employee. He also
Speaker 1: established a set of rules, rules of engagement and rules of.
Speaker 2: Conduct, and let's just listen, these off consultants should put
Speaker 2: the interests of clients before McKenzie's revenues. That's a big change,
Speaker 2: at least if you're a corporation that is for profit,
Speaker 2: you are basically saying, in a way, the customer is
Speaker 2: always right in this situation. But in this case, the
Speaker 2: customer is your partner.
Speaker 1: And then he said, of course, Omerta, do not discuss
Speaker 1: client affairs. That makes sense absolutely. He also said, tell
Speaker 1: the truth as you see it, even if this means
Speaker 1: challenging the client's opinion. So let's say that you are
Speaker 1: working with a large beverage company and they want to
Speaker 1: make a new kind of product that you know, as
Speaker 1: McKenzie partner, it's just not going to work. Then it's
Speaker 1: your job to instead of just taking their money, it's
Speaker 1: your job to tell them that this ranch dressing flavored
Speaker 1: soda is a terrible idea.
Speaker 2: But I'm going to stop you there. That is one
Speaker 2: of the most disgusting things I've heard in a while.
Speaker 3: It's also a real thing. Oh god, it's a real thing.
Speaker 2: So did you do that in the Natural Flavorings episode?
Speaker 3: No, I was.
Speaker 1: I went to visit our friends Lauren and Annie over
Speaker 1: at Savor, Yeah, to do an episode with them about Ranch. Okay,
Speaker 1: so check that out if you are, if you are,
Speaker 1: like forty percent of the American public, a diehard fan
Speaker 1: of Ranch.
Speaker 4: Wow, can you believe.
Speaker 2: That my son's in there? Yeah, I'm definitely not.
Speaker 1: No, neither, I like my buttermilk and mayonnaise separate. Oh
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. I mean that's what it was originally. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Just you could check out that episode. Another example's let's
Speaker 1: say you're a McKinsey partner working for a strong man
Speaker 1: or dictator an authoritarian regime, and they say, look, the
Speaker 1: best way to subjugate this ethnic minority is to, I
Speaker 1: don't know, shoot them all. And then you say, no,
Speaker 1: the best way to subjugate this ethnic minority is to
Speaker 1: imprison all of them, but call them re education camps
Speaker 1: or summer camps. You know, we'll work on the phrasing.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff you're supposed to do as a McKenzie consultant.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to stick by what you think is the
Speaker 1: correct answer, even if your clients, some of whom may
Speaker 1: be quite dangerous people will disagree with you. And then
Speaker 1: they said, only perform work that is both necessary and
Speaker 1: that McKenzie can do.
Speaker 2: Well, Okay, only stuff that's necessary. I wonder, I wonder
Speaker 2: why that one is so important. But I guess that's
Speaker 2: the idea of we're only going to outwardly show good wine.
Speaker 2: So if we don't know that we can perform this
Speaker 2: task like to perfection, then we're not even going to
Speaker 2: attempt it that way, nothing ever, dings our reputation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some self preservation there, right, And it makes
Speaker 1: sense when you think about it. The idea of only
Speaker 1: doing work that is necessary also also makes sense. It's
Speaker 1: a matter of professionalism. You're not doing unneeded work and
Speaker 1: then finding the client or giving them a fee for that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's the difference between a
Speaker 1: good mechanic and an unscrupulous one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, here's another rule that mackenzie set for itself.
Speaker 2: They only work with CEOs and They only work with
Speaker 2: clients that the firm itself feels will follow the advice
Speaker 2: of the firm, So they're not trying to get somebody
Speaker 2: in there that's maybe just wealthy enough, but won't actually
Speaker 2: heed their advice. Again, they're so selective with how they're viewed.
Speaker 2: I think we keep painting this picture here and so
Speaker 2: far since what what was the year nineteen six, it's
Speaker 2: just been working for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they keep a very very low profile. They did
Speaker 1: expand their restriction on CEOs to include CEOs of subsidiaries
Speaker 1: and divisions of larger companies.
Speaker 2: Isn't that nice?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's a.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a bigger pull than it
Speaker 1: was originally. But the changes over the years have not
Speaker 1: fundamentally changed the rules of engagement or the core values
Speaker 1: of the company. And as you said, Matt, this has
Speaker 1: been a winning formula.
Speaker 4: There was a profile story on.
Speaker 1: McKenzie in nineteen ninety three and said McKenzie and Company
Speaker 1: was quote the most well known, most secretive, most high priced,
Speaker 1: most prestigious, most consistently successful, most envied, most trusted, most
Speaker 1: disliked management consulting firm on Earth.
Speaker 2: Wow. Love. They threw that most disliked in there right
Speaker 2: at the end, I wonder who dislikes it.
Speaker 1: A lot of people, competitors dislike it, victims or I
Speaker 1: guess you would say unsatisfied clients, right, or people who
Speaker 1: as a result of a project maybe lost their livelihood.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I bet there's some law enforcement agencies that don't
Speaker 2: like them so much, just because they're probably so good at,
Speaker 2: you know, keeping a face on whatever situation is going on.
Speaker 1: It's true, but they you know, you can't be this
Speaker 1: large without having critics as well as fans, right, opponents
Speaker 1: as well as supporters.
