Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Our
Speaker 1: co host Noel Is on Adventures they called me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled
Speaker 1: dec and most importantly, you are you. You are here
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Matt,
Speaker 1: do you ever contemplate alternative timelines or alternate timelines? Do
Speaker 1: you ever think of, uh, who you might be and
Speaker 1: what you might be doing in a universe just to
Speaker 1: the left of ours. Yes, I have a similar thing
Speaker 1: to that. It's a it's a it's a yes but
Speaker 1: which is a weird thing shouldn't shouldn't do yes butts.
Speaker 1: But my wife and I have this theory that we
Speaker 1: jumped timelines sometime in that all of Earth jumped the
Speaker 1: timeline and somehow we were in this alternate reality now
Speaker 1: where where just things are a little bit off of
Speaker 1: what they were before and we we don't really know
Speaker 1: because it's the whole Mandela effect thing, where our memories
Speaker 1: are are a little different but in this timeline, it's
Speaker 1: all been this way forever, and that's that's an interesting argument,
Speaker 1: but it's more common than you might think, especially here
Speaker 1: in the West. Quite a few people have on an
Speaker 1: individual level floated something like that with me. Um. I
Speaker 1: guess my timeline question for you and for you listeners
Speaker 1: today is hinging on these these sorts of thought. It
Speaker 1: experiments that we have these Walter Mitty esque moments where
Speaker 1: we think, you know, what is my life in this
Speaker 1: other universe, like where I am an astronaut or where
Speaker 1: I am a touring percussionist for I don't know what.
Speaker 1: What's a dream band that people want to play percussion for?
Speaker 1: I always knew that you were going to do that
Speaker 1: one day. I knew it. Dave Matthews Man, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I met one of their touring drummers, not the main guy,
Speaker 1: but I met one of their touring drummers a while back.
Speaker 1: Really nice guy. Uh. That is the end of that story.
Speaker 1: But the reason I ask is because you met Carter.
Speaker 1: What's you met Carter? No, not the main drummer, No, No,
Speaker 1: one of the like one of the bongo guys. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the percussionist guy. So way back in a different version
Speaker 1: of my own life. I was on track to be UH,
Speaker 1: an employee of something very much like the company that
Speaker 1: we're examining today. Thankfully, this is just my opinion. Thankfully
Speaker 1: I didn't do it, and my thoughts and prayers go
Speaker 1: out to whatever Ben Bull and lives in an a
Speaker 1: version of the timeline where the cards felt differently, and
Speaker 1: instead we got into this, and instead we ended up
Speaker 1: doing this. Yes, when we think of global powers, we
Speaker 1: usually think of nations, right, governments, religions, huge multinational corporations
Speaker 1: and so on, and we understand in a very general
Speaker 1: way how all of these work. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be a president or prime minister to understand that nations
Speaker 1: on paper seek to make life better for their citizens,
Speaker 1: right on paper, And you don't need to or maybe
Speaker 1: a certain segment of their citizenry. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be a priest, patriarch or a pope to understand that
Speaker 1: religions typically strive to make new converts and spread their teachings,
Speaker 1: their philosophies and save souls, yeah, depending on the religion.
Speaker 1: While a corporation will work to expand its market share
Speaker 1: and ultimately it's bottom line and all of these things
Speaker 1: are fine in theory, right, but none of them are
Speaker 1: inherently good or evil, which I know can ruffle some feathers,
Speaker 1: especially when we talk about religion. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: a specific religion, just the concept none are inherently good
Speaker 1: or evil. Because some nations might improve life for their
Speaker 1: citizens or some percentage of their population by making things
Speaker 1: worse for other people in another country, or indeed in
Speaker 1: the same country, And some religions may advocate slavery or
Speaker 1: death for nonbelievers that may be the best way to
Speaker 1: save their souls, according to some teaching or interpretation thereof.
