WALL STREET SPEECH VIDEO
Wall Street is one of my favourite films and offers a wealth of interesting insights into the meaning of success and the value of information but also into the ability to communicate and give an effective speech.
In this video, Gekko (Michael Douglas) speaks at the shareholders' meeting of Teldar Paper (Teldar carta in the Italian version) after becoming its largest shareholder.
To put the speech in context, Gekko is an unscrupulous financier who buys companies to dismantle them and make a profit; his presence at the meeting is not welcomed, particularly by Teldar's management.
With this in mind, Michael Douglas's speech is an example of how to construct and prepare an effective narrative that starts with the audience's needs and problems.
The final result is what Gekko wanted: from a threat, he becomes the shareholders' champion, much to the managers' dismay.
Regardless of the speaker's ethics and the specific content (I disagree with the absolute concept of greed; perhaps it makes sense only when applied to knowledge), we can still learn a great deal about how to communicate our ideas.
Below is the full text of the speech.
Gekko: Well, I appreciate the opportunity you have given me, Mr Cromwell, as Teldar Paper's largest individual shareholder, to speak.
Well, gentlemen, we are not here to indulge in fantasies: there is a political and economic reality here.
America, America has become a second-rate power.
Its trade deficit and its federal deficit have reached nightmarish proportions.
And in the days of the free market, when our country was a leading industrial power, accountability to shareholders was an absolute obligation.
The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men who built this great industrial empire, kept it secure because their own money was at stake.
Today, management risks none of its own money in the company.
Together, those men sitting up there [Teldar's management] own less than 3% of Teldar Paper.
And how has our Mr Cromwell invested his million-dollar salaries?
Not in Teldar shares: he owns less than 1 per cent.
The company is yours (addressing the shareholders in the room), yes, yours, you shareholders who are being royally screwed by these, these bureaucrats, with their business lunches, hunting and fishing trips paid for with Teldar jets, and golden handshakes.
Cromwell : This is an affront! It goes beyond all limits!
GEKKO : Teldar Paper, Mr Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 assorted vice-presidents, each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year.
I have spent the last two months analysing what they all do, and I still cannot work it out.
One thing is certain: our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I bet at least half of that went on all the paper going back and forth between all those vice-presidents.
The new law governing corporate America's evolution seems to be the survival of the incompetent. Well, in my view, you either perform or you are eliminated.
In the last seven deals I have been involved in, 2.5 million shareholders have made pre-tax profits of 12 billion dollars. Thank you.
I am not a destroyer of companies; I am more of a liberator!
The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that greed, for want of a better word, is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, penetrates and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all its forms, greed for life, for love, for knowledge, for money, has shaped the forward momentum of all humanity.
And greed, listen carefully, will save not only Teldar Paper but also that other malfunctioning company called America.
Thank you very much.