Speaker 2: Yeah. According to BusinessWeek, the firm is ridiculed, reviled, and
Speaker 2: revered depending on one's perspective, which makes complete sense. That's
Speaker 2: what we're talking about. If you're on the front lines
Speaker 2: with McKenzie, or rather mackenzie is on your front lines,
Speaker 2: you're probably liking them a lot because it does seem
Speaker 2: like they're pretty accommodating and are going to get whatever
Speaker 2: job done you need done.
Speaker 1: There's one quote that I kept seeing float around which
Speaker 1: said that amidst the leaders of the business world, I
Speaker 1: was just saying that you can't be fired for hiring mackenzie.
Speaker 1: Oh so they also seem to be dependable, at least
Speaker 1: in certain circles. Let's talk about some of these statistics.
Speaker 1: They have over one hundred and twenty offices, they have
Speaker 1: a force of fourteen thousand consultants. They've been in business
Speaker 1: for almost a century now, ninety plus years. And one
Speaker 1: of the key murky pieces of Mackenzie is it's alumni
Speaker 1: who are hugely influential, more current and former fortune five
Speaker 1: hundred CEOs are alumni of Mackenzie than any other company.
Speaker 1: I think they have the highest chance of becoming CEOs
Speaker 1: in general. It's like one on six hundred and ninety,
Speaker 1: which sounds like tough odds, but that's a hugely favorable number.
Speaker 2: Okay, so two things here. They're they're being consultants and
Speaker 2: partners and then they end up becoming CEOs. That's what
Speaker 2: we're saying here of these giant corporations. Okay, we're not
Speaker 2: talking about like a pod people situation like CIA infiltration
Speaker 2: replacing CEOs with Mackenzie are we I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a there is a revolving door argument,
Speaker 1: but it's not it's not a public private revolution.
Speaker 4: It's private private.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. I geah, that's true.
Speaker 4: So people do. Also, alumni do also go into public service.
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonna say, alumni go into public service.
Speaker 2: But then I wonder, I do wonder how many public
Speaker 2: servants end up at the McKenzie group as like a
Speaker 2: side gig. But it seems like it would be a
Speaker 2: very demanding job and not exactly a retirement.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's a pretty rigorous system. Internally. They have
Speaker 1: a churn of about one fifth of their workforce a
Speaker 1: year because they practice something called up or out, which
Speaker 1: means that you're either getting promoted or being kicked out.
Speaker 1: Dang they know, which is another part of the lens
Speaker 1: to their credibility.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, Okay, no dying on the vine there, just
Speaker 2: GTFO or you hired and promote it.
Speaker 1: If you search on YouTube now you'll see a lot
Speaker 1: of pretty fascinating videos from people who we're talking about
Speaker 1: how to get through the mckenzy hiring process. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that's Those are the number one hits, more so than
Speaker 1: the any idea of a McKenzie cover.
Speaker 2: Up, first step hack person that you're going to be
Speaker 2: interviewed by.
Speaker 1: How do you know they haven't already hacked you. How
Speaker 1: do you know you weren't already selected?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So officially, let's look at their official stance. Officially, McKenzie
Speaker 1: describes itself as what you said, Matt, a quote, global
Speaker 1: management consulting firm that serves a broad mix of private, public,
Speaker 1: and social sector institutions. So they're active in nonprofits, they're
Speaker 1: active in private corporations, and they're active in mechanisms of
Speaker 1: the state. It also it doesn't make a secret of
Speaker 1: its alumni actions. It's pretty proud of the work of
Speaker 1: its former employees.
Speaker 2: Yeah. According to its own website, quote, alumni number more
Speaker 2: than thirty four thousand and work in virtually every business
Speaker 2: sector in one hundred and twenty countries. Through formal events
Speaker 2: and informal networking, former Mackenzie consultants make and sustain professional relationships.
Speaker 2: This dynamic network is a lasting benefit of a Mackenzie career.
Speaker 4: So once you're in, you're in.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's another thing that's weird here. The clients
Speaker 1: were not meant to be recruited in like a cold
Speaker 1: call situation. As a Mackenzie person, you are expected to
Speaker 1: be active in community events beyond the boards of things
Speaker 1: go to religious events and religious services and informally become
Speaker 1: friends with people people in power obviously, and then build
Speaker 1: a relationship from there. So nepotism is nepotism, and informal
Speaker 1: social relationships are a huge part of the process of
Speaker 1: the workflow, wow, of the management accounting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think we've ever run into somebody from
Speaker 2: the Mackenzie group?
Speaker 4: I have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have had one of these things from your
Speaker 2: past life or your current life.
Speaker 1: So at Firslance, Mackenzie appears to be a powerful multinational company.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: They have interest in everything from cancer research to nonprofit initiatives,
Speaker 1: agricultural and stuff and much much more. This is not
Speaker 1: particularly unusual in the modern day. McKenzie is not the
Speaker 1: only game in town here. But the thing is, critics
Speaker 1: alleged there's much much more to Mackenzie than a shining
Speaker 1: public image may lead you to believe.
Speaker 2: And we'll learn about that after a quick word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor.