Speaker 1: And as we know, some corporations may read tremendous havoc
Speaker 1: chasing that bottom line and even ultimately shoot themselves in
Speaker 1: the foot, you know what I mean. But today's stories
Speaker 1: about something else entirely, not a religion, not a nation,
Speaker 1: perhaps not even really a corporation, at least in the
Speaker 1: way that we would traditionally think about. One of those
Speaker 1: today's episode is about a mysterious consultancy firm called the
Speaker 1: McKenzie Group, but to those in the know, it's simply
Speaker 1: called the firm. Oh, I like that movie with Tom Cruise, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also a book, a book the Firm. There's yea,
Speaker 1: and there's a documentary about McKenzie called The Firm. So
Speaker 1: let's let's look at the history first. Here are the facts.
Speaker 1: This thing is very, very old. The McKenzie Group was
Speaker 1: founded in nineteen six by a fellow named James O. Mackenzie.
Speaker 1: He was a University of Chicago professor and an expert
Speaker 1: on what's known as management accounting. He worked his way
Speaker 1: up from the bottom. Okay, management accounting, So I guess
Speaker 1: a manager of sorts, or I guess in this case
Speaker 1: he is a consultant high level accounting. Right, how do
Speaker 1: we how do we best understand a budget for an organization? Right?
Speaker 1: How do we streamline that budget? How do we grow
Speaker 1: certain parts of it? And so on? He was born
Speaker 1: way back in eighty nine. He grew up in fairly
Speaker 1: modest means, in the three room house and the ozarks.
Speaker 1: And this kind of these kind of humble beginnings are
Speaker 1: talking points that a lot of companies of this nature
Speaker 1: love to hit, you know what I mean, Large corporations
Speaker 1: love to talk about the humble beginnings and therefore the
Speaker 1: implied genius of their founder. Right, this was an extraordinary person,
Speaker 1: whatever their name is, because through nothing but their own
Speaker 1: intellect and gumption, they rose to the top. His grip
Speaker 1: on his his bootstraps very strong. This is this is
Speaker 1: very popular. This is um This is an iteration of
Speaker 1: the American myth, you know what I mean. So it's
Speaker 1: no wonder that that's one of the first things you'll
Speaker 1: read about the Founder in any of the official literature.
Speaker 1: It is interesting you started as a professor. That that
Speaker 1: fascinates me. He's a learned man who's already teaching people
Speaker 1: something there. I feel like this maybe just completely naivete
Speaker 1: on my heart, but to be a professor or a
Speaker 1: teacher of any kind, I feel like there has to
Speaker 1: be a certain amount of selflessness in somebody. But maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong about that. I'm professors or people, Matt. You know,
Speaker 1: people have a terrible track record, Okay, but which I mean?
Speaker 1: I'm not. I share the same I share the same
Speaker 1: bias in many ways because I am one of those
Speaker 1: people who, like you, I believe, looks up to professors,
Speaker 1: people who dedicate such a large portion of their life
Speaker 1: to learning a specific fake discipline, or even a specific
Speaker 1: subset of a specific discipline. You know, and then not
Speaker 1: necessarily using all of that hard work for your own means,
Speaker 1: you're using it to teach other people to do what
Speaker 1: you are you have learned so much about. I don't
Speaker 1: know that that to me, it speaks to somebody's character
Speaker 1: and I guess at a base level, Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: It also brings us to I mean, this may be
Speaker 1: a story for a different day, but it brings us
Speaker 1: to the idea of uh academic wars, wars of ideology,
Speaker 1: which are fought in the ivory towers as we record
Speaker 1: this episode. You know what I mean, What is the
Speaker 1: nature of humanity? How does that translate philosophically to the
Speaker 1: best economic model? Things like that, right, people have been
Speaker 1: people still choose which which hill they want to die
Speaker 1: on in this debate, And it can sound dry and academic,
Speaker 1: but we have to remember the same people who are
Speaker 1: opposing one another in these sorts of things, anywhere from
Speaker 1: more political philosophy to more economic philosophy, these people end
Speaker 1: up in the halls of power. They end up making laws,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, or having a very very
Speaker 1: strong influence on the laws that are made. So it
Speaker 1: can seem dry, but at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: It does impact you, and it impacts everyone around you,
Speaker 1: at least who lives in that government, and sometimes often
Speaker 1: people who at least in the case of the US,
Speaker 1: people who don't have anything to do with the US
Speaker 1: get impacted by these beliefs. Mackenzie's original I guess breakout
Speaker 1: single was, uh, the principles of what's called scientific management.
