10x14 - McKinsey & Company

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!

I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us.

It has been a busy week.

Sidney Powell pled guilty in the 2020

election interference case in Georgia,

Joe Biden flew to Israel to offer his

support amid the ongoing hostage crisis

and in Gaza,

conditions are horrendous,

following brutal airstrikes,

and a blockade of food, fuel, and water

which some commentators

seem way too comfortable with.

Just listen to this exchange

between a retired senior m*llitary

official and an anchor on CNN.

I think what they need to do

is encircle it,

they need to continue

to apply the pressure of the brigade

of this blockade

that they've established.

The people are gonna suffer,

but they're gonna come up on the net

and they're gonna say

"Look, get us out of here".

But does that mean

starve the Palestinian people?

Because they will be so hungry,

and will be so desperate for water,

and medicine,

that then they will give up Hamas?

It sounds callous,

but I mean, this is a w*r.

What?!

It is a w*r, but what you're describing

is a w*r crime,

and one thing

does not justify the other.

Also, just spare a thought

for that anchor there,

who probably

didn't get up that morning

thinking he'd have to gently explain

you can't starve people

to a former U.S. m*llitary official.

But we're going to focus

on Washington this week,

where Republicans still haven't

managed to elect a new speaker.

Jim Jordan went through 3 votes,

enjoyably, losing more each time.

And was photographed

coming out of a closed-door meeting

with a handwritten note reading

"What is the real reason?"

Which looks less

like a bid to be speaker

and more like an early draft

of a su1c1de note.

This is a humiliating situation

for Republicans,

although one member did his best

to spin the chaos as a positive.

Our Democratic colleagues

will not work with us

on a single thing to secure the border,

You're the ones who can't

get behind a candidate here.

We are laying this all out

in public view,

and the American people can see it,

it is the sausage getting made,

it's the worst system

except for all the others.

You think this looks good?

It definitely does not look good.

And do not claim that you're laying

this mess out in public

to be transparent

about how the sausage is made.

It's getting laid out because you're

incapable of making a sausage at all.

When people go to the grocery store,

they expect Oscar Meyer wieners,

not Oscar Meyer "a pig anus

and other assorted animal parts".

Republicans aren't alone in dealing

with some public embarrassment.

Democratic New Jersey

Senator Bob Menendez

is facing federal charges

for allegedly accepting bribes

to help, among others,

the Egyptian government,

in forms including gold bars

and stacks of cash.

And the story

just keeps developing.

Bob Menendez

is facing new charges,

accusing the New Jersey Democrat of

plotting with his wife and an associate

to make the senator

an agent of Egypt

while he was chairman

of the Foreign Relations Committee.

The new indictment

showing Menendez and his wife

hosting one Egyptian

official in his Senate office

and dining with another

at a Washington, D.C. steakhouse.

At that dinner,

Nadine Menendez allegedly asking

"What else can the love of my life

do for you?"

I do not like that at all.

That sounds less

like a request for bribes

and more like a couple

in an open relationship,

coming on a little too strong to you

at a bar.

"What else can the love of my life do

for you this evening?"

Absolutely nothing!

Leave me alone.

And the weird details

don't stop there.

Federal prosecutors

say Senator Menendez

lifted a block on U.S. m*llitary

aid to Egypt, texting his wife

"Tell Will I am going to sign off

this sale to Egypt today,

10,000 Rounds t*nk amm*nit*on".

That sounds fine.

Just some normal couple stuff there.

Texting about thousands

of rounds of t*nk amm*nit*on.

According to the indictment, that text

got forwarded to Egyptian officials,

one of whom replied simply

with a thumbs-up emoji.

And come on!

You're confirming the receipt

of t*nk amm*nit*on with a thumbs up?

Have some panache!

Where's the "dollar, handshake" or the

"money bag, b*mb, champagne, shh",

or the flying money and the truck,

making the other guy go,

"What's the truck for?"

Only to get the response,

"They don't have tanks,

that was the biggest truck,"

getting the reply,

"Okay, got it. Cool."

And then, and only then,

is the thumbs-up emoji appropriate.

Menendez, along with everyone

else charged in this case,

has denied wrongdoing,

and said this week,

"Nothing has changed in this indictment

except the new charge".

