McKinsey: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

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  • Опубликовано: 24 дек 2024

Комментарии • 9 тыс.

  • @TimeBucks
    @TimeBucks Год назад +1286

    This passion and research is what we need.

  • @TS-xn1mc
    @TS-xn1mc Год назад +26304

    John Oliver is literally the only person on Earth who could get me to enthusiastically drop everything to click on a 26 minute video about a business management firm.

    • @scifirealism5943
      @scifirealism5943 Год назад +138

      Yep.

    • @Etrielle
      @Etrielle Год назад +118

      Truth

    • @voccapoei
      @voccapoei Год назад +132

      Its a 5 star free show for all including $20 phone users

    • @bettylynne7364
      @bettylynne7364 Год назад +93

      Yep, that's me at 2 am Monday morn on RUclips waiting for his lecture to drop. ❤

    • @stoodmuffinpersonal3144
      @stoodmuffinpersonal3144 Год назад +55

      I mean. The idea DoD and BEST BUY are linked by these guys... that's one hell of a hook. I gotta know where this goes!

  • @existeelolvido
    @existeelolvido Год назад +11098

    This reminds me of an old joke:
    A shepherd is tending his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a shiny red BMW appears. The driver is a young man in an Armani suit, Ferragamo shoes and Polarized sunglasses. He sticks his head out the window and asks the shepherd, “Hey! If I can tell you how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?”
    The shepherd looks at him, and agrees.
    The driver plugs his cell phone into a laptop and connects it to a GPS and starts a remote body-heat scan of the area. During the process he sends some e-mails. After receiving the answers, he prints a 100 page report on the portable printer in his glove compartment, and proudly announces to the shepherd: “You have exactly 1,478 sheep.”
    To which the shepherd answers: “Impressive. You can choose one sheep out of my flock”.
    He observes the man pick up an animal and load it into his car. Then the shepherd says: “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?”
    “You’re on.” the young man answers.
    “You are a Mckinsey consultant,” says the shepherd promptly.
    “You are right! How could you possibly guess?” says the man, visibly surprised.
    “It wasn’t a guess,” the shepherd replies.
    “You drive into my field uninvited. You want me to pay you for a piece of information I already know, you answer questions I haven’t asked, and you know nothing about my business. Now give me back my dog.”

    • @urkiddingme6254
      @urkiddingme6254 Год назад +980

      good punch line at the end; it was funny even before that.

    • @DeionnaWilburn
      @DeionnaWilburn Год назад +76

      😂

    • @bobzelley5100
      @bobzelley5100 Год назад +96

      Yes, that is Mckenzie.

    • @existeelolvido
      @existeelolvido Год назад +302

      @@urkiddingme6254 It goes waaaaay back. The first time I heard it the smartest phone available was a Blackberry.

    • @thaithaknot
      @thaithaknot Год назад +15

      John?..

  • @nccamsc
    @nccamsc Год назад +573

    Apparently McKinsey are into coding as well - when I joined Credit Suisse as a contractor last year I had to rewrite some code their consultants had written in R to Python. It turned out the R code had a bug and didn’t read the data files correctly and the liquidity reports that were being sent to the top management of the bank had been incorrect for years.

    • @AshishSingh95
      @AshishSingh95 10 месяцев назад +86

      You call it a bug, but with a company this shady it might as well have been a feature. :P

    • @patrickfrei9322
      @patrickfrei9322 9 месяцев назад +10

      So that's why CS no longer exists t is part of UBS now? 😅

    • @jukee67
      @jukee67 9 месяцев назад +9

      It wasn't a bug, it was the plan.

    • @gaberobison680
      @gaberobison680 7 месяцев назад

      I miss old programming languages. It’s so standardized now

    • @RobertClaeson
      @RobertClaeson 6 месяцев назад +2

      They're also into agile transformations without having a shade of understanding of what it is that makes agile work. I've spent years replacing their "agile playbooks" with new playbooks that are actually useful and replacing their "agile" micro-management, waterfall processes with no feedback loops with proper, flow-based agile ways of working. Good business for me, but certainly much, much better business for them, now that I've seen what they charge.

  • @HellOnWheel
    @HellOnWheel Год назад +6862

    Whenever he covers a big company, I like to imagine the crisis meeting on Monday morning that starts with everyone watching the show in awkward silence.

    • @elizabethr.9359
      @elizabethr.9359 Год назад +551

      What a beautiful thought

    • @prabuddhaghosh7022
      @prabuddhaghosh7022 Год назад +495

      And I feel for that one guy in that meeting who cant avoid laughing. its always a guy.

    • @stulora3172
      @stulora3172 Год назад +424

      To the contrary, I always find it sad knowing that they will have a big smug laugh about it, and carry on with their business as usual. Knowing (or believing) that no one can really hurt them.

    • @sairampavan5199
      @sairampavan5199 Год назад +140

      There are two meetings one at the HBO legal team and the other at the HO of the other company

    • @Vort_tm
      @Vort_tm Год назад +124

      @@prabuddhaghosh7022 Statistically. Statistically always a guy, because who else would be allowed in the room?

  • @marketingchronicles
    @marketingchronicles Год назад +6017

    Having worked with McKinsey, I can tell you, that Oliver is being kind to them.

    • @qwertytv7967
      @qwertytv7967 Год назад +6

      @gupta How would you know

    • @thedepthsofrepair
      @thedepthsofrepair Год назад +143

      @@gupta.vansh2000and you certainly have. The OP said they worked with McKinsey, and you refuted an imagined statement that they didn't make. Harvard taught you well.

    • @osnerarboleda5422
      @osnerarboleda5422 Год назад +50

      Spill the t

    • @emchannels
      @emchannels Год назад +76

      Yup! He barely scratched the surface.

    • @marijkedonat9720
      @marijkedonat9720 Год назад +2

      @@qwertytv7967😅

  • @Tavoous
    @Tavoous Год назад +744

    In 2010, my company paid McKinney in Sweden $100,000 for 2 consultants for 4 hours to work with the management team on business growth strategy! The consultants just gathered all our own work, organized them in a PowerPoint document of some 20 pages, and gave it back to us. Pure bullshit.

    • @chiefoski
      @chiefoski Год назад +68

      Exactly what happened in our company. We paid them 250k to serve up "air cover" for our executives and BoD. All McKinsey did was "interview" our team and then redo our internal research in pretty charts. And oh, did I mention the guys and gals they airdropped into our office were fresh grad MBAs? (who had no idea what we did)

    • @oksowhat
      @oksowhat Год назад +10

      pretty sure there would be some people in your company that would have asked the question "why did we just do that"

    • @Tavoous
      @Tavoous Год назад +30

      ​@oksowhat I did ask my manager. That was the start of our relationship going bad.

    • @bumblebootwiddletoes5185
      @bumblebootwiddletoes5185 Год назад +5

      There needs to be a way to get a refund for this kind of ripoff.

    • @Tavoous
      @Tavoous Год назад +28

      @bumblebootwiddletoes5185 Hardly. It's quite impossible to do that, because you're supposedly buying "brain power" and "advices". You can't just ask for refund for advices, thoughts, discussions and so-called "guidance" when you aren't satisfied with the outcome. It's not like returning defect products. That is what makes the consulting business a scam for the major part of it when it comes to strategies and management. There are other parts, such as financial accounting or other areas, that can still provide value.

  • @fildip
    @fildip Год назад +1504

    My mom was a well liked middle leader in the government in Denmark. She was laid off due to a mass layoff orchestrated by McKinsey. They never even met her. Her responsibilities were passed on to her leader, who broke down with stress after a month.

    • @Mdaisydoodle
      @Mdaisydoodle 9 месяцев назад +54

      Thank you. You mom was probably smarter than everyone at the company...including McKinsey. ❤

    • @Retzmag
      @Retzmag 8 месяцев назад +2

      How do you know he broke down? Did they contact and try to re-hire her, or what's the story there? 😂

    • @lesulix9885
      @lesulix9885 8 месяцев назад +50

      @@Retzmag People with good work relationships usually stay in touch. Hell, I'm still talking to some of my ex peers from work 8 years ago. For me its mostly because I enjoyed working with those people, but if that's not enough of an incentive, maintaining your network is always a smart thing to do

    • @johnsharestories
      @johnsharestories 7 месяцев назад +3

      ​@@lesulix9885 I wish I could do that. My last role felt like nobody gave a damn about one another, and my manager was a nightmare to work for. I quit after being diagnosed with CPTSD. It is a lot to take in still and has been four months, but I am so much happier out of there than in there.

    • @lesulix9885
      @lesulix9885 7 месяцев назад +2

      @@johnsharestories Very sorry to hear that. Its also the reason why I never really care what product I will be working on, but rather what team I will be working with

  • @SunniDae333
    @SunniDae333 Год назад +1625

    As someone who currently works at a large consulting management firm, I can attest that John ABSOLUTELY hit the nail on the head with this episode.

    • @Daye04
      @Daye04 Год назад +4

      Is your name actually Sunny Day?

    • @Frank-dv4zu
      @Frank-dv4zu Год назад +18

      that is not exactly a statement that you are a good person, quite the opposite in fact.

    • @aliciabirkenkamp7015
      @aliciabirkenkamp7015 Год назад +44

      @@Frank-dv4zu Like anything, not everyone in one particular field is bad. A lot of consultants actually do great work and are very helpful individuals.

    • @Toneloke-3000
      @Toneloke-3000 Год назад

      Sounds like you're part of the big capitalist problem which always results in monopolies

    • @commenter4898
      @commenter4898 Год назад +49

      @@Frank-dv4zu What makes you think they were trying to claim to be a good person?

  • @mikebaginy8731
    @mikebaginy8731 Год назад +1234

    I was an engineer in a company which (sadly) hired McKinsey for advice how to increase profits. Employees knew that meant major layoffs, though our Management took pains to deny the obvious. In the end major layoffs occurred, Management seats increased and the company never recovered. Basically, McKinsey's philosophy was: don't trust experienced employees, control everything to the n-th degree, increase profits by decreasing headcount (but never Management). Screw McKinsey and similar "Management Consultants". They're part of the evil which gives our capitalist market system a bag name.

    • @bararobberbaron859
      @bararobberbaron859 Год назад +65

      It's an easy pitch to the high table though. The C suite and the upper management salaries go up, the people at the bottom get the stick. For greedy corporate people that makes sense. Rather than doing layoffs the guy at Nintendo took a paycut, meanwhile Microsoft fired 10K people at the same time they spent 68 billion to buy Activision-Blizzard.

    • @aprotosis
      @aprotosis Год назад +61

      And they probably paid McKinsey more for that consulting than the company saved in payroll.

    • @LadyLunarSatine
      @LadyLunarSatine Год назад

      Nintendo's far from blameless since Iwata's passing. Nintendo is very good to its *employees* but shit to its contractors.@@bararobberbaron859

    • @TheUrbanEpicure
      @TheUrbanEpicure Год назад +7

      Nonsense. Management consultants do good, hard work. Their work has rescued hundreds of thousands of jobs by keeping firms from going under, and increased profits led to bonuses for staff.

    • @mikebaginy8731
      @mikebaginy8731 Год назад +41

      @@TheUrbanEpicure Not my experience though. I'm glad to be retired now and more or less out of the rat-race.

  • @Toldoris
    @Toldoris Год назад +6089

    As a rule of thumb:The more a company announces that they aren't evil the more evil they are!

    • @TinkerTaylor-zv1ml
      @TinkerTaylor-zv1ml Год назад +81

      Just like liars using the word "honestly" during interrogations.

    • @PaoloNovaro
      @PaoloNovaro Год назад +34

      Veridian Dynamics: We're sorry. You're welcome.

    • @helios7212
      @helios7212 Год назад +12

      In Soviet Russia, company is always on your side!! Not the state nope

    • @09spidy
      @09spidy Год назад +22

      That makes Dr. Evil the lease evil guy in the world.

    • @tomlxyz
      @tomlxyz Год назад +16

      You only need to say that you're not evil if your actions don't already say that

  • @dominiquecharriere1285
    @dominiquecharriere1285 Год назад +1019

    I had a McKinsey experience in the 2000s. They came in, cut close to 50% of the workforce in our warehouse and offices, and increased top management 25%. The result was that the "lucky ones"who stayed started to work 10+ hours per day, with peaks of 14 to 16 hours at month end in the finance dept (I was a middle manager in accounting) because the workload was the same but we were 50% less. Actually the workload was a slightly bigger as the new managers were asking for their own reports (they needed to justify they were there). My team started to fall sick after 1 year, I managed to stay 2 years more before falling sick myself and heard that the company was first sold and dissolved one year later. I don't trust McKinsey, if they come in the company I work for now, I will leave immediately.