Speaker 1: He was an early practitioner of this. And this will
Speaker 1: sound very familiar understandable to all of us. It's just
Speaker 1: the detailed study of workflow and the division of labor.
Speaker 1: So we have X amount of employees, why amount of task?
Speaker 1: How do we translate this into uh, the most efficient process? Right,
Speaker 1: which you know we're explaining in a very simple way,
Speaker 1: but you can see how this becomes incredibly complicated incredibly quickly.
Speaker 1: But it turns out Mackenzie was really good at it.
Speaker 1: And we all know when we heard that date ninety six,
Speaker 1: we all know that there was a context, Uh, there
Speaker 1: was a disaster looming on the on the horizon, just
Speaker 1: a few years after the foundation of the Mackenzie Group.
Speaker 1: It's not really a great time to found something, right,
Speaker 1: the Great Depression occurred. But here's the deal. Under Mackenzie's leadership,
Speaker 1: this group, this this organization that he created. It didn't
Speaker 1: just survived the depression. It didn't just make it through.
Speaker 1: This sucker thrived. When the founder, James O. McKenzie died
Speaker 1: in nineteen seven, gentleman named Marvin Bauer the firm, and
Speaker 1: he took it basically beyond what James had been able
Speaker 1: to take it to some would say glory over the
Speaker 1: next thirty years. In part though, uh, this is part
Speaker 1: of an obsession with being quote unquote professional in appearance
Speaker 1: and tone and conduct, So really creating an outward image
Speaker 1: of what this firm is, what a representative of the
Speaker 1: Mackenzie Group would be, and a pretty specific, right and
Speaker 1: pretty um meticulous. One word that you would use in
Speaker 1: a corporate boardroom to describe this would be granular. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some argyle socks. Who gets to
Speaker 1: wear them? Who doesn't get to wear them? Argyle? What's
Speaker 1: your take? Mr? Mr Bauer? Mr Bauer once forbade all
Speaker 1: junior consultants from wearing argyle socks because he thought they
Speaker 1: would distract clients. And and uh, the firm's consultants were
Speaker 1: all required to wear fedoras at this time. We were all, um,
Speaker 1: we're all probably dudes, uh until President Kennedy stopped wearing them.
Speaker 1: Wow that I don't know why. It just reminds me.
Speaker 1: I do know why. It reminds you of the peaky blinders.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm seeing in my head. Well. Also, this
Speaker 1: is interesting because it feels like the guy is creating
Speaker 1: a uniform, right, he is creating a uniform, not just
Speaker 1: a fabric, but also of minds. Marvin Bauer is can
Speaker 1: be considered the head UH brand visionary or propagandist, internal
Speaker 1: propagandist for McKenzie. He's the one who told everybody to
Speaker 1: start calling it the firm. He established the terminology, jargon, nomenclature,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, that the employees would
Speaker 1: use going forward. One example would be the all employees
Speaker 1: of a certain type were called partners. That was him.
Speaker 1: It gives everybody some prestige, especially from a client basis.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not working with an employee now, I'm
Speaker 1: not spending millions of dollars on that. I'm working with
Speaker 1: a partner. That's my partner. Man. And additionally, he is
Speaker 1: responsible for corporate culture that continues. By all reports today,
Speaker 1: you'll hear former mckensey employees say things like there are
Speaker 1: only three great institutions remaining in the world, the Marines,
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, and Mackenzie. And they're serious, they believe it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this kind of loyalty, fervent loyalty and um belief in
Speaker 1: the company is is baked into every single employee. Uh.
Speaker 1: He also established a set of rules, rules of engagement
Speaker 1: and rules of conduct. And let's just listen, these off
Speaker 1: consultants should put the interests of clients before Mackenzie's revenues.
