Barbara Lippert's Critique

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back in the ’80s, when the culture suddenly started treating CEOs like rock stars (albeit older, balding, un graceful rock stars). Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca led the way in this new cult of business personality—in the press he was regarded like Moses as he parted the sea of red ink at Chrysler, starred in TV commercials and wrote a best-selling book. By the mid-’90s, abject worship of CEOs had given way to intense reverence for founders of Internet startups, who, the mythology usually had it, left grad school to start a business with three guys in a garage and now, a mere 18 months later, were worth more than General Motors and Sears combined.

We all know how that ended.

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