Speaker 4: Our sponsor was the McKenzie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this episode of stuff they don't want you to
Speaker 2: know is brought to you by the firm.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. There's a net of nepotism.
Speaker 1: That's what we're describing and much of the criticism concerning
Speaker 1: Mackenzie comes from the activities of its former employees. We
Speaker 1: mentioned that they have a noticeably significantly higher chance of
Speaker 1: becoming CEOs of very prestigious companies, but they do end
Speaker 1: up having their hands in a lot of pots, their
Speaker 1: fingers in a lot of pies. And most of the
Speaker 1: time that you hear someone criticizing this organization, they're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about one of any number of scandals.
Speaker 1: As we explore this, to be absolutely fair, we have
Speaker 1: to point out that Mackenzie can make an argument where
Speaker 1: they say, well, this was happening because some member of
Speaker 1: our company or some group within our company did this,
Speaker 1: but the company overall did not know about this.
Speaker 4: We are unaware.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you have all those tendrolls, fourteen thousand of
Speaker 2: them or so, it's hard to point the finger, and
Speaker 2: especially if they're a consultant for or somebody else.
Speaker 1: Right, and that that is a valid argument to make.
Speaker 1: They'll also say that, look, we just advise these clients,
Speaker 1: we don't decide things for them. And while that is true,
Speaker 1: it is also true that since for years Mackenzie has
Speaker 1: either been directly involved in or closely associated with a
Speaker 1: number of huge scandals. Reuters even described these incidents entire
Speaker 1: as indicative of not a few bad apples, not a
Speaker 1: couple of unscrupulous people in the company, but instead as
Speaker 1: a culture of corruption. So we can we can look
Speaker 1: through a few of these and.
Speaker 4: We'll give.
Speaker 1: Let's give the bare bones, the one oh one, because
Speaker 1: each of these subjects that we're about to mention, each
Speaker 1: one is the tip of a much larger iceberg, right,
Speaker 1: and then there's a lot going on under the water.
Speaker 2: Let's start with South Africa, is that okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Talking about Eskom, the power company that was kind of
Speaker 2: in dire straits at the.
Speaker 1: Time, and Transnet as well. So the story starts with
Speaker 1: the Gupta family, no relation to the former head of McKinzie,
Speaker 1: a guy who also had the last name Gupta, totally unrelated.
Speaker 1: This Gupta family's a wealthy Indian born South African family
Speaker 1: who are best known for owning a business empire that
Speaker 1: spans computer equipment, media mining and so on, and it
Speaker 1: had close ties to Jacob Zuma during his presidency.
Speaker 4: Here's what happened.
Speaker 1: They found out the Gupta family had strategically placed corrupt
Speaker 1: people in various parts of the South African government and
Speaker 1: if it's infrastructure and its utility sectors, and the idea
Speaker 1: is that McKenzie was complicit in this corruption and they
Speaker 1: were using their connection with this family to get consulting
Speaker 1: contracts from places like s Com and Transnet, these are
Speaker 1: state owned companies. And then they provided they worked with
Speaker 1: someone called Trillion Capital Partners tr ll an to provide
Speaker 1: like seventy five million dollars worth of services, and then
Speaker 1: Trillion got a commission off that for facilitating the business.
Speaker 1: And then they were found I don't want to say
Speaker 1: caught red handed, but caught pink handed, light red handed
Speaker 1: in the midst of acts of bribery and corruption and
Speaker 1: payments to the capital partner. And eventually South Africa's government
Speaker 1: in early twenty eighteen found that mackenzie and Trillion had
Speaker 1: been involved in fraud, theft, corruption and money laundering. So dang, yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is this is a big time financial crime,
Speaker 1: right if if it's true and the like, Okay, Mackenzie
Speaker 1: has hired legal teams to defend them. Surprised they can
Speaker 1: afford a ton of lawyers, right.
Speaker 2: I know that they when they were first getting in
Speaker 2: bed with a lot of these companies, specifically with the
Speaker 2: s Com one, they were looking at a contract for
Speaker 2: like seven hundred million dollars for the firm to come
Speaker 2: in And that's just one piece of it. Working with
Speaker 2: the people that the Gupta family was involved with, Like
Speaker 2: the money that was was at stake, and I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about that connected up to their values about only doing
Speaker 2: things that they know they can do and you know,
Speaker 2: telling the client the truth all the time and all
Speaker 2: this stuff and not putting the money above everything else.
Speaker 2: This feels like maybe this was a slip up where
Speaker 2: the money was above everything else.
Speaker 1: Is it a thing where it's not about the money though,
Speaker 1: it's about sending a message? Because what if they felt
Speaker 1: it was necessary to purposely cripple s Com which is
Speaker 1: an electricity provider and Transnet, which is the rail and
Speaker 1: pipeline firm. What if they felt it was not only
Speaker 1: necessary to do that, but what if they felt they.
Speaker 2: Could do it?
Speaker 4: Well, whoa, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So there was an even higher level of the playing
Speaker 2: field that was going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they accidentally did this, Matt. At
Speaker 1: this level, it's a really tall milkshake to say that
Speaker 1: someone just consistently screwed the pooch. Yeah, multiple times at
Speaker 1: the perfect time to make things terrible, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe that was part of it. But that's
Speaker 1: just one example, and we could probably do a whole
Speaker 1: episode on that one. There's also the Gallean insider trading scandal.