Speaker 1: That's a big change, at least if you're a corporation
Speaker 1: that is for profit. You were. You were basically saying,
Speaker 1: in a way, the customer is always right in this situation,
Speaker 1: but in this case, the customer is your partner. And
Speaker 1: then he said, of course, Omerta, do not discuss client affairs.
Speaker 1: That makes sense absolutely. He also said, tell the truth
Speaker 1: as you see it, even if this means challenging the
Speaker 1: client's opinion. So let's say that you are working with
Speaker 1: a large beverage company and they want to make a
Speaker 1: new kind of product that you know as a Mackenzie partner,
Speaker 1: it's just not gonna work. Then it's your job to
Speaker 1: instead of just taking their money, it's your job to
Speaker 1: tell them that this um ranch dressing flavored soda is
Speaker 1: a terrible idea. But I'm going to stop you there.
Speaker 1: Um that is one of the most disgusting things I've
Speaker 1: heard in a while. It's also a real thing. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a real thing. So did you do that in
Speaker 1: the Natural Flavorings episode? Now, I was. I went to
Speaker 1: visit our friends Lauren and Annie over at Savor to
Speaker 1: do an episode with them about Ranch. So check that
Speaker 1: out if you are, if you are, like of the
Speaker 1: American public, a die hard fan of Ranch, can you
Speaker 1: believe that my son's in there? No, neither like my
Speaker 1: buttermilk and man a separate I'm kidding. I mean that's
Speaker 1: what it was originally. Anyway, just you could check out
Speaker 1: that episode. Another example, it's let's say you're a mckensey
Speaker 1: partner working for a strongman or dictator an authoritarian regime,
Speaker 1: and they say, look, the best way to uh subjugate
Speaker 1: this ethnic minority is to, um, I don't know, shoot
Speaker 1: them all. And then you say, no, the best way
Speaker 1: to subjugate this ethnic minority is to imprison all of them.
Speaker 1: But call them re education camps or summer camps. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll work on the phrasing. That's that's the stuff you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do as a Mackensey consultant. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: stick by what you think is the correct answer, even
Speaker 1: if your clients, some of whom may be quite dangerous
Speaker 1: people will disagree with you. And then they said, only
Speaker 1: perform work that is both necessary and that Mackenzie can do. Well, Okay,
Speaker 1: only stuff that's necessary. I wonder what, I wonder why
Speaker 1: that one is so important, But I guess that's the
Speaker 1: idea of we're only going to outwardly show good work.
Speaker 1: So if we if we don't know that we can
Speaker 1: perform this task like to perfection, then we're not even
Speaker 1: going to attempt it. That way, nothing ever, dings our reputation. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's there's some health preservation there, right, And it makes
Speaker 1: sense when you think about it. The the idea of
Speaker 1: only doing work that is necessary also also makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's a matter of professionalism. You're not doing unneeded work
Speaker 1: and then finding the client or giving them a fee
Speaker 1: for that, you know what I mean. It's the difference
Speaker 1: between a good mechanic and an unscrupulous one. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Here's another rule that mackenzie set for itself. They only
Speaker 1: work with CEOs, and they only work with clients that
Speaker 1: the firm itself feels will follow the advice of the firm.
Speaker 1: So they're not they're not trying to get somebody in
Speaker 1: there that's maybe just wealthy enough, but won't actually heed
Speaker 1: their advice. Again, they're so selective with how they're viewed.
Speaker 1: I think we keep painting this picture here. Um and
Speaker 1: and so far since what what was the year, it's
Speaker 1: it's just been working for them. Yeah, they keep a
Speaker 1: very very low profile. They did it expand there um
Speaker 1: the restriction on CEOs to include CEOs of subsidiaries and
Speaker 1: divisions of larger companies. Don't that nice? Yeah, So it's
Speaker 1: a it's a little bit of a bigger poll than
Speaker 1: it was originally. But the changes over the years have
Speaker 1: not fundamentally changed the rules of engagement or the core
Speaker 1: values of the company. And as you said, Matt, this
Speaker 1: has been a winning formula. There was a profile story
Speaker 1: on McKenzie in and said mackenzie and Company was quote
Speaker 1: the most well known, most secretive, most high priced, most prestigious,
Speaker 1: most consistently successful, most envied, most trusted, most disliked management
Speaker 1: consulting firm on Earth. Wow, Loveday threw that most disliked
Speaker 1: in there right at the end. I wonder who dislikes it?