    • @equals42
      @equals42 11 месяцев назад +139

      But they decreased overhead, increased margins and income, and packaged up the company nicely for the private equity folks to pillage. Management got a nice payout. The board and shareholders got a premium on the stock price. The private equity guys got to make a ton spinning off the IP and liquidating the rest. Everyone wins! [Except employees, consumers, suppliers, local governments, etc.]

    • @dominiquecharriere1285
      @dominiquecharriere1285 11 месяцев назад +24

      @@equals42 indeed!

    • @holbeckghyll4997
      @holbeckghyll4997 9 месяцев назад +6

      @@equals42 brilliant!

    • @JCMthebrand
      @JCMthebrand 15 дней назад

      Your mgmt wanted this. And wanted McKinsey to help (take the blame) for wanting to do it

  • @gbbbarros
    @gbbbarros Год назад +1819

    Last year, I worked at a company that hired McKinsey to work on a tech project here in Brazil. After 6 months and millions of dollars spent, they delivered a project so fundamentally shitty that some analysts from my company (me included) had to be brought in to fix the absolute mess they had created. When confronted, they refused to acknowledge their bad job, and according to one of their partners "were very disappointed at us".
    The truth is, upper level management loves McKinsey because they are very good at making nice-looking Power Points and easily convince people who don't really know much about anything (such as upper level management). The analysts who are forced to work with them absolutely hate them (and I know a lot of cases that were similar to mine).
    And, of course, all of this is just peanuts compared to the actual harm McKinsey does working for governments and morally dubious companies around the world.

    • @TheNinjaFromNuevo
      @TheNinjaFromNuevo Год назад +39

      Wow. This comes as no surprise. Thank you for sharing your experience!

    • @brenoingwersen784
      @brenoingwersen784 Год назад +15

      Hahahaha entregaram um “deck” de 100 slides e uma planilha com algumas abas de cores diferentes e várias tabelas soltas com referência cruzada e cheia de cores?

    • @gbbbarros
      @gbbbarros Год назад

      @@brenoingwersen784 era um projeto de machine learning, entregaram um modelo cuja previsão era pior do que jogar um dado. Mas a verdadeira entrega foi o power point bonito

    • @zakuma22
      @zakuma22 Год назад +32

      I have seen the analysis other "big" consultant companies do and charge a fortune for, and I believe you. It is insane the amount of money is wasted.

    • @martinohnenamen6147
      @martinohnenamen6147 Год назад +41

      Main point for upper management to bring those consulting firms in is to cover their ass. If something fails they always can blame it on the advice they received. That's why those consulting firms also get the big contracts from governments and political institutions.

  • @Ultra_64
    @Ultra_64 Год назад +1390

    I don't think I've ever heard a more visceral crowd reaction when John talked about McKinsey's involvement in pushing pediatric OxyCotin.

    • @AzaleaJane
      @AzaleaJane Год назад +86

      I felt positively queasy at several points

    • @cwshawk
      @cwshawk Год назад +106

      Their ICE involvement was way worse, but John needs a longer show to cover it all.

    • @BlinkOnWheels
      @BlinkOnWheels Год назад +12

      Me who had oxycodone when I was a kid… Granted, I had a major surgery, though… So you know

    • @VTPPGLVR
      @VTPPGLVR Год назад +42

      Right?? I don’t remember the last time I heard one of his audiences like that

    • @TheLittlestViking
      @TheLittlestViking Год назад +36

      Yeah, I had major surgery on both feet as a kid, and the surgeon had me on a combination of extended-release OxyContin with shorter acting Percoset. It was horrible. I stopped taking it after less than a week, and when I saw him for my post-op and hadn't continued with my pain management he was pissed. I told him I would manage find without it.
      I have severe chronic pain now, and I still won't take opioids outside of acute pain for surgery or post injury. I think they have a place, absolutely, but I think our rules were way too indiscriminate with them.

  • @CapriciousHost
    @CapriciousHost Год назад +14303

    John Oliver is once again trying his absolute best to get sued. Never change.

    • @Ze_Moose
      @Ze_Moose Год назад +42

      Have they tried before? 🤔

    • @chloedsmith
      @chloedsmith Год назад +316

      Well I guess they'd have to prove that any of it was either clearly a lie and not satire, or a lie and presented as truth. Idk how they would sue him for talking about the things that they did and continue to do, presenting opinion on true facts that are documented either in official sources or literally by themselves doesn't seem like something they could sue for.
      I guess if any of this sounds outlandish, it's because these people behave like actual cartoon villains since they can just hide behind the corpo name and rarely, if ever, face personal consequences.

    • @MoonDog991
      @MoonDog991 Год назад +376

      Ever since that coal company tried to sue and realized it's a waste of time I think they'll be okay.

    • @mikelomez9313
      @mikelomez9313 Год назад

      Sad because the only people who should be getting sued is McKinsey by literally everybody.

    • @jjoohhhnn
      @jjoohhhnn Год назад +125

      Ikr? I unironically love that they make getting sued a part of their brand.

  • @eldritchexploited5462
    @eldritchexploited5462 Год назад +1928

    The Henry Kissenger gag aged hillariously within less than a month

    • @patricksheldon5859
      @patricksheldon5859 Год назад

      lol dead asshoIe

    • @BrolandMeeces
      @BrolandMeeces Год назад

      So John Oliver hates the military ? The same John Oliver who was born in a different country and then came here to become a citizen?

    • @jamespontin860
      @jamespontin860 Год назад +232

      Thankfully, Henry Kissinger himself stopped aging entirely

    • @d33pfish
      @d33pfish Год назад +37

      Totally agree. It's way funnier now.

    • @HellOnWheel
      @HellOnWheel Год назад +5

      @@jamespontin860 😂😂😂

  • @djfhsusbruh6698
    @djfhsusbruh6698 Год назад +10691

    As long as John Oliver is on HBO. HBO's legal team has steady employment.

    • @maxiporondio
      @maxiporondio Год назад +96

      Also Nathan Fielder lol

    • @AlexanderWalther
      @AlexanderWalther Год назад

      German Jan Böhmermann tries to catch up since 2016 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hmermann_affair

    • @CephandrianJES
      @CephandrianJES Год назад +38

      He’s not on HBO Max anymore, I believe he is on Hulu.

    • @CommentPoster10
      @CommentPoster10 Год назад +126

      They basically work for him at this point

    • @mattia_carciola
      @mattia_carciola Год назад +81

      @@CommentPoster10 Every night they thank whatever deity they believe in for choosing HBO among all the equally appealing choices they had, without knowing what was expecting them.

  • @helenejoubert3080
    @helenejoubert3080 Год назад +3450

    One of my personal favourite McKinsey ideas: when it was hired by the French government to find ways to spend less, they advised reducing students' aid by 5€ a month. The amount the government saved? Precisely what McKinsey billed them for the advice...

    • @helenewendel
      @helenewendel Год назад +247

      Yes! And the "rapport sur l'Education Nationale" was a joke. I read it when it came out and laughed my head off. It cost something like 400,000 euros. But then again Macron hired the consultants...I rest my case.

    • @victorpradha9946
      @victorpradha9946 Год назад +114

      McKinsey: Gaslighting for your Goosestepping Greed!

    • @nuqmanmursyid569
      @nuqmanmursyid569 Год назад

      Wow, the French government being robbed in broad daylight, eh? Seems all those karma from colonizing countries came back to haunt them, eh?

    • @steemlenn8797
      @steemlenn8797 Год назад +175

      They did something similar in Germany if I remember correctly. Slashed some administrative cost in the university student help (Bafög) and 2 years later everyone was surprised that half of the system broke down completely and students who needed the money to pay their rent didn't get it for up to half a year.

    • @helios7212
      @helios7212 Год назад

      Such a scam, wonder what other businesses they have their fingers in around the globe... besides the likes of the Saudis and oil money ofc, who else has an economy based around that and loves to prop up authoritarian regimes? 🤔🤷‍♂️

  • @BudsChiefington
    @BudsChiefington Год назад +1360

    I owe a major debt of gratitude to John Oliver and team for putting these segments on RUclips for free. There are few things that give me as much joy as when I see a new episode is available to watch. Doing your part to educate the masses on relatively obscure or complicated topics while being factual, funny, and empathetic. John and team are all saints.

    • @dimitrispotamousis8747
      @dimitrispotamousis8747 Год назад +4

      yes!

    • @Spartlee
      @Spartlee Год назад +6

      Truly!!! PREACH!!!

    • @Wizznilliam
      @Wizznilliam Год назад +8

      Exactly. They have covered in detail SO MANY obscure topics that most people just gloss over. And they do it in very entertaining ways. I'm a little surprised that HBO even lets them do this. It's probably ONLY because he is a comedian and they think most people won't take him completely serious. I've tried using his videos in arguments before and people just usually wave it off as being from a comedian. 😞

    • @christinechesse8777
      @christinechesse8777 Год назад +2

      “All saints” but in a good way.😂😂

    • @jankosar5874
      @jankosar5874 Год назад +1

      Yes! Greetings from Czechia

  • @michaelwitt421
    @michaelwitt421 Год назад +978

    I've had the pleasure of working with them. You spend 75% of your time with them training them on the things that they don't know about your business. Their staff tend to be green new MBAs with next to zero experience. Whatever the problem is, they have a standard formula they will force your problem into - whether it fits or not. And then when the whole experience is done, they will give you basically the same answer you had from the very start. And a multimillion dollar bill.

    • @RogueKT21
      @RogueKT21 Год назад +91

      Totally the same when they were brought in to a company I worked for. They came up with processes and tracking that gave useless data that just averaged everything and gave nonsense results that management pretended was important yet did nothing with. Now we are stuck with all these nonsense meetings called huddles and side by sides. Mostly just to discuss feelings and anything important is taken offline which is another word for we are never talking about this again.

    • @sachadee.6104
      @sachadee.6104 11 месяцев назад +31

      in all the examples I read only here, I remain baffled (as I was for years already) why companies pay HUGE sums of money to these kinds of bs 'consultants' instead of using that money to solve the problem. Because, often, that is what is needed (like Rikers.... 27 mlj pumped into the facility and recourses like library, sports, education, counseling, a.s.o. would have actually improved the situation.)

    • @Chris-ci8vs
      @Chris-ci8vs 10 месяцев назад

      Because they put ex-McK ppl into these companies and they advocate for them. it is one big circle jerk.@@sachadee.6104

    • @ojasdesai9942
      @ojasdesai9942 9 месяцев назад +9

      Sounds very similiar to a consultant group my previous employers hired. Those MBA dudes didn't know shit. They just BS'd their way into the contract

    • @sodalimesalt
      @sodalimesalt 9 месяцев назад +18

      As someone who went to a premier B-school, yeah, during prep for management consulting interviews they tell you that the companies tend to already know the problem and what they want to do about it. They bring in external consultants to just put the same into a structured format and to have someone external with perceived credibility to point to when questions are raised later. That, a bunch of guesstimates and frameworks, executive presence, networking skills and ability to confidently keep talking and selling bs for an extended period of time.

  • @Rsama60
    @Rsama60 Год назад +1923

    My first job after college was for a large engineering company in Germany. The company had 4 divisons serving different industries. From nuclear power to technical consulting. Every division had it’s own purchasing group. The leadership brought McKinsey in and the 4 purchaing groups where centralized to one. You know the synergy, efficiency bs. The result was that we had large projects halted to a stop because of purchasing. You just don‘t by a domestice heaters the same way as a nuclear power plant component.
    The leadership brought a consultant back. The first statement: put back smaller purchasing groups, you will be more agile and closer to your market. That company was McKinsey. All of the turmoil nearly killed the company. I left a month later.
    What is my definition of a consultant? A consultant is a man who knows 50 sex positions but no woman.

    • @ellenmarch3095
      @ellenmarch3095 Год назад +138

      I am a consultant, albeit operational/IT. I am stealing this quote. 😂

    • @jekutube9
      @jekutube9 Год назад +42

      My definition of McKinsey: is the big SUCKING sound Ross Perot would talk about --- Money from your wallet to theirs - with no benefit and maybe even harm.

    • @number0059
      @number0059 Год назад

      Bad quote as 35% of consultants are woman :D

    • @mr.slyvesteefoxinator3426
      @mr.slyvesteefoxinator3426 Год назад +109

      Most problems arise by bringing non-engineers into anything remotely involving engineering.