Though that new charge

is a pretty gigantic one.

And it's not a great sign

that Politico ran the actual headline

"Is it legal for a senator

to work as a foreign agent?

The answer won't surprise you."

And if you're noticing

that Menendez's wife, Nadine,

is featuring a lot in this story,

it's because she's been charged, too.

According to the indictment,

some of the items of value that

Menendez received were for her benefit.

It mentions that, at one point,

she totaled her car

something that happened, incidentally,

when she hit and k*lled a man in 2018,

which I don't even have time to get

into right now, Google that yourselves.

And the indictment

alleges that this businessman

helped her pay

for this new $60,000 Mercedes

in exchange

for favors from Menendez.

And when the new car turned up,

Nadine did seem very happy.

Prosecutors say that after

Nadine Menendez got the new car,

she texted the senator, quote,

"Congratulations mon amour de la vie,

we are the proud owners

of a 2019 Mercedes",

along with a heart emoji.

Say what you want

about Nadine Menendez,

and that pedestrian

that she ran over certainly can't,

but she loves that car.

And, by the way,

not a great look for Mercedes there.

Are the Menedezes

the worst political figures

that Mercedes, as a brand,

has ever been associated with?

No, that would probably be

this guy.

Although, it's not like Mercedes

is the car of choice for Nazis anymore.

These days,

that's really more of a Tesla thing.

Menendezes have gotten themselves

into an impressive amount of sh*t

for a couple that apparently

only met five years ago,

and in some pretty strange

circumstances.

The couple told The New York Times

they met in December 2018

at an IHOP in Union City,

New Jersey.

She told The New York Times she

thought Menendez was "very intelligent"

and "very, very hot".

If someone told me they found

this man to be "very, very hot",

I think my only logical response

would be,

"You mean like, to the touch?

Is he okay?"

'Cause he looks like a Keebler elf

became a tax accountant.

He looks like what would happen

if you combined

the old man and the little boy

from "Up" into a single person.

And let's not skip over

their meeting place,

an IHOP in Union City,

New Jersey.

That is not a meet-cute.

That's a meet-clinically-depressed.

An IHOP in New Jersey is not where

you expect a senator to meet his wife.

It's where you expect a customer

to meet their own personal rock bottom.

And I would say that meeting

at a Union City IHOP

is the most Jersey thing

about this couple, but it just isn't.

Not only does Nadine have

multiple pictures with cast members

of "The Real Housewives

of New Jersey" and "Mob Wives",

but the photo of her that screams

"New Jersey" the most is this one.

Because look at those jeans.

They are in Italy in this photo!

Italy!

Home of Prada,

Gucci, and Armani,

yet she looks like she's on the

Disney Channel red carpet in 2005.

This is a chaotic relationship.

They got engaged on a trip to India,

and there's video of the proposal,

where you will see Menendez

serenading Nadine with a number

from "The Greatest Showman"

before popping the question.

It doesn't look great now to hear

the world's oldest theater kid

sing about how towers of gold

will never be enough for him,

given the multiple gold bars

that were found in his actual house.

I don't care

how much you like a song,

if it sounds like a confession,

maybe don't sing it in public.

It's one of the many reasons that the

"Sweeney Todd" revival on Broadway

stars Josh Groban

and not O.J. Simpson.

Regardless of how good

Juice would be in the role,

the Kn*fe crimes

happening on stage

wouldn't be the Kn*fe crimes

that I would be thinking about.

Menendez has stepped down

as chair of the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee,

but is facing increasing calls

from within his own party

to step down as senator altogether,

a move that apparently

70% of New Jerseyans support.

Which is striking.

'Cause it's hard to think of someone

that New Jerseyans

hate more than Menendez.

Not impossible. Just hard.

The point here is, Bob Menendez

is clearly in a lot of trouble.

And while I don't know where

his case is going legally,

if you were to ask me if he should

resign from Congress,

I and the people of New Jersey

would give you a very strong

thumbs-up emoji.

And now, this!

And now:

Some Things

That Turn Stuart Varney On.

Give me some example, or demonstrate

how augmented reality works.

What I'm gonna see,

how I'm gonna use it. Turn me on.