Speaker 1: A lot of people competitors dislike it, U victims or
Speaker 1: I guess you would say unsatisfied clients, right, or people
Speaker 1: who as a result of a project maybe lost their livelihood. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I bet there's some uh, law enforcement agencies that don't
Speaker 1: like them so much, just because they're probably so good at,
Speaker 1: you know, keeping a face on whatever situation is going on.
Speaker 1: It's true, but they you know, there, you can't be
Speaker 1: this large without having critics as well as fans, right,
Speaker 1: opponents as well as supporters. Yeah. According to Business Week,
Speaker 1: the firm is ridiculed, reviled, and and revered depending on
Speaker 1: one's perspective, which makes complete sense. That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: If you're on the front lines with McKenzie, or rather
Speaker 1: mackenzie is on your front lines, you're probably liking them
Speaker 1: a lot because it does seem like they're pretty accommodating
Speaker 1: and are going to get whatever job done you need done.
Speaker 1: There's one quote that I kept seeing float around which
Speaker 1: said that amidst the leaders of the business world, it
Speaker 1: was just saying that you can't be fired for hiring Mackenzie. Well,
Speaker 1: so they also seem to be dependable, at least in
Speaker 1: certain circles. Let's talk about some of these statistics. They
Speaker 1: have over a hundred and twenty offices. Uh, they have
Speaker 1: a force of fourteen thousand consultants. Uh. They've been in
Speaker 1: business for almost a century now, ninety plus years. And
Speaker 1: one of the key murky pieces of Mackenzie is it's
Speaker 1: alumni who are a hugely influential force. More current and
Speaker 1: former fortune five hundred CEOs are alumni of Mackenzie than
Speaker 1: any other company. I think they have the highest chance
Speaker 1: to become CEOs in general. It's like one and six ninety,
Speaker 1: which sounds like tough odds, but that's a hugely favorable number. Okay,
Speaker 1: so two things here, Um, they're they're being consultants and
Speaker 1: partners and then they end up becoming CEOs. That's what
Speaker 1: we're saying here of these giant corporations. Okay, we're not
Speaker 1: talking about like a pod people situation like CIA infiltration.
Speaker 1: Replacing CEOs with Mackenzie are we I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is a there is a revolving door argument, but
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not a public private revolution. It's private private. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really is. I guess that's true. So people do also,
Speaker 1: alumni do also go into public service. That's what I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, alumni go into public service. But then
Speaker 1: I wonder, I do wonder how many public servants end
Speaker 1: up at the Mackenzie Group as like a side gig.
Speaker 1: But it seems like it would be a very demanding
Speaker 1: job and not exactly a retirement. It's yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty rigorous system internally. Uh. They have a churn of
Speaker 1: about one fifth of their workforce a year because they
Speaker 1: practice something called upper out, which means that you're either
Speaker 1: getting promoted or being kicked out. Dang they know, which
Speaker 1: is another part of the lens to their credibility. Right Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: no dying on the vine. They're just GTFO or you're
Speaker 1: hired and promoted. If you search on YouTube now you'll
Speaker 1: see a lot of pretty fascinating videos from people we're
Speaker 1: talking about how to get through the Mackensey hiring process.
Speaker 1: That's those are the number one hits. More so, than
Speaker 1: the any idea of a McKenzie cover up, first step
Speaker 1: hack the person that you're going to be interviewed by.
Speaker 1: How do you know they haven't already hacked you? How
Speaker 1: do you know you weren't already selected? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? So officially, well, let's look at the official stance. Officially,
Speaker 1: mackenzie describes itself as what you said, met a quote
Speaker 1: global management consulting firm that serves a broad mix of private, public,
Speaker 1: and social sector institutions. So they're active and nonprofits, they're
Speaker 1: active in private corporations, and they're active in mechanisms of
Speaker 1: the state. It also it doesn't make a secret of
Speaker 1: its alumni actions. It's it's pretty proud of the work
Speaker 1: of its former employees. Yeah, according to its own website,
Speaker 1: quote alumni number more than thirty four thousand and working
Speaker 1: virtually every business sector in a hundred and twenty countries.