    • @j.dragon651
      @j.dragon651 Год назад +38

      @@mr.slyvesteefoxinator3426 I was a class A machinist/CNC programmer, auto mechanic, musician. Don't get me going on engineers. Every engineer should have to work with what they design. Just my opinion of course.

  • @insu_na
    @insu_na Год назад +1205

    McKinsey is where all of the German defense budget went for many years, because the daughter of the defense minister worked at McKinsey. So McKinsey was hired for hundreds of millions of Euros per year to do "consulting", which has led to the complete destruction of the German Bundeswehr. The current minister of defense has a lot of shards to pick up to get the Bundeswehr into an even half-way viable state... It's ridiculous.

    • @herbertschulz4313
      @herbertschulz4313 Год назад +130

      Europa nicht den Leyen überlassen

    • @scifirealism5943
      @scifirealism5943 Год назад +13

      Wow.

    • @HmmIndeed
      @HmmIndeed Год назад +34

      How in the heck can it get to that point?

    • @Taijifufu
      @Taijifufu Год назад +14

      Not the Bundeswehr! 😱

    • @Ace_Maus
      @Ace_Maus Год назад +194

      Came from America to study management in Germany, and the obsession with McKinsey is very alarming, to the point that my university is currently using McKinsey as a consultant for problems that us as students have been writing solutions to for free in our semester feedback forms to the uni. It's scary how idolized McKinsey is here, too.

  • @PaulLibert
    @PaulLibert Год назад +319

    You nailed it.
    They are not there for their expertise.
    They are there to isolate the company management from consequences.
    That's what they are paid for.

    • @crtkatze2
      @crtkatze2 Год назад +3

      spot on

    • @AnonymousUser_1111
      @AnonymousUser_1111 Год назад +1

      Yes. We were there to maximize shareholder profits. By definition, it was protecting shareholders. Anything less would be dereliction of our fiduciary duty and insubordination. All other rules were 'flexible'.

    • @alicema9544
      @alicema9544 Год назад +5

      And sometimes they are there to isolate a government from consequences, like in France, repeatedly

    • @CatyBee
      @CatyBee Год назад

      As a BP employee can confirm.

    • @dharma6481
      @dharma6481 Год назад +3

      Exactly. As a former McKinsey consultant, I can confirm that we frequently had directions from clients about the desired outcome (“we need to break the union” “we need to chop 25-40% of workers” “we need to completely outsource these 3 functions” “we need to rationalize giving contracts to these political supporters”) And we gave them the recommendations they wanted, even when analysis indicated it was the exact opposite of what should be considered.

  • @6cbrilhante
    @6cbrilhante Год назад +287

    I once interviewed for a McKinsey internship (not in the US). I had great grades from one of the top business schools in my country but was not at all the boastful type. The partner actually accused me of being a liar, because “my grades did not match my attitude”. A friend of mine, who is the smartest, hardest-working and overall best person I have ever met - including really humble - also interviewed and was accused of being an actress. On the contrary, I heard from several people with not necessarily stellar but decent grades but more capable of projecting ambition and self-assurance that they faced no such mind-boggling feedback. These recruiting practices sound like a big red flag to me.
    Also, later I worked at Deloitte doing audit. It was still crazy hard work, but I found a much greater respect for honesty and truth, and earned enough respect that when I sent out my farewell email a partner actually came to the staff open space to personally say goodbye. Highly doubt I would be shown the same kindness at McKinsey.

    • @SilverMe2004
      @SilverMe2004 10 месяцев назад +27

      well of cause, they don't want people that can run a company they want people that can sell their services

    • @6cbrilhante
      @6cbrilhante 10 месяцев назад

      @@SilverMe2004 which would be great if there was trust on all sides (who wants to buy something different from what is advertised?). When you make accusations such as that, even when it is on the "other side" of the market, all trust is broken - especially when, despite the fact that a CV can be easily forged, there was strong evidence that was not the case. In hindsight, it may have been a technique to dissuade less self-assured candidates.

    • @dhruvsubramanain2117
      @dhruvsubramanain2117 9 месяцев назад

      Big 4 is much better than these BS management consulting firms. At least when Big 4 charges companies an arm and a leg they give more technical advice, and their employees know what they are doing.

    • @salia2897
      @salia2897 6 месяцев назад

      Well, they hire what you need. If you are really capable at what you do, why would you go to them? You could go somewhere, where you could actually do what you are good at.

    • @michaeljthorson
      @michaeljthorson 2 месяца назад +4

      I interviewed with McKinsey in Atlanta in 1994. I was a West Point grad, Academic All-American football player at Army, Marshall Scholar at Oxford, and an infantry platoon leader in the US Army. The McKinsey people I met with were so self-confidently full of themselves, with absolutely no idea or appreciation of someone who actually worked somewhere where life and death was a real thing, that I walked out of the interview and said I was not interested in working there. Of course, they felt obliged to send me a rejection letter saying I was not a good fit for them. I framed it and to this day it reminds me that I'd rather not work at all instead of working for a firm without intellectual integrity or a moral compass.

  • @ehsteve231
    @ehsteve231 Год назад +4895

    McKinsey is the answer to "how can I do capitalism in the most despicable way possible?"

    • @rebnvodkaxx
      @rebnvodkaxx Год назад +77

      The Vanguard Group said hold my beer

    • @helios7212
      @helios7212 Год назад +24

      💯💯💯 Should look at the dystopia that Russia has become recently 😅😅

    • @NilZakaLinX
      @NilZakaLinX Год назад +25

      Boston consulting group is a top contender!

    • @Shiva108
      @Shiva108 Год назад +5

      you very easily can...if you're doing it "right".

    • @nehriim3748
      @nehriim3748 Год назад +57

      @@XCodes crony capitalism is still capitalism :)

  • @cybergal99
    @cybergal99 Год назад +824

    I'm 64 years old and having spent my entire adult life in corporate America and having watched some great companies die (Sun Microsystems, Wang Labs) because of arrogance of the leadership who listened to McKinsey and people like them and having spent the early part of my career at investment banks on Wall Street with people just like they portray here .. this is a very important piece of journalism!

    • @csy897
      @csy897 Год назад +4

      It's really sad because usually when an organisation needs changes either to grow or to implement processes, you need a team to examine the whole organisation, listen to the people and summarise solutions for the management. You don't need everyone to stay after the change, so being able to hire consultants can be good. Ideally, I think the team should at least be 50% made up of your own employees and 50% of a consultant company's. In tech, we charge 3 times the price of an average developer. Which is expensive but necessary to cover the cost of when the devs don't have assignments. So I don't understand how Mckinsey charged tens of millions of dollars for a few fresh grads.

    • @bumblebear75
      @bumblebear75 Год назад +18

      it's not the first time this story comes out, and it won't be the last - yet nothing ever changes because the interests are too big ... I've worked for these companies and have seen decisions made 'just because of numbers' and the need for a scapegoat ... I've seen people I knew lose jobs because of a bunch of idiots in a room with no real-life experience nor empathy ... I left when we started working with tobacco trying to enhance the 'addictiveness' through 'secret ingredients' ... there is no oversight and because it sounds like everyone is doing it, companies keep buying this absolutely horrendous garbage from a bunch of nobodies pushed through ivy league schools with daddies' money. End of rant

    • @gwheyduke
      @gwheyduke Год назад +3

      Very similar to the old movie "Office Space"

    • @hatleyhoward7193
      @hatleyhoward7193 Год назад +1

      They were a part of how the Astros culture came down to banging trash cans, believe it or not.
      This is an amazing segment. Oliver just keeps getting better and better.

    • @kr02201985
      @kr02201985 Год назад

      Having worked for years as a tech architect at a Management Consulting firm, I found many in the team inexperienced yet were good talkers and PowerPoint makers. Some of the recommendations they provided were totally stupid from a technical perspective, however they bull shit their way through. There strategy is to get the C Level Exec in their pockets and rest of team will obey what they say. Extremely unethical business

  • @k-matsu
    @k-matsu Год назад +123

    I LOVE this piece.
    I worked for about three years for one of McKinsey's biggest rivals (guess two names and Im prety sure you got it). The doublespeak is intentional and carefully cultivated. And naturally, this sort of self-deception becomes a narcotic. The reason they are successful is that they can write long dissertations on why the employees need to be squeezed. They help companies justify decisions that no soul-possessing human being would want to make.
    Thanks John. This was a long overdue discussion of an industry that is actively harming the average working person.

    • @function0077
      @function0077 Год назад +1

      @@johammyThe wife-abusing Canadian dip$hit, Steven Crowder?! No thank you.

  • @krauskorl
    @krauskorl Год назад +1064

    As a professor at an Ivy League school, I've been repeatedly heartbroken to lose some of our most gifted students to this crowd. As a society, we're really setting the wrong incentives for where talent goes (and that's not to say that everyone there is incredibly gifted -- there's more than enough privileged duds there, too).

    • @chpslife
      @chpslife Год назад +79

      Also, just because they are gifted, doesn't mean they have the experience to advise people/companies who have been in the field/industry for decades.

    • @agilemind6241
      @agilemind6241 Год назад +111

      @@chpslife Oh they absolutely do not have it. I went to a school massively targeted by these companies for recruitment and they do not care about qualifications - have a PhD in 19th century Scottish poetry? Qualified! Masters in eroticism in renaissance paintings? Qualified! As long as those degrees have the right school name on them. The chancellor of the school literally said during a welcome event that one of the most valuable things you would get at the school is a particular accent branding you as attending the school. It is the modern aristocracy, people qualified by name recognition and fancy clothes chatting in backrooms to enrich each other without sparing a thought for the average person living on this planet.

    • @mnschoen
      @mnschoen Год назад

      Professor of what, and which school?
      oh, sorry. I'm calling you a big fat liar.

    • @Lauren-rl4eu
      @Lauren-rl4eu Год назад

      Business degrees are basically participation degrees that assholes with rich parents get. I wouldn't call any of those students "gifted" even if mommy and daddy paid to have them go to a fancy Ivy League school.

    • @littlekong7685
      @littlekong7685 Год назад +29

      @@chpslife Experience is generally seen as a detriment for consultants (And higher level managers). Experience means you have habits, ideas, and are less likely to conform to the "company standards" and have limited "company loyalty potential". They want a particular school name, 3 references from family in the industry, and nothing else.

  • @richardhedd3080
    @richardhedd3080 Год назад +854

    Thank you John for going after these parasites. The fact that Katie Porter is on to their BS should come as no surprise.

    • @juliejanesmith57
      @juliejanesmith57 Год назад +13

      Right? Thanks John, for on e again highlighting the rich that should be on the menu.

    • @Quirkyhndl
      @Quirkyhndl Год назад +1

      John is breaking dangerous ground here. These three are all part of the same, BCG was founded by people from Bain (cough, Mitt Romney) and they are all owned by the same small group of oligarchs that own practically everything through the stock market. They are experienced in sending companies into bankruptcy (Toys r Us, Overstock, Sears, attempted GameStop), so that short hedge funds can profit and the monopolies of evil like Walmart and Amazon can maintain their stranglehold.
      These "consultants" are the arms of Hydra. They represent the love of money that has completely destroyed our world in every way. And the heads of Hydra don't like them talked about.

    • @jbutsch2301
      @jbutsch2301 Год назад

      @@juliejanesmith57oh god… I bet you think you sound cool when you say stupid a$$ phrases like “eat the rich”. All while you probably don’t add a modicum of value to your community or society. Smh

    • @helios7212
      @helios7212 Год назад +10

      Checks and balances!!! Unrestrained greed and power always lead to oligarchy like this 😔🪆🪆

    • @kgal1298
      @kgal1298 Год назад +2

      Being anywhere near the opioid industry should get you blackballed from anyone who manufacturers or approves drugs after everything was exposed about them and how many people they killed.

  • @VinylBossGaming
    @VinylBossGaming Год назад +207

    I worked for Verizon for nearly 6 years and had to work with McKinsey teams on a multitude of projects. They were the bane of my and my team’s existence any time they inserted themselves into our work. This whole segment was spot on and pure gold.

    • @bgood8299
      @bgood8299 Год назад +13

      I worked for Verizon and your post explains a lot.

    • @Lindakelly89
      @Lindakelly89 Год назад +9

      I work with mckinsey and tbh they suck at everything they attempt to do.