What was that, Neuralink?

I want to hear more news on that

because that really turns me on.

What really turns me on

is Google and Nvidia.

The idea of a 700-mile yard sale

really turns me on.

What do you think of the pink, Stu?

Are you a fan?

- It turns me on.

- Yeah, hey, girl!

Space turns me on

for whatever reason.

Here's another space story,

and it's for you.

There you have, look at that!

This turns me on, actually.

The rehabilitation of people

with spinal cord and skeletal injuries,

that's what really turns me on.

What I'm interested in

is China stocks.

Specifically, Baidu

with a stock buyback plan.

- That always turns me on.

- Does it? Do we need to know that?

Moving on. Our main story tonight

concerns business.

A word that somehow

describes the front part of a mullet,

the second-nicest seats

on an airplane,

and the single saddest room

in any hotel.

We're going to talk

about the businesses that make other

business' business their business:

management consultants.

There are three big firms,

and tonight,

we're going to focus on the oldest

and largest one: McKinsey & Company.

It's been around for nearly a century,

advising both big companies

and government agencies

on how to fix their most complex

and urgent problems.

McKinsey was founded in 1926

by James O. McKinsey.

He was a professor

at the University of Chicago

and an expert

in management accounting.

By the 1950s,

the firm was assisting the White House

with staffing organization,

which, according to the company,

would lead to the creation

of the chief of staff role.

In 1970, McKinsey helped

create the bar code.

Yes, that bar code.

That's actually true!

McKinsey did help invent the bar code.

And I know

that's a little disappointing.

Maybe you thought it was invented

by a grocer in the '60s

who dreamt of a way

for computers to taste fruit.

Maybe you thought the beeps

were just how the program says "Yum".

But I'm afraid that you're imagining

a better world than the one we live in.

But it's not

just bar code innovation,

firms like McKinsey

sell themselves as can-do experts

who can come in,

provide an outside perspective,

and fix whatever ails a company,

whether it's re-engineering

an organizational chart,

working on digital strategies,

or deciding whether

to sell off part of their business,

you name it,

they'll advise you on what to do.

And McKinsey's worked

with everyone,

from companies like Coca-Cola,

Best Buy, and AT&T,

to government agencies like the

Department of Defense and ICE.

McKinsey is massive, and ubiquitous,

it has offices in at least 65 countries,

and an annual revenue

estimated at $15 billion.

But McKinsey doesn't see itself

as a bunch of PowerPoint-slinging,

power-suit-wearing micromanagers.

As you can tell

from their recruitment videos,

they see themselves as operating

as a force for good in the world.

Our purpose is to create positive,

enduring change in the world.

The work you do with McKinsey

will matter.

What we are doing

on a day-to-day basis

is impacting the lives of thousands

of people, sometimes more.

What's really great about McKinsey

is it provides you

with an opportunity to work

on really hard problems

that are also really interesting,

and also really actually matter.

McKinsey consultants are encouraged

to see themselves as world-changers.

As a humble McKinsey partner

once put it

"There are only three great

institutions left in the world:

the Marines, the Catholic

Church, and McKinsey".

Which is a hell of a group

to put yourself in.

"There's just three cool guys

left in the world now:

Henry Kissinger,

Kevin Spacey, and me".

The truth is, McKinsey's reputation has

taken a bit of a knock in recent years.

It's found itself under scrutiny

for everything

from exacerbating income inequality,

to helping market dangerous products,

to enabling authoritarian regimes.

And former employees

have pointed out that for all its talk

of making the world a better place,

it's worked for some

of the planet's biggest polluters,

while getting hundreds

of millions dollars in return.

In fact, one of those

disillusioned employees

paints a pretty damning portrait

of what the company is at its core.

They serve a lot of clients

with really harmful effects.

They know exactly

what the repercussions are going to be

and then they say

"We're going to do it anyway".

And that tells you all you need

to know about the firm.

That's an inherently alarming thing

to hear about a business, isn't it?

You want companies to mitigate harm,

not actively seek it out.

It's why LEGO has a choking hazard

warning on its packaging,

instead of one that says

"Now with blue raspberry flavor!"

If it's that influential, ubiquitous,

and is behind so much harm,

tonight,

let's take a look at McKinsey.

