1421 The Bloomberg Omelette

This will be a little “inside baseball.”  But there’s a moral at the end that might be of value even if you don’t care a whit about former NY mayor Mike Bloomberg or his terminals or his news operation.

Bloomberg is making big changes at his company:  out with the old, in with the new.

For those of us long in the service of Bloomberg News, this is an old story, but with bigger than usual players.

And those outside the company are trying to read the tea leaves.  Forget about it.  There are no tea leaves.  The Maximum Chef is breaking eggs and trying a new recipe for an omelette.  He doesn’t know what it’ll look or taste like when it’s out of the pan and neither does anyone else.

Back when Mike was mayor, rumors spread that the company would buy “Business Week” magazine.  When reporters asked editor-in-chief Matt Winkler to comment, he said “we’re builders, not buyers.”

An eyeblink later, Bloomberg bought the magazine.  

That was a tea leaf, and some of us read it correctly, it turns out.

Now Winkler, who built the news operation from people watching pork belly and uranium trades to a giant of journalism is on his way upstairs. This after establishing a monolith with than 2,000 workers in150 bureaus.  The New York Times has about 50.

But the media world has changed around Winkler, and so has the company.  So now, he’s going to be “editor-in-chief emeritus,” whatever that is, and gets to hang out with Mike at the uber posh headquarters on Lexington Avenue and … and … do what?

The two men are close.  But Mike breaks eggs. It’s worked for him in the long run.

And there wasn’t a lot of mourning when the personnel change was announced.  Matt has the kind of personality that might have moved Gandhi to throw a punch.

That, too, has worked to the company’s advantage. Niccolo Machiavelli teaches us that it is more effective for a ruler to be feared than loved.

Matt’s stylebook, “The Bloomberg Way,” is the journalistic equivalent of a straightjacket.  But for an organization of the company’s size, it too works.  It’s thick, but in substance it’s little more than an annotated template.

Cranky executives never seemed to bother Mike. In fact, he embraced them.  So maybe it wasn’t Matt’s personality that got him kicked upstairs.  

Dedication never bothered Mike.  Matt never slept. Ever. No matter the time of day or the day of the week; no matter the location of his physical form, he was lurking.

Meantime, the data monolith marches on, carrying the news division on its shoulders.  Twenty grand a month per terminal, with 350,000 of them or so said to be in service:  that’s enough to run the news division the old fashioned way, as a public service.

So a big, look-to-the future wave is swamping all aspects of the company now that the Chef is out of city hall and back in the kitchen.

But there are no tea leaves; no tarot cards.  What you see happening is the omelette under construction, subject to regular tweaks of the recipe, some of them self-cancelling.

What you’re seeing is Mike being Mike.

I promised you a moral at the end: don’t try to second guess this guy or anyone like him.

Shrapnel:

--12/12/14… To Ed Koch:  Happy 90th, old friend. Sorry you had to go. Wish you were here.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1271 Charlotte Would Be Proud

1271 Charlotte Would Be Proud

In recent years, there’s only one person who could stand up against New York mayor Mike Bloomberg with a chance of winning: his mother, Charlotte who passed away in 2011 at the age of 102.

The mayor has a sister and two daughters.  But chances are they, like anyone else stay out of his path, at least when it comes to non-family matters.

So as his 12 years in office come to an end next week, we take a look back at his administration.

There are some things you need to know about the man.  First, if he climbs any higher on the Forbes 400 he’ll get a nosebleed.  Second, he’s already given away more than the combined lifetime incomes of the first hundred people reading this page. Third, he plays the role of “smartest guy in the room,” and sometimes -- actually often -- he really is.

The mayor, any mayor, is often remembered short term for his screwups.  Lindsay the ineffective.  Beame the accountant who couldn’t fix the books.  Dinkins the swamped.  Giuliani the Batman of squeegee crime.  Bloomberg: of the road use tax, Big Gulp’s public enemy number one, green taxis and no smoking.

Later, history redeems them.  Lindsay brought peace to a city of anger. Dinkins eventually did build something akin to the Great Mosaic. Giuliani led us through and past 9/11.

And Bloomberg? Parks.  Rebuilding. Fiscal soundness, improved schools, a plummeting crime rate, stronger enforcement of the gun laws.  And a city government that runs what passes for smoothly in comparison to earlier years.

Are you better off now than you were 12 years ago?  Sure. Jobs are expanding, the streets are clean by New York standards, the unions are still thorns in the sides of the government and private industry but not extinct.  

So, complain all you want about things like tax rates, crowded conditions, rude taxi drivers, slow buses, too many homeless.  But overall we’re better off with Mike in City Hall than we were with many of his predecessors.

Bloomberg reminded the rest of the country that New York is not just another place. It’s a national leader in finance, thought, media, and complexity. And City Hall is a national platform for those mayors who choose to make it one.

Bloomberg certainly did that.  Gun control, diet, health issues were not just city concerns this past dozen years. He made them part of the national conversation.

And even though he’d been regularly accused of trying to create a “nanny state,” the conversation needed to be started.

Did he accomplish all his goals? No way.  Did he handle every emergency perfectly? Of course not.  Just think about that big snowstorm and the overreaction to the next weather threats.

We worried back in the day that he was out of his element when he first ran.  We worried about what would happen if he won.  We worried about what would happen if he lost.

But all of those worries were unfounded.

What’s next?  He’s been vague.  Everything from wanting to go back to work at his company at least part time to “drinking a small soda on a no smoking beach” as he said the other day on Saturday Night Live.

One thing you can be sure of:  we haven’t heard the last of this guy. 

Another thing?  Charlotte would be proud.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

(Note: your poster worked for Bloomberg News for seven years that began before Mike ran for office.)

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013