Speaker 1: Through formal events and informal networking, former McKenzie consultants make
Speaker 1: and sustain professional relationships. This dynamic network is a lasting
Speaker 1: benefit of a McKenzie career. So once you're in, you're in.
Speaker 1: And there's there's another thing that's weird here. The clients
Speaker 1: were not meant to be recruited, uh, in like a
Speaker 1: cold call situation. As a McKenzie person, you are expected
Speaker 1: to be active in community events beyond the boards of things,
Speaker 1: go to religious events and religious services, and informally become
Speaker 1: friends with people, people in power obviously, and then build
Speaker 1: a relationship from there. So nepotism is nepotism and informal
Speaker 1: social relationships are a huge part of the process of
Speaker 1: the workflow of the management accounting. Yeah, do you think
Speaker 1: we've ever run into somebody from the Mackenzie group. I have, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have had had one of these things from your
Speaker 1: past life or your current life. So at first Mackenzie
Speaker 1: appears to be a powerful multinational company. Right. They have
Speaker 1: interest in everything from cancer research to nonprofit initiative. It
Speaker 1: is agricultural and stuff and much much more. This is
Speaker 1: not particularly unusual in the modern day. Mackenzie is not
Speaker 1: the only game in town here. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: critics alleged there's much much more to Mackenzie than its
Speaker 1: shining public image may lead you to believe. And we'll
Speaker 1: learn about that after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Our sponsor was the Mackenzie Yeah, this episode of stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know is brought to you
Speaker 1: by the firm. Here's where it gets crazy. There's a
Speaker 1: net of nepotism, that's what we're describing. And much of
Speaker 1: the criticism concerning Mackenzie comes from the activities of its
Speaker 1: former employees. We we mentioned that they have uh noticeably
Speaker 1: significantly higher chance of becoming CEO s of very prestigious companies,
Speaker 1: but they do end up having their hands in a
Speaker 1: lot of pots, their fingers and a lot of pies.
Speaker 1: And most of the time that you hear someone criticizing
Speaker 1: this organization, they're going to be talking about one of
Speaker 1: any number of scandals. As we explore this, to be
Speaker 1: absolutely fair, we have to point out that Mackenzie can
Speaker 1: make an argument where they say, well, this was happening
Speaker 1: because some member of our company or some group within
Speaker 1: our company did this, but the company overall did not
Speaker 1: know about this. We are unaware. Yeah, when you have
Speaker 1: all those tendrils, fourteen thousand of them or so, you
Speaker 1: you it's hard to point the finger, especially if they're
Speaker 1: a consultant for somebody else, right, and that that is
Speaker 1: a valid argument to make. They'll also say that, look,
Speaker 1: we just advise as these clients, we don't decide things
Speaker 1: for them. And while that is true, it is also
Speaker 1: true that since UH for years Mackenzie has either been
Speaker 1: directly involved in or closely associated with a number of
Speaker 1: huge scandals. Reuters even described these incidents entire as indicative
Speaker 1: of not a few bad apples, not a couple of
Speaker 1: unscrupulous people in the company, but instead as a culture
Speaker 1: of corruption. So we can we can look through a
Speaker 1: few of these and we'll we'll give let's give the
Speaker 1: bare bones, the one oh one, because each of these
Speaker 1: UH subjects that we're about to mention, each one is
Speaker 1: the tip of a much larger iceberg, right, and then
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on under the water. Let's start
Speaker 1: with South Africa. Is that okay? Yeah, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the power company that was kind of in dire straits
Speaker 1: at the time, and Transnet as well. So the story
Speaker 1: starts with the Gupta family, no relation to UH, the
Speaker 1: former head of Mackenzie, a guy who also had the
Speaker 1: last time Gupta totally unrelated. This Gupta family, it's a
Speaker 1: wealthy Indian born South African family who are best known
Speaker 1: for owning a business empire that spans computer equipment, media
Speaker 1: mining and so on, and it had close ties to