And if this is the first time

that you are hearing McKinsey's name,

don't be embarrassed, because

for a company with so much reach,

it's gone out of its way to try

and keep a low profile.

It doesn't publicize its client list,

even its offices can be hard to spot.

We stopped

by McKinsey's headquarters

at three World Trade Center

in lower Manhattan.

It's such a powerful company, and yet

you'd never know they were here.

There's not a McKinsey sign anywhere.

Why is that?

They don't want anyone

to know anything about them.

They want everything done

in secret.

And if that includes where they work,

then so be it.

That's not innately suspicious at all,

is it?

You've sealed yourselves

inside an expensive,

glass-fronted nameless lair that is

completely invisible to anyone,

unless, that is, they simply type

"McKinsey" into Google Maps

or happened to hear that journalist

say "three World Trade Center"

while she literally

showed you their address.

Kudos! That was a d*ck move

and I genuinely appreciate it.

But discretion

is only part of McKinsey's brand.

They've also cultivated a reputation

for hiring the best and brightest,

fresh out of elite colleges

and MBA programs.

And young, high-achieving types

often use a stint at McKinsey

as a springboard to bigger things,

former employees include

Pete Buttigieg, Senator Tom Cotton,

Facebook's Sheryl Sandburg,

and Google's CEO Sundar Pichai.

McKinsey picks its consultants

through a rigorous interview process,

asking candidates challenging

and slightly unconventional questions.

One of the interview questions

I was asked in my final rounds was:

"How many pigs are in China?"

which sounds like a very silly question,

but it's a really good question

to test how you think

because the answer doesn't matter,

it's how can you structure a problem.

Can you take

a very nebulous situation

and put structure around it

in a way that makes sense

and then logically deduce things

in order to get to an answer

that's meaningful.

Sure, that is one way

to describe it.

Another way might be to say

that they're just trying to see

how good you are at bullshitting your

way to a plausible-sounding answer.

Because if a business really needs

to know how many pigs are in China,

there are ways to find that out.

Like call

Chinese pork magnate Qin Yinglin,

or just Google

"how many pigs in China?"

Or if you're on your phone,

just Google "howkany oigsnchina",

because that's still enough

for it to go on.

What do I have to do, draw it a map?

I'm in a hurry.

My thumbs are fat

and I've got places to be.

But once they are hired, McKinsey

consultants work insanely long hours,

while being schooled in

"the McKinsey way" of doing things,

something that the firm itself

can be pretty insufferable about.

A partner once said

"We don't learn from clients.

Their standards aren't high enough.

We learn from other McKinsey partners."

A sentence so smug

that, even if you just read it,

you'd have automatically

heard my accent in your head.

'Cause that not just smug,

that is British Empire smug.

That level of swagger

might make some sense

if McKinsey's advice

was consistently novel and brilliant.

But it's had some big misses,

famously, in the early 1980s,

its client AT&T asked McKinsey

to estimate how many cell phones

would be in use in the world

by the turn of the century,

and McKinsey

concluded that the total market

would only be

about 900,000 phones, total,

which persuaded AT&

to pull out of the market for a while.

And to be fair, McKinsey were

only off by about 739 million,

or 82,000%.

But even when they are troubleshooting

existing problems,

their bespoke solutions

can be blindingly obvious.

Just watch as one McKinseyite

brags in a promotional video

about the firm's ability

to come up with unique solutions.

We were serving an energy client.

And their problem was that

they have offshore drilling rigs,

and they had stacks and stacks

of paper invoices

that they would fly out to these rigs

in the middle of the Gulf Coast

in hurricane weather to have

to get somebody to sign off

and then helicopter

back to headquarters.

We brought in a team

that had partners who were

experts in the energy sector,

we had partners who were experts

in procurement as a function,

and they were able to get together

with our digital team and say

"Actually, we don't know if signatures

are really required for this".

Yeah, no sh*t!

I'm not sure it speaks that well of you

that you needed the digital team

and experts in the energy sector

and "procurement as a function",

whatever the f*ck that means,

to get to the conclusion,

why not send an email

instead of a f*cking helicopter?

And that's not a one-off.