  • @rickb3650
    @rickb3650 Год назад +453

    Former consultant (not McKinsey) and I can verify this content. The "secret" to McKinsey's longevity and success is serving as resume builder for unqualified/unremarkable offspring of the ruling class for telling top level executives whatever they want to hear.
    There are literally thousands of US consulting firms that achieve better results at a fraction of the cost, but they all lack the real secret of success, giving super-rich a-holes a facade of competence.

    • @kkp4297
      @kkp4297 Год назад +13

      as a consultant, did you ever have imposter syndrome?
      You were hired to advise on shiit you knew absolutely jackshiiit about, right?

    • @eddenoy321
      @eddenoy321 Год назад

      I think you are very correct. I would add that the likes of McKinsey may even serve to promote the Universities endowments and trusts by masquerading as an essential support pillar for the corporate boards that run this world, while providing a connection to the families of the wealthy . Nepotism, western style.

    • @Carewolf
      @Carewolf Год назад +25

      @@kkp4297 You don't have imposter syndrome if you know you are only acting..

    • @perrinerichard3488
      @perrinerichard3488 Год назад +1

      @@kkp4297 they do everything to avoid that. In my engineer degree in France, we had some accounting + finance classes that were held by people working at a competitor of McKinsey. From the start of the class, they used the same narrative of their ad. They seduce student with very large salary announcement and exclusive experience (small group teaching, invite to cocktails...). It really is like a tinder for work at the end.
      I worked as an engineer consultant (small firm). And even in technical fields I was hired to manage a site that I knew jackshit about. Hopefully, the company that I was "advising" actually trained me on the industry specific and then internalised me. But when I see how a small firm was so good at bullshiting, big ones scares me

    • @AnonymousUser_1111
      @AnonymousUser_1111 Год назад +22

      Yes. Former consult as well. The recruiting events are insanely and openly pointed. There is value to these old companies remaining loyal to these firms. Their reach is wide and intersects with everyone; public and private sectors.. They deal in information and keep secrets better than any spy. It's crazy to hear John talking about this topic.

  • @StefanMedici
    @StefanMedici 10 месяцев назад +65

    I worked for a large telecommunications company. Every 18 months or so we'd go through a restructure. McKinsey was involved every time taking their cut. I did once ask the CEO during a kitchen chat why. "If they're so good at their job, why do we keep having to pay them to undo their previous mistakes every 18 months." The silence was golden. The CEO finally stumbled of some BS no one including himself believed.

  • @memento81
    @memento81 Год назад +376

    I used to be friends with a guy who then started at McKinsey germany. That cult of money and grandiosity turned him into an absolute ghoul. You could see him get more shallow and vapid by the month. He would later pretend that it wasn't his old friends who dumped him for that but instead him leaving his old circle of friends behind because they were too small fish and couldn't even afford to be part of his new lifestyle, so what was the point in keeping us anyway. Some jobs absolutely eat your soul if you are prone to greed and think living your best life means buying and emulating everything from the latest GQ magazine while doing absolutely horrendous and inhumane shit hidden behind cold spreadsheets. Pitiful.

    • @Fallenscion
      @Fallenscion Год назад +42

      Please, cold PowerPoint decks - they're consultants, not accountants.

    • @NicoleAZ145
      @NicoleAZ145 Год назад +8

      @@FallenscionSpreadsheets are used for a lot of stuff, not just calculations.

    • @IreneWY
      @IreneWY Год назад +1

      Jep, I've seen it happen too.

    • @JOHN----DOE
      @JOHN----DOE Год назад +1

      They ran that show in the 80s. It was called "Wall Street." "Greed is good." Nothing has changed.

    • @Dragoon91786
      @Dragoon91786 Год назад +1

      @@NicoleAZ145 Except, it sounds like that's where they started "creative accounting" 🤣

  • @me_am_nummers
    @me_am_nummers Год назад +1162

    Hearing the contempt for McKinsey in the audience as Jon talks is rather refreshing

    • @GenX1964
      @GenX1964 Год назад +61

      Yes and yet their surprise at the same time shows how truly murky and shady McKinsey is.

    • @Asherek
      @Asherek Год назад +45

      @@Beanskiiii You're....happy about this?

    • @freddwoord
      @freddwoord Год назад +6

      It’s a laugh track you know that right? It’s not a real audience sitting there, it’s audio files being added later 💀

    • @Asherek
      @Asherek Год назад +53

      @@freddwoord It's not a laugh track. This is taped in front of an audience like most late night shows. You can literally sign up to get tickets online for the show tapings.

    • @freddwoord
      @freddwoord Год назад +4

      @@Asherek doesn’t change the fact that the laughs that you can hear here aren’t live ones but ones that have been added later on. No live crowd sounds like this

  • @yinanliu8980
    @yinanliu8980 Год назад +159

    Worked at BCG. Can absolutely attest all is true in the management consulting industry

  • @aVeganMia
    @aVeganMia Год назад +102

    My ex-roommate used to work at McKinsey. I've never seen someone work so freaking hard in my life. It was utterly unsustainable, in my eyes. I barely saw her. She was worked to the bone and the pressure, gosh, as an outsider, I couldn't even wrap my head around it.

    • @theonlyadrienne
      @theonlyadrienne 11 месяцев назад +34

      A friend of mine worked for them. I went to meet her for lunch when I was visiting London, and (aside from telling me that if she left the office at 8pm her colleagues would give her shit for "taking an early mark") we were 25 minutes through her 'one hour lunch break' before she got a call from someone in the office asking where she was as it was the first time in a year she'd ever left the office on her lunch break. She had to go back up to the office two minutes later to go back to work.

    • @BtK-gn5hb
      @BtK-gn5hb 4 месяца назад +3

      The worst part is..their doing shit that's utterly meaningless and bullshit. If U doing something fulfilling the long hours don't seem as bad.

  • @Tn_jed001
    @Tn_jed001 Год назад +938

    McKinsey has helped kneecap the company I retired from, 3M. Their continuous reengineering has lead to a 70% decrease in the stock price over the last 5 years and a complete destruction of the innovation culture at a once great company.

    • @jonsnow1123
      @jonsnow1123 Год назад +35

      Well. TBF. It isn't like 3M has a stellar track record.

    • @donnabenson6900
      @donnabenson6900 Год назад +58

      They're probably also working for their competitor...

    • @experssion123
      @experssion123 Год назад

      3m is one of the companies that has polluted our waters with PCB's or "Forever chemicals". No, they aren't a "good" company 😂

    • @MC-ls9fs
      @MC-ls9fs Год назад +19

      Pretty sure the huge lawsuit against 3M over their bad products permanently injuring a bunch of servicemen had a lot more to do with it, mate.

    • @BigBadJerryRogers
      @BigBadJerryRogers Год назад +53

      ​@@MC-ls9fsno, that's just the latest disaster. As a 3M shareholder it's been depressing. The biggest outrage to average shareholders, I'm not rich, is that mismanagement never hurts those at the top of the company. They wipe out millions or even billions of shareholder value and walk away with their ridiculously inflated salaries and the life of luxury

  • @algerbanane4521
    @algerbanane4521 Год назад +1786

    as a business graduate, "bullshitting your way into a plausible sounding answer" is what our teachers do everyday

    • @mrjgilbert
      @mrjgilbert Год назад +53

      😂 yes! Most of my business classes were common sense put into jargon. That’s also the whole business book publishing industry too.

    • @orangeknight321
      @orangeknight321 Год назад +17

      A business graduate who can't differentiate between "everyday" and "every day"?

    • @tlfriel
      @tlfriel Год назад +3

      Not all of us but certainly there is a complete buy in to public corps because doing research on business is far easier it’s them. Most text books have very little that is really based on the main generating firms of gdp in this country. I used to object..no I still do. I critique what kids are taught while I’m teaching. I refuse to give them pat answers and groom them to comply with corporate party lines.

    • @digitalhuman2768
      @digitalhuman2768 Год назад +1

      Except that did not become your life core value... as this company description shows. At least I hope. Percentage is the key in fakenews-ridden social /media age.

    • @gaberobison680
      @gaberobison680 Год назад +3

      How does one even need a degree in business? Earn more then you spend is all you need to know, how to intimidate labor is a plus

  • @casedistorted
    @casedistorted Год назад +280

    I hope they give LastWeekTonight's writers a raise. They deserve it.

    • @davidbeppler3032
      @davidbeppler3032 Год назад

      Pretty sure McKinsey will have in internal document sent to the Saudi government and those writers will never be heard from again. JMHO.

    • @andiward7068
      @andiward7068 Год назад +19

      They did. That's one of things they got to end the WGA strike.

  • @bobmetcalfe9640
    @bobmetcalfe9640 Год назад +180

    Katie Porter is a national treasure. I wish we had a politician like her.

    • @cynicannkeel8899
      @cynicannkeel8899 Год назад +18

      I don't live in CA, but donate to Katie Porter when I can, because it's a joy to watch her pin down CEOs when they appear before the house. She's running for Senator against some tough competitors, which means if she doesn't win that election, she'll be out of Congress.

    • @justinwarthen
      @justinwarthen Год назад +3

      We do

    • @CollinMcLean
      @CollinMcLean Год назад +15

      When she pulls out the whiteboard it's like watching a wrestler climb the turnbuckle in a match...
      Someone is about to get annihilated and we're all going to cheer!

    • @davidkoenig5212
      @davidkoenig5212 8 месяцев назад +3

      “Reclaiming my time” is such an eloquent way to say “shut the hell up” 😂

  • @TrevorCopter
    @TrevorCopter Год назад +62

    This is the most vocal I’ve heard the audience in a good long while. Actively booing McKinsey at points. I love it!

  • @OkaruEXE
    @OkaruEXE Год назад +432

    A company that truly lives by the philosophy that the impression of competence is more important than actual competence.

    • @hlcepeda
      @hlcepeda Год назад +5

      Perfect advisors to those with huge political ambitions.

    • @EricLackner
      @EricLackner Год назад +1

      Arther Anderson says what?

    • @Hirnlego999
      @Hirnlego999 Год назад +1

      Lots of companies in fact

    • @Game_Hero
      @Game_Hero Год назад

      Frankly, our whole society is under that impression, including tons of RUclipsrs.

    • @cateyu5547
      @cateyu5547 6 дней назад

      At my university’s business school there’s a class called Acting for Business Majors and it was mostly for consultants, I think it’s where they learn how to give off that impression 😂

  • @ankurmehrotra6506
    @ankurmehrotra6506 Год назад +522

    McKinsey is brought in often to simply confirm a management decision. It helps company management to 'defend' their ideas and get approval from the board.

    • @victorpradha9946
      @victorpradha9946 Год назад

      Rather they're brought in so management executives can say we looked exhaustive for ways other than firing everyone and giving ourselves big fat bonuses...but alas...here we are...BYE!

    • @iamajay3333
      @iamajay3333 Год назад

      Agreed. These consulting companies are vultures disguised as humans

    • @hiphopotamus69
      @hiphopotamus69 Год назад +38

      Usually when management knows their decision is going to be unpopular within their workforce and they want to pass the blame to someone else

    • @TheAutisticBrewer
      @TheAutisticBrewer Год назад +11

      We had this with Return to the Office. We had worked for 2 years from home without hiccups. They brought in consultants, but thankfully incompetent ones. They did big company wide surveys during meetings. The options were skewed towards RTO as the only option at times, but half were missed and they left in some write in answers. They also put the poll results up AS we took them, so you could see the vast majority of people did not want a blanket RTO for 5 days a week. When the consultants wrote a report claiming we ACTUALLY wanted RTO it caused ripples and any manager following the report instantly lost like half their staff. Still have one C suite guy OBSESSED with everyone returning to 5 days a week, makes everyone under him do 3 when company policy is 2. People transfer out and hate him. We even had construction and had to "find office space" elsewhere in the building instead of just taking the week from home. We did this for 2 damn years with rising productivity... now our productivity is suffering so they are blaming WFH.

    • @deliriumsd142
      @deliriumsd142 Год назад +1

      @@hiphopotamus69 That's the same way Ticketmaster works. Ticketmaster becomes the bad guy instead.

  • @coreyb6442
    @coreyb6442 Год назад +302

    I’m a finance exec and I still don’t understand how a large successful company can think hiring a bunch of MBA students is going to get them some deeper insights or more expertise.

