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A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

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Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#191

Post by notahacker »

jdietrich wrote: post #125

Michael O'Leary being incredibly rude is a key part of Ryanair's branding. If you're paying £19 for a two hour flight, you'll always have the sneaking suspicion that the airline is skimping on maintenance. O'Leary makes it absolutely clear that they save money by treating their passengers like cattle. He carefully cultivates the image of a man who utterly despises his own customers, but is far too miserly to allow an…

More straightforwardly, the reputation for being massive cheapskates gets its target market of people who don't care about airlines at all and just want a good deal knowing who they are and going straight to Ryanair.com to buy tickets when they need to fly.

Which means that (i) they'll lookup the price and be upsold a package on Ryanair.com rather than finding the price and a different hotel deal on some other price comparison site and (ii) they'll still buy tickets from Ryanair.com at non-promotional rates when they're actually not the cheapest airline offering a viable route and time. And of course (iii) he can fill his flights without sharing revenues with online travel agents and other affiliates, though other low cost airlines without the reputation for taking things to extreme lengths manage that.

Although part of it's probably just his style. Not sure there was any strategy to his comments that "I don't care if no-one likes me. I'm not a cloud bunny or an aerosexual. I don't like aeroplanes. I never wanted to be a pilot like those other platoons of goons who populate the airline industry..."

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#192

Post by dennisgorelik »

cmauniada wrote: post #29
mjw1007 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He'd made the same jokes in speeches several times before, and it had gone down well with the audience. Presumably he just didn't consider the possibility that the press would think it worth making a story out of.

I don't get it. So he made these jokes infront of shareholders just for kicks? Why would someone even say this infront of anyone, I don't understand. I am starting to think he might have been under the influence.

It is a delicate balance between open conversations (that allow to build and maintain a clear internal mental model) vs propaganda (in order to improve public perception).

Gerald Ratner made a wrong tradeoff in one case [too much openness and honesty for the audience that does NOT appreciate openness and honesty enough].

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#193

Post by hinkley »

I don't really have a particular desire to be the public face of any organization (although, having joined some pretty small groups lately, the odds of this happening have increased from 0 to >0), but a lot of the other examples in this article reinforce for me the advice about phrasing your criticisms constructively or as a value statement.

It's harder for someone to blow them out of proportion or context when they are phrased that way, although people can still play the hypocrisy card.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#194

Post by ArnoVW »

dantheman wrote: post #172
isostatic wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such cheap flights are possible because the airlines aren’t paying the externalities they cause. Ryanair don’t fly to London btw. Or Brussels.

What externalities are they not paying for that other airlines are? Or is this a complain against all airlines?

Well, the issues I'm aware of: Ryanair pay their staff poorly. And that is not cheap enough, so they also employ them under employment law from "cheap countries", to try and circumvent income taxes and other charges of the local countries they service.

Ryanair demand subsidies from local governments to fly to far-flung airports. They can hold these governments hostage, as often the airports fail if they stop their service. Of course, this could be seen as simply "bad management" by our local governments.

And to finish, though this is something that applies to all airlines : no VAT or "eco" tax, that the rest of us have to pay.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#195

Post by isostatic »

georgiecasey wrote: post #189
isostatic wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such cheap flights are possible because the airlines aren’t paying the externalities they cause. Ryanair don’t fly to London btw. Or Brussels.

if you're saying stansted and gatwick aren't really in london, then neither is heathrow. it's a small list of airlines that fly to/from london city airport

Heathrow is in the London borough of Hillingdon, in TFL zone 6 on the underground, and served by London buses 24/7

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#196

Post by dennisgorelik »

dboreham wrote: post #120
cmauniada wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. So he made these jokes infront of shareholders just for kicks? Why would someone even say this infront of anyone, I don't understand. I am starting to think he might have been under the influence.

Shareholders and customers are basically on the opposite sides of a trade. All public companies have this problem to some degree: they want to tell their shareholders "we figured out how to offload stuff that we buy cheap onto unsuspecting customers, thereby making more profit for you". Meanwhile they want to tell their customers "look how wonderful and high quality our products are". These days this problem is solve…

It is an excellent point about "code-speak" as a tool to be open with experts without pissing off clueless customers.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#197

Post by celticmusic »

natvod wrote: post #98
celticmusic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that she kept the clothing with the semen, which speaks about planning and cunning. People talk about the power imbalance, but at the end of the day there are a lot of people who sleep with their superiors because they want to rather than being coerced (explicitly or implicitly). I don't think we'll ever truly know if she was coerced or not, but we know for sure that she kept that clothing. And I…

Actually, Monica only realized what the stain on the dress was several months after and it was her friend Linda Tripp who encouraged her to keep the dress: https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/13/monica-lewinsky-shares-x-rate...

That may be the reality, but I don't believe that was the narrative then, or common knowledge now. Certainly I wasn't aware of that, although I'm also not too particularly invested in it so don't follow things that closely.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#198

Post by kraftman »

cmauniada wrote: post #29
mjw1007 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He'd made the same jokes in speeches several times before, and it had gone down well with the audience. Presumably he just didn't consider the possibility that the press would think it worth making a story out of.

I don't get it. So he made these jokes infront of shareholders just for kicks? Why would someone even say this infront of anyone, I don't understand. I am starting to think he might have been under the influence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xs6MTwMTbo he explains the joke here.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#199

Post by refurb »

ArnoVW wrote: post #194
dantheman wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What externalities are they not paying for that other airlines are? Or is this a complain against all airlines?

Well, the issues I'm aware of: Ryanair pay their staff poorly. And that is not cheap enough, so they also employ them under employment law from "cheap countries", to try and circumvent income taxes and other charges of the local countries they service. Ryanair demand subsidies from local governments to fly to far-flung airports. They can hold these governments hostage, as often the airports fail if they stop their se…

People seem to be using the economic word “externalities” as “things I don’t like”.

Re: A man who destroyed his multimillion dollar company in 10 seconds (2018)

#200

Post by isostatic »

avip wrote: post #186
dantheman wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What externalities are they not paying for that other airlines are? Or is this a complain against all airlines?

He’s provably referring to ghg emissions, and sure no one pays that (it’s also not something we can conceivably pay for)

Quite possible for Europe to charge landing fees based on ghg emissions for all planes arriving/departing.
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