There have repeatedly been grumbles

that McKinsey oversells its brilliance.

In the words of one Fortune story,

while "some of its work

can be highly sophisticated",

"much of the time the firm

merely reorganizes sales forces

or designs by-the-numbers

downsizing to reduce overhead".

And those are just obvious,

first-thought ideas.

McKinsey is a firm that projects

a huge amount of confidence

to sell a frequently unremarkable

product at sky-high prices,

making them truly

the Salt Bae of companies.

"You've had salt before, but have

you ever had it from a douche?"

And let's talk for a minute

about downsizing.

There is a long history

of companies bringing in

consulting firms like McKinsey,

and very soon after,

aggressively cutting costs.

This gets dressed up

with fancy terms

like "finding efficiencies"

and "organizational streamlining",

but what that often amounts

to is mass layoffs.

Layoffs are sometimes necessary,

but they're always painful,

and much more painful

than some mid-20s Ivy Leaguer

who fancies himself

a business genius might realize.

24 years ago,

McKinsey allowed a documentary crew

rare access to film a training session

for young consultants,

going through an exercise where they

role-played advising a real-life client.

Here they are, joking about

how they would break the news

that layoffs

were going to be necessary.

We've got a very simple strategy.

Hit the road, Jack.

And don't you come back no more,

no more, no more, no more.

Hit the road, Jack.

And don't you come back no more.

What'd you say?

Hit the road, Jack.

That's not

our communications strategy.

I'm not a violent person,

but if all those dickheads exploded,

I would absolutely spin around

singing "It's Raining Men".

But that is emblematic of a major role

that consultants like McKinsey play,

essentially, allowing executives to say

"I know job cuts are bad news,

but it's what McKinsey told us to do".

As one book on the company put it

"They are, without question,

the go-to consultants for managers

seeking justification

for savage cost cutting,

as well as a convenient scapegoat

on whom to blame it".

Though, there is one area

where McKinsey

has historically advised

the exact opposite of cost cutting,

and that is executive pay.

Starting in 1950, a consultant

of theirs named Arch Patton

started advising corporate leaders

that they were underpaid,

writing books like

"Men, Money, and Motivation:

Executive Compensation

as an Instrument of Leadership."

His advice was so wildly popular

that, for a time,

Patton personally accounted

for almost 10% of the firm's billings,

and later came to be seen

as a "major contributor

to skyrocketing executive pay".

In fact, when he was asked

in the '80s

about how he felt

about the effect of his work

"his reply was simple: 'guilty'"

And while it's hard

to gauge tone from that,

I'm just going to hope it was

a sober, reflective "guilty",

and not, as seems much more likely,

a naughty, mischievous "guilty!"

like you'd use to respond to

"Who spiked the punch?"

So, to recap: McKinsey's advice

can be expensive but obvious,

its predictions

can be deeply flawed,

and it's arguably helped supercharge

economic inequality in this country.

All of which is pretty striking,

coming from a company whose leader

you've already seen sum up

its fundamental mission like this!

Our purpose is to create positive,

enduring change in the world.

Yeah, but is it, though?

Because let's talk about that.

A quick look

at McKinsey's client list

shows a bunch of companies

going out of their way

to do the exact opposite

of "positive, enduring change".

It's not just those oil

and gas companies that I mentioned.

The firm also "began counseling

the tobacco industry in 1956",

well after we knew

smoking caused cancer.

You might be thinking

"C'mon, John, it was the '50s,

lots of people were okay

with smoking back then".

But McKinsey only stopped working

with tobacco companies in 2021.

Which is, and this is true, too late.

That would be like finding out

that Subway

dropped Jared's contract today.

He was still in commercials

from prison?

How could anyone think

that this was okay?

If you think that was damaging,

McKinsey's worked with Purdue Pharma.

They actually made nearly

$84 million in fees from Purdue,

for advice on how to, quote,

"turbocharge" sales of OxyContin.

Listen to the AG of Massachusetts

explain just how intimately

McKinsey was involved

in Purdue's sales process.

McKinsey consultants

actually rode along with,

went with Purdue sales reps to

doctors' offices here in Massachusetts

to critique them on how effective

they were at selling OxyContin.

It's true. They did ride-alongs!