Speaker 1: This is where the different GROUPDA comes in. So there's
Speaker 1: a guy named Rajat Gupta who was a former McKenzie
Speaker 1: senior executive who was running the ship no relation again
Speaker 1: to the Gupta family in South Africa, and a guy
Speaker 1: named Aneil Kumar. These two guys and some others were
Speaker 1: convicted in a government investigation into insider trading for sharing
Speaker 1: inside information with a hedge fund owner. The owner of
Speaker 1: a hedge fund called Galian Group a guy named raj
Speaker 1: Raja Natrum. Although McKenzie itself the company was not accused
Speaker 1: of any wrongdoing, the convictions were incredibly embarrassing for the
Speaker 1: firm because it prides itself on not telling its client's
Speaker 1: business right on client confidentiality.
Speaker 2: There's the senior partner Anil Kumar, who described or he
Speaker 2: has been described as the protege of Gupta. He left
Speaker 2: the firm after these allegations started servicing in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, and then he ended up pleading guilty in
Speaker 2: January twenty ten. And it's well, okay, so while this
Speaker 2: guy and some of the other partners had been pitching
Speaker 2: Mackenzie's like services, they're consulting services to this Gallean group,
Speaker 2: Kumar and this Rajaratnam fellow. They reached this, they reached
Speaker 2: a private consulting agreement, which I'm interested in. So just
Speaker 2: kind of behind closed doors, they reached an agreement that
Speaker 2: violated Mackenzie's policies on confidentiality, which, okay, again we see
Speaker 2: them kind of maybe breaking their own rules a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's that's the thing.
Speaker 2: If they really are breaking the rules. If they are
Speaker 2: breaking the rules, are the rules just out facing, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: So in October of twenty eleven, Gupta was arrested by
Speaker 1: the FBI on criminal charges of sharing insider information from
Speaker 1: these confidential board meetings with Rajaratnam. Gupta was convicted in
Speaker 1: June of twenty twelve on four counts of conspiracy and
Speaker 1: securities fraud, and then was acquitted on two counts. So
Speaker 1: he did ultimately get found guilty of some stuff. And
Speaker 1: the big questions here are things like how aware was
Speaker 1: mackenzie and company of this activity? Were they somehow complicit?
Speaker 3: Were they?
Speaker 1: Was he relying on the network in to some degree?
Speaker 1: The answer is probably yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: I would, I would think so. And it's a weird great,
Speaker 2: it's not great, but it feels like a gray area here.
Speaker 2: Insider trading this idea that if you have these close
Speaker 2: connections between the company that is valued at a certain
Speaker 2: amount that you're betting on is going to increase in value,
Speaker 2: and then you're a hedge fund owner that is placing
Speaker 2: those values, and somehow you've got this consultancy group that
Speaker 2: perhaps touches both things. I don't know that it puts
Speaker 2: tremendous power in that third party that has that connection,
Speaker 2: because if you want to, you can pull those strings,
Speaker 2: or you can threaten to pull those strings. I don't
Speaker 2: know that. Hmm. They just got caught, that's it. They
Speaker 2: got caught doing what what? Maybe they're kind.
Speaker 1: Of set up to do Ben, That's the thing. So
Speaker 1: insider trading is so atast at least in our country
Speaker 1: here in the United States, insider trading is such a
Speaker 1: hazy concept.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, because it's not you sharing anything
Speaker 2: necessarily in this setup. You know, in a way, it's
Speaker 2: a consultancy group, it's a partner that it's connected, but
Speaker 2: really not that connected.
Speaker 1: And at this level the laws are pretty rigorous about this,
Speaker 1: but they can also be fairly complicated. So insider trading
Speaker 1: occurs all the time in the United States. For a while,
Speaker 1: for long time, actually, members of the US Congress were
Speaker 1: not subject to the same insider trading laws that everybody
Speaker 1: else was in theories subject to.
Speaker 2: That checks out. Man. Sure, if you're in the Senate,
Speaker 2: you gotta be able to grease those poems somehow, and
Speaker 2: if you could do it on your own time, and
Speaker 2: it's not somebody else greasing your palm. Wait, nope, it
Speaker 2: is somebody else. Oh wait, oh it's corruption. Oh god,
Speaker 2: oh no.
Speaker 4: Some of us are more well than others.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, So let's pause here for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor and return to some more tales from the
Speaker 1: Black Book of the McKenzie Company.
Speaker 2: Get ready for Enron. It's coming.
Speaker 1: We're back in how pressing And yes, you are correct,
Speaker 1: my friends, en Ron. So Enron was the creation of
Speaker 1: a guy named Jeff's Skilling. Jeff's Skilling was a McKenzie
Speaker 1: consultant for twenty one years, and when Enron collapsed, he
Speaker 1: actually went to jail. Yes, he did, relatively rare for
Speaker 1: a lot of financial crimes. McKenzie reportedly fully endorsed the
Speaker 1: dubious accounting methods that caused the company to implode in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and Enron reportedly used McKenzie for
Speaker 1: twenty different projects, and it became a situation where McKenzie
Speaker 1: consultants would say, you know what, and Ron is kind
Speaker 1: of a sandbox for us. Let's just let's shake things up.
