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McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

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Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#231

Post by immibis »

grues-dinner wrote: post #201
fakedang wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lot of ppl on the left mad at billionaires too Seems the left were always in favor of Luigi. I'm more surprised by the right in the US. The days just after the shooting, they were all in favor too, but after their media pundits took an opposing stance, they joined the bandwagon and are now ranting about "muh poor CEO". Bunch of sheep I suppose.

The period when people have their own reactions, followed by a sudden reset and synchronisation once the taking points get assembled and is really quite fascinating. I would really love to know how centralised the process of defining talking points is, or if it is, itself, emergent behaviour of a distributed system resulting in coherent outcomes.

I think this is the first time I've seen the process of delivering right-wing talking points fail. Right wing media is talking about how bad it is to kill someone, but right wing followers are pushing back and saying they have no sympathy.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#232

Post by jncfhnb »

bmitc wrote: post #157
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost certainly almost all fees charged to clients for consulting projects. Let's assume 2,000 working hours per year, 80% utilization at $150/hr, and 40,000 employees (worldwide) — that's $9.6B.

What companies use consultants and how? In all my years, I have never seen a consultant or a need for one, so I have a tough time understanding how they make any money, much less a lot of it.

Basically every single large organization inevitably becomes paralyzed by the inability to do anything different from the status quo. When you hear the common complaint that “consultants just tell leadership to do what I was telling them to do for decades” that’s often accurate; because consultants listen to you and have the executive mandate to actually get things done. If you’ve been saying something for ten years and it hasn’t happened, you _need_ a different tool to effect change. Consultants, for better or for worse, are a decent tool for making that happen.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#233

Post by jfengel »

jncfhnb wrote: post #227
rightbyte wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McKinsey is sweatshop but with good pay. The work conditions are atrocious and they grind through naive young people like Verdun. Some people have argued on HN that the consultants are cya and political support for things the management class allready know they want. That seem about right.

It varies tremendously. Imo the people who have sweatshop experiences bring it upon themselves mostly.

I've always been unclear on this. Various careers are famed for extremely long hours, but I don't know just what it is they do for all that time. Consultants, financeers, etc.

I know that I have only so much brain power to spend a day. I can work longer, but at best you're going to get more grind, not quality.

I keep wondering if these consultants could accomplish as much in fewer hours if they weren't so intent on being the one who puts in so many hours.

I know almost nothing about what they do so I'm just guessing. But I find it hard to square so much effort with results that don't seem to merit it.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#234

Post by jncfhnb »

sitkack wrote: post #36
mulmen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporate laptops are backed up, with backups offsite. I find it hard to believe that the only copy was on his laptop. Not defending anyone and maybe McKinsey is different but I have never had a corporate laptop with built-in backup. I am always left to figure that out on my own.

From what I can tell, it looks like they used Box to store the most incriminating stuff. https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/wp-content/uploads/20... Specifically https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/opioids/docs/#id=skbm... In an email from: Jeff Smith to: Amir Golan cc: Arnab Ghatak > Amir - going forward it's absolutely essential for the team to only use Box for distribution of documents and all documents hav…

We use Box to store and share virtually everything, not because it is incriminating, but because sending email attachments is not a secure way to send sensitive data.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#235

Post by ProjectArcturis »

rightbyte wrote: post #191
remarkEon wrote: post #152

A little unrelated to this whole thing, which does hit me a bit personally since my cousin back in Iowa died of opioid-related dependency issues, but I have interviewed a lot of consultants over the years for various roles and they are without question the most consistently bad interviews. It's funny, when I was in business school years ago (please forgive me) getting a job at McKinsey or BCG was more or less the crè…

McKinsey is sweatshop but with good pay. The work conditions are atrocious and they grind through naive young people like Verdun. Some people have argued on HN that the consultants are cya and political support for things the management class allready know they want. That seem about right.

"Painting bullseyes around bullet holes" is the unofficial consultant motto.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#236

Post by jncfhnb »

jfengel wrote: post #233
jncfhnb wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies tremendously. Imo the people who have sweatshop experiences bring it upon themselves mostly.

I've always been unclear on this. Various careers are famed for extremely long hours, but I don't know just what it is they do for all that time. Consultants, financeers, etc. I know that I have only so much brain power to spend a day. I can work longer, but at best you're going to get more grind, not quality. I keep wondering if these consultants could accomplish as much in fewer hours if they weren't so intent on b…

I am a McKinsey consultant, and I tend to think the people putting in those insane hours are shooting themselves in the foot.

It is easier to work longer hours when a hotel takes care of everything for you, but if you’re bragging about how little sleep you get you’re just teetering on the edge of burnout and American Psycho neuroticism.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#237

Post by Retric »

bdangubic wrote: post #188
Dylan16807 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they're just an employer to you. They're not acting as rule-maker. It's very different from a legal requirement that applies to all jobs.

this would be true… if you lived in fucking china or north korea and someone controller “all jobs”

You have that relationship reversed.

If you work for the FBI you can quit at any time and work for a different companies with different rules. You can’t work for a company that gets to ignore minimum wage laws.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#238

Post by jkolio »

toyg wrote: post #162
oefrha wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather live a long, happy and productive life dependent on cheap, legal opioids That’s BS. OxyContin addicts tend to experience withdrawal symptoms before the recommended 12 hours is up, they also develop tolerance, so they end up requiring larger and larger dosage with increasing frequency. You’re not going to sustainably live a long, happy and productive life even if you have a cheap, steady, relatively clean sup…

Isn't that the same for coffee, though?

It is. The coffee supply chain and economic exploitation of caffeine dependency are considered locked-down enough to tolerate, though (as with alcohol). The problem with many illegal drugs isn't their physiological effects so much as it is who benefits economically from sales, sitting somewhere between "national security threat" and "big pharma not being able to take their cut".

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#239

Post by 1123581321 »

bmitc wrote: post #157
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost certainly almost all fees charged to clients for consulting projects. Let's assume 2,000 working hours per year, 80% utilization at $150/hr, and 40,000 employees (worldwide) — that's $9.6B.

What companies use consultants and how? In all my years, I have never seen a consultant or a need for one, so I have a tough time understanding how they make any money, much less a lot of it.

Haven’t you ever wanted research, advice or work done and your coworkers or employees were busy or not quite up to it? White glove consulting is just well-packaged, expensive help.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#240

Post by bdangubic »

Retric wrote: post #237
bdangubic wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this would be true… if you lived in fucking china or north korea and someone controller “all jobs”

You have that relationship reversed. If you work for the FBI you can quit at any time and work for a different companies with different rules. You can’t work for a company that gets to ignore minimum wage laws.

this all makes sense of course, I am not forced to stay at the FBI. however, I just might:

- love what I do and love the team I am on a my mission.

- have a career at fbi, not a “job” I am willing to change like underwear

- be gs-15 few years away from retirement/pension/…

you can technically say this is a “free” country and all that but it is just semantics

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