I didn't think I could have

any sympathy for Purdue sales reps,

until I learned that they were trapped

in a car with a McKinsey consultant.

"Yeah, you mentioned

that you went to Harvard.

Can we please just be quiet

and go sell some poison?"

But it's not

just private companies.

Remember, McKinsey's frequently

hired by government agencies, too,

where their advice has not brought

universally positive change.

For instance, in 2014, New York City

brought McKinsey in to figure out

how to reduce v*olence at Rikers,

a project whose cost

ballooned to $27 million.

People asked questions about

whether that was a good use of money,

but the head of the city's corrections

back then

insisted that McKinsey

was worth every penny.

If we made any progress,

it was because of McKinsey's help

in areas that we needed help in.

That is some high praise there!

To claim that McKinsey was the sole

reason for any progress made at Rikers

would be a pretty impressive

compliment,

if you didn't know anything

about the state of Rikers!

So, what imaginative strategies

did McKinsey try to implement?

I dunno, just fun things

like expanding the use of Tasers,

shotguns, and aggressive dogs.

It's some very outside-the-box thinking

for people trapped inside boxes.

But its big project was an

anti-v*olence program called Restart.

It claimed that v*olence had dropped

more than 50% in the Restart facilities

which sounds great!

Unfortunately, it turned out,

that number was bogus,

because jail officials

and McKinsey consultants

had reportedly jointly

rigged the Restart program,

by stacking the units with inmates

they believed to be unlikely

to get into fights or to att*ck staff

in the first place.

And while McKinsey, to this day,

defends that program

and denies skewing the results,

it is notable

that when ProPublica later crunched

the numbers for Rikers overall,

they found that jailhouse v*olence

there had risen nearly 50%

since McKinsey

began its assignments.

You've kind of got to hand it

to McKinsey there.

Not many firms could get paid

$27 million of taxpayer money

to leave Rikers

somehow even worse.

And it's not just jails,

McKinsey's government clients

also include regulators.

Which can get a little weird,

when you consider that McKinsey

also represents corporate clients.

For instance, remember

how it worked with Purdue Pharma?

While it was working for them,

it was also working with the FDA.

That sure seems

like a clear conflict of interest.

And it was one that even Mr. Positive

and Enduring Change here

found a little hard to explain

to Congress after the fact.

Okay. So, let me ask you,

did you disclose to the FDA

your, McKinsey's work

at the same time,

did you disclose to the FDA

that McKinsey was working at the same

time it was working for the FDA,

that it was working for Purdue?

Did you disclose that to the FDA?

We made clear in multiple instances

that the individuals involved

had experience in both

pharmaceuticals and opioids.

Reclaiming my time. Mr. Sternfels,

they didn't have experience.

They were the identical humans

working for both at the same time.

Exactly.

And there is a big difference

between having experience

working for both,

and actively working

for both at the same time.

The same difference between telling

your wife about your ex-girlfriend

and telling your wife

about your current girlfriend.

One is dramatically

worse than the other.

And Katie Porter was right there,

there were multiple instances

of McKinsey consultants

working for both Purdue

and the FDA at the same time.

At one point, four consultants

working on an FDA contract

to enhance drug safety

were simultaneously working for Purdue

on projects designed to persuade the

FDA of the safety of Purdue's products.

One project even had them

"writing 'scripts' for Purdue

to use in a meeting with the FDA

on the safety of pediatric OxyContin".

Pediatric Oxy! Oxy for kids!

Just like in that episode

of "Dora the Explorer"

when Backpack

is getting a bit too heavy

and Boots gives her a little something

to take the edge off.

McKinsey claims

there was no conflict there,

and that the nature of their work

for the FDA and Purdue was different.

Which is a little hard to take,

considering that they sold themselves

to Purdue at the time,

with the notion that they had

special insights into the FDA.

They told Purdue, in 2014,

that they "brought an

'unequaled capability

based on who we know

and what we know'",

including "the FDA, who we have

supported for over five years".

So, hold on, McKinsey,

which is it, then?

Was the work you did

for the FDA totally different

or did it help you bring

an unequaled capability to Purdue?

'Cause it can't be both.