Speaker 1: Let's roll the dice, make it interesting. Vegas, baby, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see what we can do we can get away with.
Speaker 1: Does this make money if we just say this or
Speaker 1: we just do this. It's pretty brilliant.
Speaker 2: And if you've ever seen the documentary it's called Enron
Speaker 2: The Smartest Guys in the Room. I would recommend it highly.
Speaker 2: Go check it out if you get a chance. Find
Speaker 2: it somewhere. We have we done an Enron episode, I
Speaker 2: don't think. I don't know if we have. We've talked
Speaker 2: about it a lot. I think it's worth it, like
Speaker 2: just taking this, expanding it out in a whole episode,
Speaker 2: just because there are a lot of details in here
Speaker 2: about the weirdness that occurred there.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so the a high level, quick and dirty
Speaker 1: look at this. Enron was the largest bankruptcy reorganization in
Speaker 1: American history at its time. It was also called the
Speaker 1: biggest failure of an audit. The scandal went public in
Speaker 1: October two thousand and one. Enron was an energy company
Speaker 1: based in Houston, Texas, and it was formed in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five.
Speaker 2: See, you're doing the whole episode right now. This is
Speaker 2: a whole episode, bet Yeah. Sorry, it's like the hero
Speaker 2: of the Facts section. Yeah, I can feel it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, a lot of people went to jail.
Speaker 2: It had.
Speaker 1: Until I think until WorldCom went bankrupt the very next year.
Speaker 1: Enron was the largest corporate bankruptcy in history because I
Speaker 1: think it was valued at sixty three point four billion
Speaker 1: dollars and then it all went could put.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just.
Speaker 3: So maybe we'll do an run episode. Yeah, that should
Speaker 3: be worth it.
Speaker 2: It might be dry a little bit, but I think
Speaker 2: we can pull some stuff out of there, just from
Speaker 2: I in the insanity of our financial systems, like as
Speaker 2: they were with the energy companies and the actual energy
Speaker 2: prices and just all of these the way it's all interconnected.
Speaker 1: Right, the way that sometimes to turn a larger profit.
Speaker 1: We will have tankers of oil waiting just off the
Speaker 1: coast right. Yes, that's happening before, full of them. I
Speaker 1: mean that's you know, during the depression, people were starving
Speaker 1: to death in urban areas while farmers were just slaughtering
Speaker 1: pigs wholesale and then throwing milk in a creek in
Speaker 1: an attempt to raise the prices.
Speaker 2: Burn that wheatfield. Man.
Speaker 1: This is the point where a consultant would come in
Speaker 1: and say, hey, we can improve this workflow.
Speaker 4: Oh, and they might be right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: There's a reason that the consultancy industry exists.
Speaker 2: If only the peaky blinders excuse me, the McKenzie group
Speaker 2: were around back then. Wait not.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and eight, do you remember the
Speaker 1: financial crisis?
Speaker 2: Oh do I You.
Speaker 4: Have a tattoo of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I really do think that just everything that happened,
Speaker 2: and there's that's crazy because the tattoo, it's just nothing
Speaker 2: because nothing changed. Bleak.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 1: So McKenzie. Mackenzie gets accused of being a prime mover
Speaker 1: in the financial crisis, which because they were allegedly promoting
Speaker 1: the securitization of mortgage assets and asking banks to fund
Speaker 1: their operations with a lot of debt, and according to
Speaker 1: you know, their critics, this led to a poisoning of
Speaker 1: the global financial system and created ultimately that two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight meltdown. There's a great article on this. There
Speaker 1: are several great articles on this, but one that will
Speaker 1: mention the financial crisis a little bit more detail is
Speaker 1: mackenzie How does it Always get Away with It? By
Speaker 1: a guy named Ben Cheu writing for The Independent, And
Speaker 1: what the eventually came out in the wash about this
Speaker 1: was something incredibly despicable that ties in with their activities
Speaker 1: with insurance. So McKenzie and company sold major insurers at
Speaker 1: places like Ulstate a new business model that was designed
Speaker 1: to turn claims into profits. Their strategy was known as
Speaker 1: good hands or boxing gloves, and yeah, this really came
Speaker 1: into the public eye during some during Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 4: The idea was that.
Speaker 1: Internally we would aim to make the process of filing
Speaker 1: for claims too difficult for people who were policyhols holders
Speaker 1: and too expensive and time consuming for lawyers to want
Speaker 1: to take the case leaving insurance firms undisputed as they
Speaker 1: delayed or denied claims. Here's how the model worked. This
Speaker 1: is incredibly unethical. They would offer a deliberately lower settlement
Speaker 1: to any policyholder who files a claim, much lower than
Speaker 1: they're actually entitled to according to what their insurance agreement is.
Speaker 1: If you accept the lower payment, then boom, your claim
Speaker 1: is resolved lickety split. If you say, hey, this says
Speaker 1: that I'm supposed to have X amount of cash. Why
Speaker 1: did you give me why amount of money, they will
Speaker 1: say we have to. If you're denying the settlement, we
Speaker 1: have to process this claim, and that will be delayed
Speaker 1: and delayed and delayed forever until the policy holders are
Speaker 1: finally forced to accept the payment or just give up
Speaker 1: all together.