    • @dome8721
      @dome8721 Год назад +38

      That is not it. They think hiring a bunch of eager MBA students willing to do whatever it takes is going to give them hours and hours of cheap labor they can sell as expensive hours while peddling some ideas a few people came up with that actually do not really work but sound neat. The graduates get a name on their CV, McKinsey a lot of money with relatively big margins and the customer gets advice they can sell as being reliable to upper management. If something goes wrong, McKinsey is the scapegoat. By that time, most of the people working on said project already left to big roles elsewhere, and the new team comes in promising they will fix it. Welcome to consulting.

    • @t.yop9
      @t.yop9 Год назад

      @@dome8721 Before you tell other people what's up, might want to understand what they're saying. The large successful company he's talking about is the client, not McKinsey.
      Nobody questions why McKinsey does this, they make money. The question is, why hire McKinsey to 'solve your problems' when all they give you is the best looking MBA students, who know nothing about your business.

    • @SilverMe2004
      @SilverMe2004 10 месяцев назад

      @@dome8721 I believe he meant the company paying for the consultation. but it does sound like they are regularly hired just so they can blame the consultant for the lay offs

    • @cara804
      @cara804 9 месяцев назад +4

      there just minimizing their risk and hiring someone they can point the finger at...they are usually way out of their league (peter principle) in the role they are in anyway...

    • @willowood67
      @willowood67 2 месяца назад

      why are so many people at McKinsey Stanford grads?

  • @nescaffier1524
    @nescaffier1524 Год назад +1546

    I graduated from an Ivy League college in 2020. At graduation, the student speaker said something along the lines of "We're going out to change the world. We are the doctors, engineers, and consultants..." The crowd audibly laughed at consultants.

    • @andrewmclaughlin2701
      @andrewmclaughlin2701 Год назад +25

      Doctors will soon be AI as will the engineers. Consultants will continue to engage with AI.

    • @mayaram2411
      @mayaram2411 Год назад +273

      @@andrewmclaughlin2701more like the other way around. Management consultants will be replaced by AI more than doctors or engineers.

    • @drooooop
      @drooooop Год назад

      @@andrewmclaughlin2701Lol consultants are the ones being replaced. Someone’s gotta actually do the engineering for AI to get anywhere, you can already “consult” ChatGPT and have it be more useful than a consultant.

    • @Guywithaclub
      @Guywithaclub Год назад +4

      @@mayaram2411uh no.

    • @jordanl1578
      @jordanl1578 Год назад +1

      @@andrewmclaughlin2701are u delulu or the mckinsey bonus rotted the rest of ur braincells away? 😂

  • @amyharth5446
    @amyharth5446 Год назад +1659

    I did a case study on them for my dissertation. They have an outsized influence on economic development in Africa and they cause massive harm.

    • @kuchikibyakuya9396
      @kuchikibyakuya9396 Год назад +137

      They were invited to a bank I worked for in Kenya: we had to do these ideation labs thrice a week from each dept. They took the ideas put them on their letter head and presented to senior management plus laying off workers... got paid handsomely, the bank reported losses for 6 straight years. Same script for other organizations in my country that I know of.

    • @amyharth5446
      @amyharth5446 Год назад +39

      @@kuchikibyakuya9396 I'm sorry. I can't bring myself to "like" that. They could have used that money to pay workers. Such a waste.

    • @smrk2452
      @smrk2452 Год назад +48

      @@kuchikibyakuya9396so they got your good ideas, submitted them to corporate, and then fired you? Is that what happened?

    • @chazdomingo475
      @chazdomingo475 Год назад +63

      @@smrk2452 I've worked with McKinsey and I would say this is their primary strategy.

    • @RankinMsP
      @RankinMsP Год назад +16

      I was waiting for the African angle.
      Thanks

  • @CarolMilters
    @CarolMilters Год назад +1987

    As a former corporate brainwashed, I am loving to see the downfall of corporate culture as something cool and the exposure of what it really is.

    • @jonsnow1123
      @jonsnow1123 Год назад +38

      I just wish I wasn't still beholden to them.

    • @samburgermakesmovies
      @samburgermakesmovies Год назад +62

      I’m still in the golden handcuffs due to insurance and health needs. It’s awful. I hate going to work lol.

    • @vvolfbelorven7084
      @vvolfbelorven7084 Год назад +10

      It's never the company/firm/corporation. It's the team

    • @christopherclarke3135
      @christopherclarke3135 Год назад +8

      But it will not change a thing.

    • @finleysmurflton4851
      @finleysmurflton4851 Год назад +38

      @@vvolfbelorven7084 that’s what people at bad companies say.

  • @Patrikyang
    @Patrikyang Год назад +130

    Having been a consultant myself, I can attest to the accuracy of this observation: a significant number of F500 executive teams are consulting alumni, and many pivotal corporate decisions are influenced by consulting firms. The essence of our role was rooted in facilitating transformation-we advocated for change, asserting its positive impact, all while recognizing that our firms' livelihoods depended on it. We possessed the ability to propose a strategic direction one day, streamline a workforce based on that direction, only to return two years later with a different strategy, justified by the ever-shifting and intricate landscape of the market. We were trained to communicate and work in certain ways so clients perceive us as experts.

    • @nathanw1010
      @nathanw1010 Год назад +5

      ☝️ this... Outstanding comment.

    • @cr10001
      @cr10001 11 месяцев назад +9

      In other words, if it works, fuck around with it till it doesn't, then come back later and charge them all over again for putting it back the way it was.

    • @joshmans7307
      @joshmans7307 10 месяцев назад +11

      I love the very specific wording at the end there: "so clients PERCEIVE us as experts."

    • @ilovetrains1634
      @ilovetrains1634 10 месяцев назад

      @@joshmans7307 perception is everything, it is how you get in the door!

    • @Lucasp110
      @Lucasp110 10 месяцев назад

      So... You are well paid bullshitters?

  • @tylerkeller8869
    @tylerkeller8869 Год назад +1891

    Katie Porter is a national hero. I'd vote for her for president in a heartbeat. She will never run however, because she knows she can accomplish more in the senate.

    • @tiffanymarie9750
      @tiffanymarie9750 Год назад +100

      Unfortunately the people who run for president have to be somewhat narcissistic to make a bid and the people who should run are too good to waste their time on that. 😞

    • @NyanyiC
      @NyanyiC Год назад +87

      I wish I could be as assertive and no nonsense in a gentle yet educated way like her.. Good role model.

    • @sniperhare
      @sniperhare Год назад +48

      Can you guys send her over to be Governor of Florida?

    • @genericamerican7574
      @genericamerican7574 Год назад +22

      @@sniperhare be the change you want to see.

    • @MrSlowestD16
      @MrSlowestD16 Год назад

      Nah, she's an idiot.
      She's another AoC, grand stands for progressive talking points - which is good for her fandom, but ultimately doesn't mean or do anything. When the votes need to come in she gets in-line just like everybody else.

  • @gabriellawaldi
    @gabriellawaldi Год назад +172

    I work in a governmental institute (not in the US) they contracted McK once and implemented it’s proposed strategies. It was a shitshow. After that this institute trained their own consultants and they now help the departments improve which proved to be cheaper and better. I guess McK really helped us better ourselves.

    • @fedepa3
      @fedepa3 Год назад

      Out of curiosity, where are you from? (If you can't answer that's fine tho, have a nice day)

  • @sacumblousi
    @sacumblousi Год назад +867

    I bet all the people working at McKinsey are gonna unironically share that last skit with each other 😂

    • @drdarkeny
      @drdarkeny Год назад +46

      I bet you're right-I also bet they invite Oliver to be the entertainment at their annual meeting, then try to hire him to head up one of their departments.

    • @shzwon123
      @shzwon123 Год назад +5

      Already did so. And I don't work at McKinsey

    • @Sneaker3719
      @Sneaker3719 Год назад +22

      @@drdarkeny
      That's the sad truth, ain't it? Capital folds all criticisms of it into itself.
      Still, I have faith that John wouldn't go through with something like that.

    • @loosilu
      @loosilu Год назад +3

      OH, they know.

    • @danielherlihy2408
      @danielherlihy2408 Год назад +2

      I'm a consultant and I'm probably gonna do likewise, lol

  • @theonefreeman586
    @theonefreeman586 Год назад +103

    Our national broadcasting station in Australia, the ABC, recently did a deep dive on the major consulting companies operating here. One of the stories centered around Governmental reliance on consulting companies, to the point where one company was simultaneously advising the government on Tax Reform whilst advising a private company on how to reduce corporate income tax!

  • @lucasokeefe7935
    @lucasokeefe7935 Год назад +459

    "Send an email, not a F#&!Ing helicopter!!" is a hilariously accurate summary of just how inept and unnecessary typical business procedures are..

    • @nebufabu
      @nebufabu Год назад +3

      And then they apparently ran the idea by everyone *except* the only department that could actually answer the real question "if something happens and we get sued, is it better to have hand-signed, helicopter-delivered invoices available?"

    • @titheproven954
      @titheproven954 Год назад +4

      How much do you think they got payed for that advice as well; How to the stupid people at the top that NEEDED that advice got payed? When freaking anyone who gives them their coffee at Starbucks could have figured out that puzzle.

    • @namantherockstar
      @namantherockstar Год назад +2

      Oliver inspires me.. My parents said if i get 60K followers They'd buy me a professional camera for recording..begging u guys , literally
      Begging.

    • @nicholase2868
      @nicholase2868 Год назад

      ​@@nebufabudid that really happen? I'd hope hand signed documents aren't actually considered better legally with the right processes (like a password for verification). They could have a printer and a scanner instead of a helicopter either way.

    • @nebufabu
      @nebufabu Год назад +2

      @@nicholase2868 No idea. But that quote didn't mention them considering legal implications at all, and they may be very different depending on when, where and how it happened exactly...

  • @michelleg9194
    @michelleg9194 Год назад +332

    Having worked in a prison, to fix them:
    Add a/c, better food, better housing (these guys are literally stacked on top of each other like cord wood), better heating, give them something to do! Better libraries, activities, recreation, etc. Any of the above mentioned items would being down the violence in prisons especially the overcrowding and the need for a/c!

    • @mikeskinner315
      @mikeskinner315 Год назад +93

      Careful friend, it sounds almost like you're suggesting we treat prisoners like human beings and actually try to rehabilitate them, that's just not the American way.

    • @TerlinguaTalkeetna
      @TerlinguaTalkeetna Год назад +21

      No AC in Texas prisons, the current gov thinks it a bad expensive idea. Most GOP prisoners go to Fed prisons!

    • @Kpimpmaster
      @Kpimpmaster Год назад

      Hate to tell you this but prisons get paid by the head the more people they can cram in there the more money they get

    • @keigoftw
      @keigoftw Год назад +5

      ...I'm pretty sure the jail I toured with my soci 101 class had AC... but after hearing a corrections officer talk about how the institution views detainees? I'm the opposite of shocked (alarmed, but not shocked) to hear they're in the minority. Especially considering that the solitary wing that we got to go into, it was under construction. The construction: removing the (seatless yet kneeling height, too far from the bed) desks & leaving the cells with only the bed and toilet. His response to 'isn't this inhumane?' was roughly 'solitary is a *punishment*'. He also talked about the widespread resistance to seeing mental health professionals like it was no big deal, and definitely not a problem!

    • @alexanderrobins7497
      @alexanderrobins7497 Год назад +8

      The sad part is it feels less unethical to give these useless parasitical millionaires large amounts of money to talk about things community activists would do for free than give homeless people and prisons *basic* amenities. Escaping poverty becomes exponentially more difficult when you have some rich assholes actively kicking you while you are down.

  • @ConvictedFelon2024
    @ConvictedFelon2024 Год назад +795

    16:00 As a registered Democrat living in California, I _cannot wait_ to cast my vote for Katie Porter in the 2024 Senate race. Politicians like her are all the hope we have left to rein in the corporate malfeasance and abuse of the American people.

    • @volusiasorange
      @volusiasorange Год назад +31

      she is great

    • @LazarusSlade
      @LazarusSlade Год назад

      Really!? Did you see her the last time she was with Bill Maher!? What a mumbling buffoon she has become!

    • @lizbrown6943
      @lizbrown6943 Год назад

      Politicians are one part of problem. The people have to push politicians to push change. Lobbyists have too much power. Politicians talk to get elected. I never imagined federal shutdowns being bargaining tool. People cry and do nothing of substance to get change.

    • @meatballhead15
      @meatballhead15 Год назад +30

      I love Katie Porter! Every clip I've seen of her, she's just unstoppable with putting the bs going on into common sense language and pictures that even a kindergartner could understand.

    • @littlewing2357
      @littlewing2357 Год назад +9

      Love Katie Porter!