This isn't Schrodinger's contract,

you don't get to claim

it's both relevant and unrelated

depending on who the f*ck

you're talking to.

And at this point, I could stop.

Tobacco, opioids, Rikers.

Those are some pretty unpleasant

stains on a company's record.

But here's the thing: all the examples

so far are just from the U.S.

Remember, McKinsey now

has offices all over the world.

And from them, they have cozied up

to some truly terrible clients.

They've worked

for a Russian defense contractor,

and are so deeply entrenched

in the government of Saudi Arabia

that Saudi Arabia's planning ministry

has been dubbed

"the Ministry of McKinsey".

And it will loudly

defend its work there,

saying that it feels it's making

the country a better place.

But that feat of mental gymnastics

got a little trickier after

Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated.

Just a few months later, McKinsey's

head at the time was on CNBC,

trying to defend

its work in the country,

and reassuring everyone

that it had a strict moral code.

The work that we do, and we think

very hard about the work we do,

needs to be work

that does make a positive difference.

And that's what I'm focused on,

making sure we get there.

Doing business with a m*rder*r

is okay by you?

No, it's absolutely not.

When you find out that your client

is a m*rder*r, you do what?

- You walk.

- You walk!

You walk, do you?

That sounds good!

Except here's the thing:

they didn't walk!

Their client k*lled

and dismembered a journalist.

McKinsey responded by participating

in a major Saudi investment conference

that same month,

even as other companies pulled out.

So, unless "you walk" is short for

"you walk to the front of the line

and pick up your lanyard

for another fun weekend at the

journalist-choppin' business jamboree",

you are full of sh*t!

But wait,

'cause it gets even worse!

'Cause it later emerged

that in one of McKinsey's reports,

it highlighted three people

who "drove negative conversation

on Twitter"

about Saudi government policies.

This is that slide, featuring names,

pictures, criticisms,

and follower counts.

And some of those people were,

and you're not gonna believe this,

targeted by the Saudi government.

One of their phones was hacked,

revealing communications with,

you guessed it, Jamal Khashoggi.

I have to tell you, McKinsey insists

there is no evidence

the slide deck was connected

to the death of Jamal Khashoggi

or exposed dissidents.

And that the deck wasn't prepared

for the Saudi government,

in fact, when this story

initially came to light,

they said the report's "intended

primary audience was internal",

and that they were

"horrified by the possibility,

however remote, that it could

have been misused in any way".

But come on!

It's Saudi Arabia.

Even if that report

didn't fall into their hands,

and please, what part of the way

Saudi Arabia operates

made you think that a McKinsey-curated

list of sh*t-talking dissidents

would be a good thing

to put together?

You're working in

one of the rootinest-tootinest,

journalist-sh**t regimes

in the Middle East,

and you figured it was completely

fine to draw up a list like this,

because the potential for misuse

was "remote?"

What are you talking about?

This is a government

led by Mohammed bin-Salman,

a man who once

"detained his own mother".

Did you think that if MBS were

to stumble across a list of his haters,

he'd just send them a big

"no hard feelings about all the

dissident stuff" Edible Arrangement?

The f*ck is wrong with you?

And for what it's worth,

a former McKinsey consultant

has called that whole internal document

excuse "utter horseshit".

McKinsey will claim that all the

examples I've given you tonight

are isolated cases, not representative

of their work overall.

They'll say that they've revamped

their policies on client selection,

and that "if a client or proposed

project falls short of our standards,

we will not do the work".

Although they are still working

in Saudi Arabia,

so their standards seem, at best,

f*cking flexible.

They also want me to tell you

that they do a lot of projects

like helping clients

deploy vaccines,

or supporting refugees and rebuilding

in Ukraine, which is very nice.

But think of it like this:

how many uplifting McKinsey projects

like "More Snuggles

at the Puppy Factory"

or "Make Grandma Live Forever"

would you need to hear about

to effectively counterbalance

"Turbocharge the Opioid Opidemic",

"Help f*ck Up Rikers Even More" and

"Make a Saudi Arabian Snitch List?"

It's not just McKinsey

with these issues.

Their main competitors

have had them, too.

BCG was also in deep

with the Saudis,

and Bain was banned from state

contracts in South Africa for a decade,

thanks to its role

in a massive corruption scandal.