Speaker 2: That's brutal.
Speaker 1: In addition to this, a guy named nov Deep Aurora
Speaker 1: was convicted for a legally depleting state farm of over
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars over a period of eight years
Speaker 1: in cahoots with a state farm employee. So, in addition
Speaker 1: to creating this model that says, hey, you're an insurance company,
Speaker 1: don't do your job and try to build people out
Speaker 1: of it and then pay us for telling you to
Speaker 1: do that. Certain employees were also stealing money from the company.
Speaker 2: In addition, God no thank you, Yeah, no thanks.
Speaker 1: They've also been associated with pharmaceutical I don't know if
Speaker 1: you call them scandals but controversies. There's a company called Valiant,
Speaker 1: a Canadian pharmaceutical company that was investigated by the SEC.
Speaker 1: They've been accused of cooking their books and of using
Speaker 1: predatory price hikes to boost growth. The Financial Times an
Speaker 1: intriguing statement here, Matt. They said Valiant's downfall is not
Speaker 1: exactly McKenzie's fault, but its fingerprints are everywhere.
Speaker 2: Geez okay, yeah, I mean what do you do with that?
Speaker 1: Three out of six of the senior execs were recent
Speaker 1: McKenzie employees, and the chair of the talent and compensation
Speaker 1: committee was also an ex McKenzie.
Speaker 2: It feels like McKenzie has this like part time upright
Speaker 2: citizens Brigade gig where they go around like the Move,
Speaker 2: like the TV show, not like just the improv group,
Speaker 2: where they're just wreaking havoc everywhere in chaos on purpose,
Speaker 2: just to see what they can get away with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like that, and we have to ask
Speaker 1: if we're just hearing about the bad cases that made
Speaker 1: it to court.
Speaker 2: We most certainly are, I think that's without a doubt.
Speaker 2: But the bad cases are pretty.
Speaker 1: Bad, and would the cases that are can considered successful
Speaker 1: for the client and the company be considered successful for
Speaker 1: other people where they publicized because this kind of company
Speaker 1: can do multiple things. But one of the things a
Speaker 1: consultancy is often going to be associated with is quote
Speaker 1: unquote streamlining fire the workforce, pay the pay the upper
Speaker 1: level management more or give them a sweetheart, golden parachute
Speaker 1: walkaway deal kind of thing. And their competitors have also
Speaker 1: complained about unfair business practices. There was a court case
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen Mackenzie went to Quart of allegations from
Speaker 1: competitors that was purposely misleading or misinforming clients by not
Speaker 1: telling the whole truth essentially or as little of the
Speaker 1: truth as they could get away with, because it wouldn't
Speaker 1: it wouldn't disclose conflict like conflicts of interest, and this
Speaker 1: comes into play later, right, So like if you are
Speaker 1: what's the easiest way to put it, Okay, let's say that.
Speaker 4: I'm McKenzie group, and.
Speaker 3: You are a.
Speaker 1: Credit here, a financier, and you hire me to bail out.
Speaker 1: Let's say Noel has a bankrupt headphone company. The headphone
Speaker 1: mill is in trouble and it's bankrupt. You're in charge
Speaker 1: of how this bankruptcy happens. You go to me McKenzie
Speaker 1: and say, here's a couple mil, here's a cool, cool
Speaker 1: few mil. What's the best way to restructure this? How
Speaker 1: do we determine who gets paid what? And I say,
Speaker 1: all right, I've got the perfect plan, but I don't
Speaker 1: tell you that as you and I were cracking this deal,
Speaker 1: I went through a different company and bought up a
Speaker 1: ton of this debt. So now what I'm doing is saying, well,
Speaker 1: you got to pay that or not been incorporated first.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Definitely?
Speaker 1: And then so like, okay, well you're the expert, and
Speaker 1: so you have not been incorporated first. Then on top
Speaker 1: of that, cool mill, I've got all this other money
Speaker 1: with you know. That's that's a very very very oversimplified
Speaker 1: version of how that kind of thing would work. It's
Speaker 1: also illegal.
Speaker 2: Then you can see why, yeah it is. I'm just
Speaker 2: having this thought here. This is such a rich person's thing,
Speaker 2: this idea of a consultant in this way, this type
Speaker 2: of partner. And that's why it exists at these higher
Speaker 2: levels with only CEOs, only the top levels of the
Speaker 2: white collar amongst the world. Here of paying somebody a
Speaker 2: lot of money to figure out how you need to
Speaker 2: structure your payments for something because you've got this massive
Speaker 2: amount of money that needs to go out in these
Speaker 2: different places. You've got this massive amount of money that
Speaker 2: needs to be shuttled along in some way. But I
Speaker 2: don't have time for that with all this money. I'm
Speaker 2: going to bring somebody else in to do it. And
Speaker 2: no wonder like corruption, even just to the amount we're
Speaker 2: discussing here, occurs when you're talking about that level of
Speaker 2: money my got, somebody is going to think about themselves.