  • @Speakfordemocracy
    @Speakfordemocracy 11 месяцев назад +6

    I’m soo glad that Rep Katie Porter made this video!! Her integrity is something to aspire to!!! She wrote an amazing book, politics is messier than my minivan!! Recommend read!! We need more people like her in our government!! I will be voting for her for CA senate set!!

  • @mariuscamenita9643
    @mariuscamenita9643 Год назад +457

    McKinsey did not invent the bar code. The NAFC with the help of McKinsey developed the standard for it. The bar code was invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver.

    • @zinaj9437
      @zinaj9437 Год назад +4

      - And a guy I know helped make them secure.

    • @MarkusWitthaut
      @MarkusWitthaut Год назад +20

      Yes, excatly. The first barcode was patented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1952 (US Patent #2,612,994). Much later trade associations from the grocery industry formed the Uniform Product Code Council (UPCC) which, with the help of consultants of McKinsey & Company, defined the numerical format (barcode symbology) that formed the basis of the Uniform Product Code. So McKinsey helped to define the UPC standard.

    • @BrooklyKnight
      @BrooklyKnight Год назад +19

      He said "helped"

    • @noneofyourbusiness4133
      @noneofyourbusiness4133 Год назад

      Boosting this

    • @fellzer
      @fellzer Год назад +3

      Consults walking by the building where it's being invented: AND WEEEEEE HELPED

  • @nahAllow
    @nahAllow Год назад +348

    Having worked in consultancy, the ‘schrodingers contract’ bit is a perfect encapsulation of how these firms operate.

    • @AxelHenx
      @AxelHenx Год назад

      we can have both ;) :D

  • @Tohkar
    @Tohkar Год назад +328

    There was (and still should be) a scandal in France when it was discovered how much president Macron and his staff paid McKinsey (without declerating it) for useless advices, but it has always been about the money. I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about McKinsey other works, which seems way more relevant and incriminating.

    • @NouriaDiallo
      @NouriaDiallo Год назад +38

      Well, it wasn't just about the money, but also about the utter incompetence of their advice when there are ressources like the "cour des comptes" and many high level civil servant that *do* know their shit and whose work is already paid for. I believe Mediapart had a few articles on the subject...
      [responding mostly to boost the comment in the consideration of our algorithmic overlord]

    • @hugoderek50
      @hugoderek50 Год назад +7

      all glory to the overlord @@NouriaDiallo

    • @vyse6980
      @vyse6980 Год назад +8

      No wonder he supported von der Leyen to be EU president - they have the same M.O. lol. She had a scandal for the same thing during her tenure as german defense minister.

    • @burtkocain6846
      @burtkocain6846 Год назад

      Macron truly is a massive joke. I mean, he has to be for someone as awful as Le Pen to get as many votes as she did.
      Wasn't the Louis XIV regime equally smooth brained?

    • @ericaugust1501
      @ericaugust1501 Год назад

      McKinsey have evolved into full scam artists. But their brand is WEALTH, so other elite tossers and "businesses" hire them for their brand. they don't care what the "advice" is, just that they can say "we got the advice from McKinsey, so obviously it must be correct and you can't blame us for how things turn out". McKinsey is used by failing management to justify looting the treasury before the ship goes down...and McKinsey love being that sort of parasite.

  • @rsacode
    @rsacode Год назад +14

    I was a consultant with WSP and Mouchel. We sometimes brushed up against McKinsey consultants - and most of the time they were wrong. Sadly, their reputation is pretty bulletproof - and we found out why. When the clients weren't happy, McKinsey didn't charge them and then made them sign NDAs.

  • @taliquetaylor8039
    @taliquetaylor8039 Год назад +141

    John Oliver’s writing team should be making the big bucks. The research for this episode was incredibly well done

    • @schattentaenzerin
      @schattentaenzerin Год назад +16

      Not to forget the journalists, who's research and information they use.
      Those do a great job with often little reward as well.
      The LWT-Team is great at putting a big and complex story together in an entertaining and easier to understand way for the general public. Love their deep dives into topics that most of us would never really know about otherwise.

    • @sn1kzZe
      @sn1kzZe Год назад +1

      lol who are you kidding, John is what makes the show, put anyone else there and the show will flop, its his charisma that carries this show no matter what topic he talks about.

    • @davidguelette7036
      @davidguelette7036 Год назад +6

      Not to mention a well funded legal team as I'm sure that a company this powerful is going to take exception to this expose.

    • @velmex12
      @velmex12 Год назад

      A lot of this content is cribbed from PBS report from a year ago, NYT journalists and Pro Publica.

  • @LMLewis
    @LMLewis Год назад +191

    I'm a retired emergency management specialist. I was stunned to learn that British Petroleum and other firms had allowed consultants to write their emergency plans that, expectedly, turned out to be virtually useless when the Deepwater Horizon Spill occurred. A good emergency plan requires input from the people who will actually respond to the emergency, who are the employees and managers themselves, with guidance from an expert in preparing emergency plans. However, the consultant-prepared plans looked like boiler-plate that did not take into account differences between companies in structure, staffing, environment, jurisdiction, and other variables. The same would expectedly be true for advising companies on day-to-day management, which should be closely aligned with disaster roles.

    • @AllYay
      @AllYay Год назад

      Aboriginal Americans say that Deepwater is still spewing, and that the chemicals used to cover the spill have killed the entire Gulf watershed. I have no way of verifying this.

    • @saltking2715
      @saltking2715 Год назад +5

      but have you concidered that a good plan costs money? companies will rather take the gamble then being pro active and it costing them something. I think it was the same with Koch industries, who rather pay fines or court ruling than invest money into safety and enviromental programs.

    • @Dysiode
      @Dysiode Год назад

      What did they pay McKinsey? Pretty sure it was a lot of money @@saltking2715

    • @MonkeyJedi99
      @MonkeyJedi99 Год назад +3

      Getting input on a process from the people who are actually using the process? That's CRAZY TALK!
      You can't justify $10.5 million payouts to talk to a line mechanic who already works for you!

    • @LMLewis
      @LMLewis Год назад +1

      @@MonkeyJedi99 LOL

  • @phunkracy
    @phunkracy Год назад +199

    Had one of them come to my job. He promised a new future for company and workers, no layoffs. Made it his point to greet every worker, was really sweet. Drove a ferrari. Month later, 50% of the workforce was fired effectively next day with no prior warning. Which, considering that most of them (including me) were migrant workers whose accomodation was paid by the employer, was a total disaster. Gave us a week to leave premises. For me it was either finding a job within that week or going back 1000 km back home with savings only. I found a job, but many didnt.

    • @rogi827
      @rogi827 10 месяцев назад +8

      "Drove a Ferrari" holy shit

    • @tammyjantzen9004
      @tammyjantzen9004 9 месяцев назад +6

      Very sad.

  • @gcvrsa
    @gcvrsa Год назад +86

    What I find extremely confusing about management consulting firms is that they are invariably staffed by people who have never actually run a business in their lives, so how can they possibly be "consultants" to other businesses on how to run their business? They hire right out of university, people who have no real world experience of anything, at all. When I started my technology consulting firm, by that point in my career, I had a full decade of technology management experience, and two decades of experience actually using computers.
    I'd founded the first 100% broadband end-user ISP in America in the 1990s, and designed and built wide-area, metropolitan-area, and local-area networks for clients ranging from Fortune 500 firms to high security government installations, and enterprises of over 10,000 users in both the private and public sector, with project budgets in the multiple millions of dollars, working with partners like IBM, HP, and Lucent, among others.
    A "consultant" is, or at least is *supposed* to be, a subject matter expert, and no one, absolutely no one, who graduates from college and business school is an expert in anything, at all.

  • @criticalcookie2579
    @criticalcookie2579 Год назад +255

    Thank you for calling out this company. They were instrumental in the privatization of public schools in the US, charter schools.

    • @deliriumsd142
      @deliriumsd142 Год назад +1

      Fuck charter schools. They self select and don't do any better when you adjust for socioeconomic status.

    • @LKYme
      @LKYme Год назад +6

      Omg. Wow.

    • @kpepperl319
      @kpepperl319 Год назад +8

      This makes so much sense right now 🤦‍♀️

    • @christopherking6496
      @christopherking6496 Год назад +16

      REALLY?! Did they just have a checklist on the "what awful things can we get our fingers in?"

    • @fogel76
      @fogel76 Год назад +2

      The state legislatures decided they wanted to privatize and implement charter schools, McKinsey was simply hired to provide a justification for the decision the politicians already made and formulate a plan for carrying it out. So sure they played a part but it would have happened regardless once the politicians decided they wanted to do it.

  • @RamjeProductions
    @RamjeProductions Год назад +71

    I used to work for McKinsey. Everything that John says about McKinsey is true. I'll leave it at that, nothing to add here.

  • @Professicchio
    @Professicchio Год назад +156

    On top of all these things one needs to mention that Jeff Skilling, the guy who created Enron (possibly the biggest corporate scam in the history of mankind, for those too young to remember), was a McKinsey consultant of 21 years.

    • @LKYme
      @LKYme Год назад +8

      Wow. Reading these comments, it just goes deeper and deeper.

    • @CamJames
      @CamJames Год назад +8

      His picture was in the skit at the end.

    • @rustylee1836
      @rustylee1836 Год назад +6

      He created Enron? Wasn't he hired 5 years after the company was created by merging two companies worth over a billion each?
      He's definitely responsible for their illegal accounting practices etc, so perhaps you mean he created the scandal?

    • @felicitatumfortunae
      @felicitatumfortunae 22 дня назад

      The South Sea Company scam was much bigger.

  • @imgoldzful
    @imgoldzful Год назад +86

    every week i fear that john oliver will tell me "oops sweaty that thing you like actually sucks" but this week he was like "i am about to validate the hell out of you"

    • @nureinname4870
      @nureinname4870 5 месяцев назад

      And right next week they got into chocolate... Sorry honey :/

  • @ravibabu1441
    @ravibabu1441 Год назад +692

    Pediatric oxycontin is a group of words I never imagined being spoken in the same sentence, and yet McKinsey apparently advocated for them. Wildly irresponsible and deeply heinous.

    • @KurtisC93
      @KurtisC93 Год назад +22

      It is the most horrifying two-word phrase I've heard in a long, long time.

    • @JohnSmith-to5ow
      @JohnSmith-to5ow Год назад +21

      I started to get a bit teary during the Purdue segment. What a gut wrenchingly evil thing they did. For everything they do they are truly accelerating the downfall of society. Not surprised it started at the university of chicago.

    • @freyjathehealer5559
      @freyjathehealer5559 Год назад +2

      I understand it was probably during the time when to the general public it was marketed as a non-addictive opioid, so at least some people in the room probably thought it was harmless. But it’s still recklessly irresponsible and horrifying

    • @bosstowndynamics5488
      @bosstowndynamics5488 Год назад +17

      Oxycontin in and of itself is safe for use in adults and children when used correctly. The key issue is that correct use of oxycontin turned out to be extremely sparing and in very specific situations involving severe acute pain or cancer, rather than pretty much everyone everywhere like Purdue were claiming.

    • @arseniyonline1234555
      @arseniyonline1234555 Год назад +6

      Get em hooked while they are young = more profit later.

  • @Fug_azi
    @Fug_azi Год назад +433

    I was a visual analyst at McKinsey and company and was part of McKinsey Global services in India. We were the guys who made these powerpoints and i can say now how shitty they used to pay us eventhough they were this multi-billion dollars company, i can say the slide John showed is a legit one as McKinsey has their own powerpoint identity and i have worked on slides like those for years.

    • @wholequest
      @wholequest Год назад +10

      wait, associates and partners do not create their own slides or something??

    • @kylezo
      @kylezo Год назад

      woah. can't believe this co sells outsourced powerpoint presentations for so much money, capitalists truly are fucking idiots. i'm sorry you were exploited like that too, that fucking sucks.

    • @Snoozapalooza45
      @Snoozapalooza45 Год назад +66

      @@wholequestLMFAO partners spend their days wining and dining clients to make more money and making “pls fix” comments to the analysts until 3 am. they are definitely not the slide monkeys.

    • @konnichi1wa
      @konnichi1wa Год назад +19

      @@wholequest"important people" don't do silly grunt labor like their own powerpoints, that's what the 'help' is for

    • @nguyenraymond2339
      @nguyenraymond2339 Год назад +6

      they didn't put the knife on your throat when you sign the contract right? If you sign the contract by your own will, then what is your point here?