I'm not even saying the consulting

industry should be abolished.

Getting outside feedback

on best practices

can make a lot of sense

for an organization.

We certainly need to preserve

a career path for high-achieving,

type-A bullshitters who don't want

to commit to law school

and want to spend their prime years

flying business class to Dallas.

Companies can hire as many fresh-

faced dork sociopaths as they want

to take the heat for whatever

layoffs and/or atrocities

they were already launching

in the first place.

It's a free country, or not, depending

on where the McKinsey office is.

But if their work, as they claim,

really does impact the lives

of millions of people,

they shouldn't get to be invisible

and they should expect much more

accountability for their mistakes.

And until such time as that happens,

the very least they can do

is be a bit more transparent with

their recruiting videos going forward.

Hi there.

Here at McKinsey,

we're an elite group of strategists,

thinkers, analysts, innovators,

guys named Brayden,

and Delta Platinum SkyMiles

reward members.

Here to drive client success

in any business venture.

We're proud

to say McKinsey alums

include many of the most

powerful people on Earth.

And also, Pete Buttigieg.

We at McKinsey genuinely believe great

consultants can come from anywhere.

That's why our workforce

features an incredibly diverse

array of graduates from all over

the Ivy League, even Cornell.

If you're an ambitious

college senior or an MBA graduate

who needs to be told

you're special or you will die,

we'd like you to consider

a career at McKinsey.

The best part of my Harvard education

was the look on people's faces

when I said "I go to Harvard".

I'm passionate about belonging

to groups that impress people,

and so to be able to continue that

at McKinsey has been very fulfilling.

One of the interview questions

I was asked in my final round was

How much wood

would a woodchuck chuck,

if a woodchuck

could chuck wood?"

Sounds like a silly question,

but it's actually a smart way

to test your approach to problems,

and how many billable hours

you can talk for.

In my case, a lot.

Here at McKinsey, you'll have

the opportunity to change the world

by serving a surprisingly

wide array of clients.

But not just anyone.

For instance, we proudly

don't work for tobacco clients,

and haven't since the start

of this sentence.

We've got clients

that appeal to every interest.

Local interests, foreign interests,

and even conflicts of interest.

I worked for the FDA

and Purdue Pharma at the same time.

I can't believe

I was allowed to do that.

My mom did say

"Shouldn't that be illegal?"

and that made me really worried until

I remembered she's not a consultant.

Of course she wouldn't understand.

I was basically talking to an ape.

We hold our employees

and our clients

to a higher personal

and ethical standard.

Core McKinsey values

- Sorry. You have a phone call.

- Not now.

It's the Saudis.

I do have to take this.

I think it might be

about the thing.

You've got Brayden B.

You'll be using your big,

special, early 20s brain

unencumbered by practical experience

to develop bespoke, tailored solutions

to address companies' specific needs.

What we're recommending

is finding significant efficiencies

by laying off the people

at the bottom of the company

and paying more

to the people at the top.

- That's me!

- Yes!

- With the money signs?

- Yes!

It's me at the top!

Okay.

We believe there are three

great institutions left in the world.

The Marines, the Catholic Church,

and McKinsey.

That's because the mark

of any good institution

is matching outfits,

evasion of responsibility

through institutional secrecy,

and the misplaced belief

that you're saving the world.

Because at the end of the day,

we're McKinsey.

We're McKinsey.

We're McKinsey.

And we're capable of anything.

- And culpable for nothing!

- I love that line.

- It's true, they can't touch us.

- It's true.

That's our show, thanks for watching.

We'll see you next week, good night!

These are traditional f*ring songs.

Of course, NSYNC, The Verve,

for any Gen X

people you might be f*ring.

You would have to take the diameter

of the woodchuck's mouth

times the height and length

to get its volume,

so you gotta average

bite capacity size,

and then you have to multiply that with

the total wood consumption in America,

which the woodchuck is native to.

Just off the top of my head,

that would be about 3.4 billion

volumes of wood pulp.

So, factoring forest devastation

and climate change,

I would say a woodchuck

could probably chuck

about two billion cubits of wood

per year.

Wait, I'm sorry.

He did another one?

God! Which newspaper?