Speaker 1: And again this is a huge company. So yeah, in
Speaker 1: their defense, they're saying, well, look if something happens and
Speaker 1: it's illegal or it's incorrect, then we will we will
Speaker 1: fix it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, absolutely, not speaking against the company. I just
Speaker 2: think it's that is human nature when you're dealing with
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So just for an example, they said that they wanted
Speaker 1: to they overhauled their South Africa office apparently after US
Speaker 1: dealing such debilitating damage to es Common and Transnet and
Speaker 1: then the stories continued. So in the case of the
Speaker 1: US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or ICE, mackenzie stopped working
Speaker 1: with them after it was disclosed the firm had done
Speaker 1: more than twenty million dollars worth of consulting work for
Speaker 1: the agency. And this is where we hear an explicit
Speaker 1: version of that defense, a managing partner said the contract,
Speaker 1: which was not widely known until The New York Times
Speaker 1: reported it to people in the company itself. According to them,
Speaker 1: he said, it had rightly raised concerns, so they're not
Speaker 1: going to do it anymore.
Speaker 2: That is odd for ICE to be having a relationship
Speaker 2: with McKenzie.
Speaker 4: Why is it?
Speaker 5: Why PR? They're not a PR firm. It could be workflow,
Speaker 5: I guess. So it could be something along the lines
Speaker 5: of how do we move the most people?
Speaker 1: How do we uh, oh, that's interesting, like monitoring of
Speaker 1: a border or something, or what is our process for
Speaker 1: It could be something as innocuous as how do we
Speaker 1: handle records?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And so any number of things.
Speaker 2: It could be and just setting up facilities that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. I wonder if that had anything to do
Speaker 2: with interesting.
Speaker 4: So one. One other one that we would be.
Speaker 1: Remiss if we didn't touch on is McKenzie's work with
Speaker 1: authoritarian regimes and business and policy support for regimes. It
Speaker 1: comes in the news every so often, and again, longtime listeners,
Speaker 1: you'll recall that regime is the word people use instead
Speaker 1: of government when they don't want to, when they don't
Speaker 1: want you to think another country's government is legitimate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so North Korea calls the US government the US regime,
Speaker 1: and the US calls North Korea the North Korean regime.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So if you ever want to know how your country
Speaker 1: feels about another country, just see who they see who.
Speaker 4: They call a regime.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: It is such.
Speaker 1: A simplistic shortcut, but I guarantee you it works.
Speaker 2: It's very true. And now I'm seeing it in my head.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean those countries are automatically I legitimate. No,
Speaker 1: you know how your rulers feel about them, the Iranian
Speaker 1: regime for sure. Right, these are the phrases they get
Speaker 1: thrown around. And I'm sure there's plenty of we were
Speaker 1: always at war with East Asia kind of stuff going
Speaker 1: on there too, But in Mackenzie's case, they popped up
Speaker 1: in the news quite recently in Somember of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: because there was this big company retreat in China and
Speaker 1: it was held next to the Chinese government and tournament
Speaker 1: camps where thousands of wigers are being detained as we speak.
Speaker 1: And we did an episode on this earlier in modern
Speaker 1: concentration camps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an odd place to have your lavish retreat. Oh,
Speaker 2: and we also have a list here of I guess
Speaker 2: some prominent clients that McKenzie's worked for. Let's see the
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia regime. No, I'm just kidding, it's the monarchy there,
Speaker 2: Turkey's autocratic leader erdign And let's see, Oh, the president
Speaker 2: of Ukraine who was ousted as a former president, Victor Yanokovich.
Speaker 2: I believe at Yankovich. That's it. And then several other
Speaker 2: Chinese and Russian companies who are under or were under sanctions,
Speaker 2: heavy sanctions at the time. People. So mackenzie just sweeps
Speaker 2: in and says, you guys need some help. Well, guess
Speaker 2: what this hand. It's very helpful.
Speaker 1: And don't worry. It doesn't know what the left hand does, right.
Speaker 2: Or at least it doesn't talk to the left hand.
Speaker 4: Oh, Marita my friends. Yeah, so let's.
Speaker 2: Its say trading. If it's a trading thing, then we
Speaker 2: can make something happen.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So what we're exploring then, or what we have explored today,
Speaker 1: is the story of a company that operates largely out
Speaker 1: of the headlines the halls of power. It's it's a
Speaker 1: power behind the throne, you know, sort of this corporate
Speaker 1: vizier that advises companies, corporations, countries and power, and many
Speaker 1: times it comes into conflict with the law, with various
Speaker 1: countries legal systems. So the question is are we seeing
Speaker 1: just the bad stuff or we are we only hearing
Speaker 1: about McKenzie when there's a problem. Well, we are hearing
Speaker 1: a lot about McKenzie's problems when they pop up, and
Speaker 1: there does seem to be a pattern. Are we being
Speaker 1: unfair when we say that this organization is committing crime
Speaker 1: or our journalists being unfair when they say that we'd
Speaker 1: like to We'd like to hear from you, So let
Speaker 1: us know what you think of this in the meantime,
Speaker 1: For conclusions, McKenzie is not going away anytime soon. We
Speaker 1: are not kicking someone while they're down in any way,
Speaker 1: and from their perspective again, they don't actually do these things.