  • @guzmangonzalez8984
    @guzmangonzalez8984 Год назад +284

    I owe McKinsey and other consulting firms my good reputation in Corporate Operations since I was always called to sort out the mess they left behind after a multimillion consulting piece with zero or negative results.

    • @zsofiaagnesnagy5487
      @zsofiaagnesnagy5487 Год назад +15

      Fellow here, but with some firms. It is just heartbreaking sometimes to see the destruction left behind.

    • @guzmangonzalez8984
      @guzmangonzalez8984 Год назад +13

      There might potential for a business book on how to approach big4s messes left behind. 😂

    • @zsofiaagnesnagy5487
      @zsofiaagnesnagy5487 Год назад

      @@guzmangonzalez8984 good thought! As you came up with it, I can offer contribution and support. 😁

    • @annunacky4463
      @annunacky4463 10 месяцев назад

      Yes. Make a problem, solve a problem. Good business.

    • @SovietNyanCat
      @SovietNyanCat 9 месяцев назад

      If there's a way to talk offline I'd appreciate learning a few things from you, or work under you if you're in the same market.

  • @danielbyington5259
    @danielbyington5259 3 месяца назад +2

    I love John. Bringing shiz to light with great journalists is freaking important. Can’t be sheep.

  • @asrexproductions
    @asrexproductions Год назад +599

    I'm so glad John Oliver is able to magnify all this great work that PBS, NPR, Propublica and so on routinely do.

    • @clivejohnson5645
      @clivejohnson5645 Год назад +1

      You mean "did". These clips (e.g. 9:55) seem to be from the 90s.

    • @junemac7515
      @junemac7515 Год назад +10

      @@clivejohnson5645no they’re right. All those outlets do good journalism.

    • @clivejohnson5645
      @clivejohnson5645 Год назад +1

      @@junemac7515 - I believe you meant to say "No, they're right." "They all" is also redundant here. I believe you meant to say "They all do good journalism", or perhaps "All those outlets do good journalism."

    • @junemac7515
      @junemac7515 Год назад +8

      @@clivejohnson5645 what?

    • @traolach
      @traolach Год назад

      @@clivejohnson5645 Why are you being so insufferable about grammar bro. That person is right - those outlets indeed do great journalism and have covered these topics more recently than you apparently realize. I can't believe I've become "that" person on the internet but after reading your two comments I beg you to take the stick out of your ass

  • @이수영-i9r8k
    @이수영-i9r8k Год назад +506

    One of the most notorious and epic failure McKinsey made in South Korea was to tell LG Electronics to keep focusing on the feature phone market rather than smartphones facing with Apple launching iPhone. The repercussion was as many of you know, the firm, once the top 5 mobile phone maker had to pull itself out of the market once and all. The catch here in this story is that the consulting firm is still advising the manufacturer. Kudos to have such a loyal client!

    • @jonahvanassche2923
      @jonahvanassche2923 Год назад +48

      I guess Apple is also a client, so overall McKinsey wins.

    • @bbmania4274
      @bbmania4274 Год назад +31

      This totally gave me goosebumps. LG is a brilliant company bar in the phone sector and ended up folding their business. Didn't realize McK is behind the scene... geez.

    • @Volkbrecht
      @Volkbrecht Год назад +58

      Then again, if you need a consulting firm to advise you in your core business, maybe you deserve to fail. Some things you should be able to get right by yourself.

    • @howl5813
      @howl5813 Год назад +1

      Kinda arrogant of you an outside person to criticize them when you're absolutely nobody and don't know anything about it internally don't you think? There is a reason LG and Mckinsey are in bed to this day.

    • @DrunKao
      @DrunKao Год назад +7

      ​@@howl5813what's the reason?

  • @KJVB66
    @KJVB66 Год назад +346

    The saying about consulting "If you can't find a solution there is always money to be made in prolonging the problem." has never been more true...

    • @donnanchantal3405
      @donnanchantal3405 Год назад

      Can’t find a solution? 🤔 hmm, let’s get a consultation on why we can’t find a solution…and perhaps a consultant can come up with possible strategies on how to move in a differt direction right now while waiting on the findings about why they couldn’t previously find a solution, and they know that didn’t work so easentially, they’ll be back at square one; and the consultants will convincingly persuade them that further consults would ensure that they will come up with the best strategy for them next time! And when that finally works (or doesn’t…!), they have an array of services and consultants too …(you know…)

  • @power10producer
    @power10producer Год назад +25

    Brilliant piece. Katie Porter’s clip was the most damning. She’s a national treasure. Even ad agencies implement conflict of interest protocols!

  • @NEOGANE
    @NEOGANE Год назад +216

    We recently discovered in France that the government was paying 1 billion per year for McKinsey (and other counseling firms that are probably not much better). It was a "McKinseygate" as you would say in America (we call that "affairs" in France). It's exactly the budget needed for sexual and sexist violence prevention, but the right have other priorities.

    • @aaronb1195
      @aaronb1195 Год назад +7

      We know all about the Dreyfus Affairgate in the States.

    • @FoobKing
      @FoobKing Год назад +13

      Same in Belgium between McKinsey and the Postal Service. Postal service, which is 51% or something owned by government, granted McKinsey highly paid contracts without public tender offers which is illegal

    • @alexanderschmoldt2982
      @alexanderschmoldt2982 Год назад +4

      to be fair a french consulting firm cap gemini just work with the ministry of finance and used google maps and algorith to go through data of land contracts and building to collect properties tax for big pools, seconds houses and all other tax doging methods. bringing millions of dollars just outside of paris now rolling that out to all of france probably generating taxes dodged double digits billions in just 5 year

    • @JohnPellman
      @JohnPellman Год назад +1

      @@aaronb1195 Are you referring to the time Julia Louis-Dreyfus faked being blind to win court cases and then slept with Jason Bateman?

    • @stulora3172
      @stulora3172 Год назад +2

      Look up Ursula von der Leyen and McKinsey

  • @mary_puffin
    @mary_puffin Год назад +142

    Worked there. Worst decision I ever made. But yet when I was leaving, so many companies were bending over backwards to have me. Which I actually found disappointing and sad.

    • @Hundredthldiot
      @Hundredthldiot Год назад +25

      It's a simple heuristic to cut recruitment effort. They assume that McKinsey has done all the hard work to identify talent, so they can piggy back on that effort. "If she was good enough for McKinsey...". That's what I'm going to believe because the alternative is too depressing.

    • @perrinerichard3488
      @perrinerichard3488 Год назад

      @@HundredthldiotIt is also a question on heavy workload. The next employer know that if a person has done 2+ years at Mc Kinsey, they are able to take on crazy hours + pression from client. You can be bad for the society but great to make money and invested worker.

    • @everythingmatters6308
      @everythingmatters6308 7 месяцев назад +1

      Good for you for getting out. 👏

    • @cateyu5547
      @cateyu5547 6 дней назад

      They love McKinsey for their strategy, on how to make more $$$ and every company definitely wants to make more $$$

  • @michaelmclaughlin6542
    @michaelmclaughlin6542 Год назад +70

    Pieces like this are why this show is so good and necessary. Groups like McKinsey dearly need to be exposed. But nobody but John Oliver is interested in doing it in a manner in which a large number of people will see it. Kudos.

    • @MrFrussel
      @MrFrussel Год назад

      Look up Mariana Mazzucato and her work on the consulting industry. There has been a academic case building against the exploitative practices of consultancy firms. So this has been ongoing, however, it is really good that John has finally paid some much-needed attention to it.

  • @seanhunter111
    @seanhunter111 Год назад +44

    One place I worked they brought in McKinsey (at great expense) for several "workstreams". I was in charge of one of these from our pov. We were supposed to be having a week of "workshops" with them. The first meeting a partner and a bunch of bag-carrying flunkies came in and said they wanted to "listen to me", so I told them a bunch of stuff and they spent the entire meeting repeating back what I had said and stroking my ego. At the end of the meeting I said "OK now tomorrow you guys better bring something to the meeting and not just have what I told you put on a bunch of slides". They cancelled the rest of the workshops and said they wanted to "focus on areas where they could add more value". Super clear they knew I had their number and they would instead zero in on people they could bilk more easily.
    Also: later in that exercise we were on a late night zoom meeting with like 10 of the top partners in finance in McKinsey and one of the associates on the meeting didn't realise his camera was on. While we were presenting he got up, went to have a shower and came out of the shower naked. In front of his client and all of his bosses bossess bossess.

    • @andrewiwm9980
      @andrewiwm9980 Год назад +3

      Their parents and partners are all proud of them tho, that’s what counts, long as they bring home the bacon, it doesn’t matter what bs they do at work

  • @atomichobbit7358
    @atomichobbit7358 Год назад +382

    I love that they put Jeff Skilling on the wall of fame. For those who don’t know he was a McKinsey consultant who took over Enron. McKinsey did a lot to shape his outlook on business and he imported the McKinsey culture to Enron which turned the company into an arrogant and wasteful mess. He also was a key player in the Enron scandal and only recently got out of prison.

    • @vikingmetalhead024
      @vikingmetalhead024 Год назад +17

      About halfway through the segment I was sure John would connect McKinsey to Enron. I didn’t know there was a connection but it seemed only natural that there would be one. Glad to learn I was right.

    • @aliceputt3133
      @aliceputt3133 Год назад +5

      Ten to one Skillings will be back at Texas Energy soon.

    • @le_parsdon
      @le_parsdon Год назад

      Yes, blame someone who simply used to work at McKinsey to somehow make McKinsey responsible or all the fraud that happened at Enron. I guess McKinsey will also be responsible for crucifying Jesus and the Civil War.

    • @ChadVanHalen5150
      @ChadVanHalen5150 Год назад +5

      A new exec at the company I work for had their "introduction" meeting and in the presentation they said they got their start at Enron, which I thought was funny, but we all work for scummy people, can't really blame them for working there right out of school. Then the next slide they were like "After Enron I moved to McKinsey..." and immediate red flags started popping...
      What next, you left McKinsey for Raytheon? Are you purposely trying to find the worst people to work for?

    • @James100707
      @James100707 Год назад +1

      He took out McKinsey's biggest competitor Arthur Andersen with Enron. In the end he was a successful product.

  • @hansklostermann117
    @hansklostermann117 Год назад +77

    Magnificent episode. As a business graduate who has long resisted the trend of joining a consultant company, this resonates with my soul. I have witnessed many friends and peers chase a nice paycheck and go down the consultant path and they all seem to deny truth or look for excuses. Almost as if they’re brainwashed.

    • @bluester7177
      @bluester7177 Год назад +18

      It's a coping mechanism, nobody likes to think of themselves as bad people, even when they are doing or aiding objectively evil things.

    • @adde9506
      @adde9506 Год назад +6

      Start a consulting firm where you charge significantly less that the "big guys" but plenty for yourself and then just go ask the lowest paid employees what is wrong and how to fix it. Most companies are full of their own solutions, they just simply aren't willing to listen to the peons at the bottom. You'll make millions collating other people's ideas into powerpoints and those people will thank you for it.

    • @vio1583
      @vio1583 Год назад +1

      Too bad you didn't get in right?

    • @hansklostermann117
      @hansklostermann117 Год назад

      I never applied, my randomly toxic internet-friend@@vio1583 for the reasons I stated

  • @lamplighter5545
    @lamplighter5545 Год назад +162

    I retired from a major hospital system's IT department about 2 years ago, after 25 years. Shortly after I retired, they brought in McKinsey to review IT's operations and make recommendations. They recommended outsourcing. I can tell you from experience that outsourcing will only make their problems worse. The basic issue the department (and the hospital) has is too much bureaucracy. Outsourcing only adds another layer.

    • @OlYables
      @OlYables Год назад +10

      Shocking that the outsourced IT consulting firm recommends MORE outsourcing as a solution.

    • @kpepperl319
      @kpepperl319 Год назад +8

      Outsourcing medical IT when it is broken in the first place is insane. I have worked as a hospital nurse for a few years... and electronic medical records are a mess, all these programs are complicated and they did nothing at the same time. The only reason EPIC is more common these days is because it's not the worst of all of the systems.

    • @Jan-se1nd
      @Jan-se1nd Год назад +3

      And typically glosses over the tacit knowledge that is often the glue that binds organisations together.

    • @noanyobiseniss7462
      @noanyobiseniss7462 Год назад +1

      Yes but what they really want and wont say out loud is another insulating layer to hide behind.

    • @jbird4478
      @jbird4478 Год назад +2

      @@kpepperl319 It's not outsourcing itself that is the problem, but who you outsource to. If it is to a company specialized in software for hospitals, it could work out great. Unfortunately outsourcing most often goes to these large generic companies that in turn outsource 80% of the work to code monkeys in India. Medical data is highly specialized, with very high security and reliability requirements. It does not make a lot of sense for each hospital to handle that on their own.

  • @Wattywatasaurus
    @Wattywatasaurus 11 месяцев назад +11

    I strongly recommend reading When McKinsey Comes to Town. It’s an incredible book.

  • @DelorianTracking
    @DelorianTracking Год назад +72

    Fun fact: German Railway was once known for its punctuality & reliability. Enter McKinsey: Its lack of punctuality & reliability turned into a runnibg joke for the last quarter century.

    • @IIIJG52
      @IIIJG52 Год назад

      That was McKinsey ? No way... They are more than incompetent enough at certain levels to make that happen on their own these days

    • @samuela-aegisdottir
      @samuela-aegisdottir Год назад +1

      I had always thought that German Railway must be punctual and reliable until some German friends told me it isn't. I did not understand why, but this would explain a lot.

    • @piotrd.4850
      @piotrd.4850 День назад

      @@samuela-aegisdottir It was privatised, didn't care about infrastructure, gov bought it back and now there's maintenance work being done everywhere AT ONCE.

  • @TheSurgeIsHere
    @TheSurgeIsHere Год назад +246

    As a consultant, this is 100% true. The value a good management consultant has is showing a business something so glaringly obvious that needs to be changed/fixed, but having a third well respected party being the one delivering that message. Guaranteed at least one of the employees of that company had the exact same idea top help the business, but was dismissed.

    • @peterjj416
      @peterjj416 Год назад +29

      So in other words, a "good management consultant" preys on businesses with culture problems and out of self-interest, does not solve them. Yeah, that checks out.

    • @TheSurgeIsHere
      @TheSurgeIsHere Год назад +9

      @@peterjj416 lol no I didn’t say that. They aren’t “preying” on a business if they fix an actual issue. I am saying that sometimes a business needs a 3rd party consultant to notice an issue. A good example would be in the movie “the founder” where ray Crock gets advice to change his franchise model to lead to extraordinary growth.

    • @fractal_sight9730
      @fractal_sight9730 Год назад +11

      As someone who just accepted a job at a consulting firm because I haven’t been listened to by management at my current job… yep

    • @felicitousfeline9956
      @felicitousfeline9956 Год назад +8

      Like kids who won’t listen to parents but if someone else says the same thing, then it’s great.

    • @freesiaoriental
      @freesiaoriental Год назад +5

      They pay the consultants so much, they just HAVE to listen to their misguided advice
      Listen to a fresh grad with great Powerpoint skills over your own loyal employee with 30+ years of experience

  • @AnonymousUser_1111
    @AnonymousUser_1111 Год назад +120

    I can't believe John did a show on my career. There are only a few consultant groups remaining, as most went in-house and are now called Organizational Development Consultants. It was much more cost effective for the large companies. If anyone is interested, there is an excellent show with Don Cheadle called House of Lies, that details this topic. All episodes are based on true events, and loosely on the career of Marin Kahin,, the charter played by Cheadle, and undisputed King of consulting. There is so much more to this topic. DOD contacts, the sub-prime housing debacle...better than any fiction. Excellent work John!

    • @dietotaku
      @dietotaku Год назад

      i can't believe you publicly admitted your career is capitalist bullshitter.

    • @CamJames
      @CamJames Год назад +2

      that show is awesome.

    • @Emanon...
      @Emanon... Год назад +2

      "House of Lies"
      Not exactly a glowing recommendation about your line of work is it?

  • @runslowtorunfast6528
    @runslowtorunfast6528 7 месяцев назад +10

    As a Cornell graduate, I really appreciated the...even Cornell LOL

  • @cbfarber5064
    @cbfarber5064 Год назад +588

    John Oliver is a national treasure!

    • @JohnnyDelco
      @JohnnyDelco Год назад +1

      Bhaaaaaa 😂

    • @noahjohnson3370
      @noahjohnson3370 Год назад +25

      *International Treasure (Thanks Britain!)

    • @eioneyerity4984
      @eioneyerity4984 Год назад +9

      **International treasure

    • @AquaSkywalker
      @AquaSkywalker Год назад +9

      Universal treasure

    • @Pan_Fryer
      @Pan_Fryer Год назад +2

      a force for systemic good. This mentality is rife through all executive boards. you can tell by their compensation.

  • @klutterkicker
    @klutterkicker Год назад +165

    Round of applause for the "It's me at the top" guy, that is acting worth all the money signs.

    • @etiennelemieux472
      @etiennelemieux472 Год назад +12

      I found him so convincing in just one line !

    • @dietotaku
      @dietotaku Год назад

      think we could convince him to accept paper cutouts of money signs as his salary instead of real dollars? "look at all the money signs you're getting for all your hard work! you have the most money signs!"

  • @perfectomprg
    @perfectomprg Год назад +140

    The sole purpose of these management consultant companies is to outsource blame for bad management decisions

    • @thexalon
      @thexalon Год назад +5

      They also sometimes are hired to help executives win internal political battles with other executives, as in "See, I'm right, this external company says so".

    • @KayMags-in4xp
      @KayMags-in4xp 5 месяцев назад

      Exactly!

  • @billthecat129
    @billthecat129 Год назад +36

    I worked for a global energy company and when they told us they were bringing in McKinsey...we all knew it meant lay offs

  • @bAtACt1X
    @bAtACt1X Год назад +179

    German government used McKinsey's service alarmingly often. For example they researched the reasons for unemployment once and found out basically that many people don't have an employer. We payed millions for this information and our leaders decided to employ McKinsey more often.

    • @bibliotheca27
      @bibliotheca27 Год назад +23

      Unemployed people aren’t employed 😱!! 😂 Who would have thought!

    • @dietotaku
      @dietotaku Год назад +13

      do i have to have some kind of documentation to prove i work for mckinsey or can i just go around billing governments millions of dollars to tell them shit like "the reason people are claiming food stamp benefits is because they lack money to buy food" or "the projected size of the workforce in 20 years is directly proportional to the number of babies being born today"?

    • @ross302ci
      @ross302ci Год назад +13

      I'm skeptical. Could lack of employer really be a determinant of unemployment or is this simply an unexplained correlation? Maybe we could hire Bain and for a second opinion just to be sure. I've got a buddy there who could take the account.

    • @steemlenn8797
      @steemlenn8797 Год назад +5

      @@ross302ci You could never be a McKinsey. A McKinsey would not ask to hire Bain. They would just do it.

    • @bAtACt1X
      @bAtACt1X Год назад +4

      @@dietotaku no need for documentation, because our politicians mostly value the opinions of people they already know and get favor from. So you need to be lobyist with some kind of reputation. Highest league of them have their own acces-cards to Bundestag and other structures of government and know the names of the security (ok... the securitything I only assume)

  • @msmollflanders
    @msmollflanders Год назад +614

    No one is as insufferable as a McKinsey consultant. Nailed it. He should also mention they get paid so much - for their souls basically.

    • @communitygardener17
      @communitygardener17 Год назад +11

      The new consultants are bright kids who got MBA's from Ivies for which they took out massive student loans.

    • @littleloner1159
      @littleloner1159 Год назад +25

      The one I know is the most pleasant stuck up person I've ever met. He's fun, but you can tell he has spent the majority of his life studying like a mad man to get into McKinsey and when working there he sometimes would go on the treadmill at 3am to at least move a little WHILE WORKING
      People who get a company car but still are picked up by a company driver so they can start working while traveling to the office... Well they are either workaholics and/or just before a massive burnout.
      The work culture in there can be and often is absolute insanity.

    • @valkor606
      @valkor606 Год назад +3

      @@communitygardener17 an MBA is basically a paid for degree

    • @jedinxf7
      @jedinxf7 Год назад +10

      ​@@valkor606I don't know where you got that impression. a Wharton or Harvard business school MBA (or one of the other small number of schools you need to attend to have them glance at your resume if your last name isn't Vanderbilt or Rockefeller) is extremely expensive. it pays for itself with the job you can expect, but that's on the back end. on the front end, it's a six figure student loan.

    • @cadet526
      @cadet526 Год назад

      Oliver Weyman is up there too

  • @nickpatrick6427
    @nickpatrick6427 Год назад +151

    Global consulting firm McKinsey works all over the world, but in South Africa, it faces criminal charges for corruption. The case centres on its role in the country's biggest post-apartheid scandal, known as state capture.

    • @apocalypse487
      @apocalypse487 Год назад +7

      He should do a second video on that

    • @thewaldfe9763
      @thewaldfe9763 Год назад +2

      Shouldn't it be a red flag if a company faces corruption charges in South Africa of all places? Just that would probably be reason enough to put the whole company out of business.

    • @georgecurrie4808
      @georgecurrie4808 Год назад

      @@thewaldfe9763 2012 McKinsey's global CEO was convicted and jailed in the US for insider trading. 10 years later another US partner convicted and jailed for the same thing. Neither of those incidents seems to have dented its reach and influence, so why would you think that corruption way out of the public scrutiny would?

    • @cateyu5547
      @cateyu5547 6 дней назад

      @@georgecurrie4808and still people idolize McKinsey what is wrong with the world

  • @DryadsBounty
    @DryadsBounty 8 месяцев назад +4

    THAT McKinsey ad was bloody hysterical! Had to watch it a couplde times to appreciate the nuance!🤣🤣

  • @obiigwe8349
    @obiigwe8349 Год назад +81

    Worked for Bain for six years and this segment is accurate. My main gripe with these firms is the massive chasm between the rhetoric they propagate about themselves and the reality of what they do.

    • @zumabbar
      @zumabbar Год назад +1

      "for six years"

    • @Bill_Garthright
      @Bill_Garthright Год назад

      _"My main gripe with these firms is the massive chasm between the rhetoric they propagate about themselves and the reality of what they do."_
      That tends to be my main gripe about _every_ company. Heh, heh. But seriously, their hypocrisy really gets to me.

    • @zumabbar
      @zumabbar Год назад

      @@Stossburg that's plenty of time to stare at the abyss in the chasm

  • @claymadness
    @claymadness Год назад +344

    As someone who works in the public sector, it's absolutely appalling to see the work that McKinsey, BCG and Bain (or MBB as the douchey MBA lot love to say) have undertaken globally with BS powerpoints using rehashed scholarly analysis being pretty much the only output. The day governments chose to outsource their work to "management consultants", the taxpayer was fucked and had little knowledge about it. It's both governments and these terrible organisations to blame, the latter only exists because there's a demand for justifying massive cost-cutting and layoffs. Gagworthy organisations. Great communicators but all snakeoil salesmen are.
    Edit: I’m not even in the US or Europe, clearly this is a global problem. Hopefully this is something most folks can agree on except the ones at the top of the imaginary ladder.

    • @JOHN----DOE
      @JOHN----DOE Год назад

      Not just government. Higher ed turned to these people rather than their own members (i.e. faculty) and have wrecked education by turning it into customer satisfaction rather than education. Yet another short-term gain strategy guaranteed to destroy basic institutions and cultural quality.

    • @NapFloridian
      @NapFloridian Год назад

      Amen to that... but then again,every corporation exploits loopholes and deals BS and uses snakeoil strategies for ever (specially after WW2)

    • @paulpelham906
      @paulpelham906 Год назад +7

      Thanks to all those public servant/public sector employees who decided to do something other than being a corporate shill

    • @nicolejones4707
      @nicolejones4707 Год назад +16

      Public employee here and I can confirm that when leadership decides to use consultants instead of listening to the base-level employees who've been doing this for decades, it leads to horrific changes, discontent, and major staff turnover leading to even more deficiencies. Not to mention rapidly changing policies that are difficult to keep up with and NO public transparency.

    • @Ind_u.
      @Ind_u. Год назад +2

      Very true.

  • @beccatorres
    @beccatorres Год назад +352

    For a company whose policy is to hide in the shadows, this is their worse nightmare.

  • @--enyo--
    @--enyo-- Год назад +12

    Australia has a huge problem with consultancy firms and government. Especially during the Coalition government term they essentially supercharged getting rid of the public service department and using massively overpaid consultants instead. And of course there were conflict of interest scandals that came out of it. Not least a merry-go-round of ex-government getting jobs in the consultant firms and consultants getting jobs in government. Couple that with our famously opaque lobbying laws and it’s been a disaster.