Speaker 1: They advise clients, the clients take it from there, but
Speaker 1: not everyone's buying this. One last note in January of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, this month, a bankruptcy case just got reopened
Speaker 1: here in the US allegid McKenzie was illegally making money
Speaker 1: off bankruptcy cases it became involved with, and more so
Speaker 1: than it has established a pattern of doing this, that
Speaker 1: this is not a one off thing but something more
Speaker 1: akin to a business practice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I'm just putting this out here. This whole
Speaker 2: story reminds me of a movie that I saw way
Speaker 2: back well when I say, way back in the day,
Speaker 2: over ten years ago, called Michael Clayton that it stars
Speaker 2: I want to say, George Clooney and oh god, I
Speaker 2: can't remember, I think till the Swinton's in it too.
Speaker 2: It's this fantastic movie where there's this what they called
Speaker 2: a fixer would come through. And that's what this whole
Speaker 2: thing feels like to me. Fixers, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: I think, Nah, in my head, that's how I'm choosing
Speaker 2: to view mackenzie, which I'm sure is just a shallow
Speaker 2: view of what it is and what it actually is.
Speaker 2: But that's what it feels like to me, and I
Speaker 2: wonder if you feel that same way.
Speaker 1: Let us know, yeah, and art look and also, consultant
Speaker 1: firms aren't inherently bad right.
Speaker 2: Now, you're just getting something done efficiently. I think that's it.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're getting someone's opinion. Yeah, that's what I consulted. Like,
Speaker 1: here's my opinion based on my experience. This is what
Speaker 1: I advise, right, And plenty of people have done consulting
Speaker 1: work before. I've done it, not on this level, but
Speaker 1: it you know, I just want to emphasize that we're
Speaker 1: not saying all these firms are terrible. We're not saying
Speaker 1: that everyone involved is a bad guy. But we are
Speaker 1: saying that McKenzie has a lot of stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. And it goes way beyond just
Speaker 1: who their clients are and what they do for those clients.
Speaker 1: It goes into court cases, it goes into collapsing state
Speaker 1: sector industries, it goes into tons of dirty money, and
Speaker 1: this is you know, at that point, those statements are
Speaker 1: not our opinion. They're the opinion of legal systems of courts.
Speaker 1: So it's not even us saying it at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, what I mean?
Speaker 2: No, all right, well hey find us yeah on social media.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1: Meet your fellow listeners and talk about talk about mackenzie
Speaker 1: Group until they buy our corporation to shut us down.
Speaker 1: Oh here's where it gets crazy. That's our community page
Speaker 1: on Facebook. You can find me on Instagram. I'm at them,
Speaker 1: Bowlin Ben.
Speaker 2: That's not a f Dora right, No, no, okay, just
Speaker 2: make it sure.
Speaker 3: And these are not our gyle socks. These are space socks.
Speaker 2: Those are awesome, dude, I just have boring on eszone
Speaker 2: right now. Those are awesome.
Speaker 4: That makes you a better consultant.
Speaker 2: I'm not distracting you.
Speaker 1: This is where we find out that Paul Decad works
Speaker 1: for McKenzie.
Speaker 2: Oh. I could totally see Paul doing it. Oh man,
Speaker 2: he cleans up, He cleans up so nicely, and he's
Speaker 2: just like rolling under the radar when he's in here
Speaker 2: as mission control.
Speaker 4: I could see it doing a great job with it too.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Also, this has nothing to do with anything other than
Speaker 1: maybe ending on a little bit of a lighter note. Paul,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you're gonna feel about this, And
Speaker 1: fellow listeners, you haven't heard Paul on the air, but
Speaker 1: I was watching stand up from one of uh, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite comics, John Mullaney.
Speaker 2: Dude, I thought Mullaney as you said that.
Speaker 1: And super producer Paul Deckett, do you remind me of
Speaker 1: John Mullaney in the coolest way?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see, I could see.
Speaker 4: I could see Paul telling some of those stories.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I hope you grew up to be like
Speaker 2: his character that he played on the Broadway show that
Speaker 2: he did. I hope you. I hope you come into
Speaker 2: that one day.
Speaker 3: But you're not making the decision for him.
Speaker 4: You're advising him, right.
Speaker 1: True, So if anything goes wrong with that, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not your fault.
Speaker 4: Matt, Matt and co.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for Tunian and please do
Speaker 1: let us know what your take is on these things.
Speaker 1: Are these companies something that should be in the world?
Speaker 2: Are they.
Speaker 1: Are they criminal organizations? Or are the opponents and critics
Speaker 1: just being alarmist? You know, there's definitely stuff they'll once
Speaker 1: you know, and everything indicates that several of those secrets
Speaker 1: are secrets because they are legal activity. But again, a
Speaker 1: few bad apples, there's it a whole bad orchard.
Speaker 2: No, no, you can always you can always argue the bad
Speaker 2: Apple thing in almost every situation, and you can call us.
Speaker 2: And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
Speaker 2: have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
Speaker 2: get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
Speaker 2: One of the best is to give us a call.
Speaker 2: Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK. If you
Speaker 2: don't want to do that, you can send us a
Speaker 2: good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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