Speaker 1: Jacob Zuma during his presidency. Here's what happened. They found
Speaker 1: out the Gupta family had strategically placed corrupt people in
Speaker 1: various parts of the South African government and and if
Speaker 1: it's infrastructure and its utility sectors. And the idea is
Speaker 1: that mackenzie was complicit in this corruption and they were
Speaker 1: using their connection with his family to get consulting contracts
Speaker 1: from places like s Com and Transnet, these are state
Speaker 1: owned companies. And then they provided they worked with someone
Speaker 1: called Trillion Capital Partners t R I L L I
Speaker 1: A N to provide like seventy five million dollars worth
Speaker 1: of services and then Trillion got a commission off that
Speaker 1: for facilitating the business. And then uh, they were found
Speaker 1: I don't want to say caught red handed, but caught,
Speaker 1: uh pink handed light red handed with in the midst
Speaker 1: of acts of bribery and corruption and payments to this
Speaker 1: capital partner. And eventually South Africa's government in early two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen found that McKenzie and Trillion have been involved
Speaker 1: in fraud, theft, corruption and money laundering. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is this is a big time financial crime. Right
Speaker 1: if if it's true and the the like, Okay, Mackenzie
Speaker 1: has hired legal teams to defend them. Surprised they can
Speaker 1: afford a ton of lawyers, right. I know that they
Speaker 1: When they were first getting in bed with a lot
Speaker 1: of these companies, specifically with the s Com one, they
Speaker 1: were looking at a contract for like seven million dollars
Speaker 1: for the firm to come in And that's just one
Speaker 1: piece of it. Working with the people that the Gupta
Speaker 1: family was involved with, Like the money that was was
Speaker 1: at stake, And I'm thinking about that connected up to
Speaker 1: their values about only doing things that they know they
Speaker 1: can do and only you know, telling the client the
Speaker 1: truth all the time and all this stuff and not
Speaker 1: putting the money above everything else. This feels like maybe
Speaker 1: this was a slip up where the money was above
Speaker 1: everything else. Is it a thing where it's not about
Speaker 1: the money though, it's about sending a message? Because what
Speaker 1: if they felt it was necessary too purposefully cripple s Com,
Speaker 1: which is an electricity provider and trans Net, which is
Speaker 1: the rail and pipeline firm. What if they felt it
Speaker 1: was not only necessary to do that, but what if
Speaker 1: they felt they could do it well, whoa you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So there was an even higher level
Speaker 1: of the playing field that was going on. Yeah what
Speaker 1: if I don't think they accidentally did this? Man, at
Speaker 1: this level, it's a really tall milkshake to say that
Speaker 1: someone just consistently screwed the pooch multiple times at the
Speaker 1: perfect time to make things terrible, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So maybe that was part of it. But that's that's
Speaker 1: just one example, and we could probably do a whole
Speaker 1: episode on that one. Uh. There's also the Galleon insider
Speaker 1: trading scandal. This is where the different group that comes in.
Speaker 1: So there's a guy named Rajat Gupta who was a
Speaker 1: former mackenzie senior executive. He was running the ship no
Speaker 1: relation again to the group, to family in South Africa.
Speaker 1: And a guy named a Neil Kumar. These two guys
Speaker 1: and some others were convicted in a government investigation into
Speaker 1: insider trading for sharing inside information with hedge fund ownor
Speaker 1: UH the owner of a hedge fund called Galleon Group,
Speaker 1: a guy named Raj Raja not Rum. Although McKenzie itself
Speaker 1: the company was not accused of any wrongdoing, the convictions
Speaker 1: were incredibly embarrassing for the firm because it prides itself
Speaker 1: on not telling its clients business right on client confidentiality.
Speaker 1: And there's a senior partner, Neil Kamar, who described or
Speaker 1: he has been described as the protege of Gupta. He
Speaker 1: he left the after these allegations, started servicing in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, and then he ended up pleading guilty in
Speaker 1: January two thousand ten. And um, it's well, okay, So
Speaker 1: while this guy and some of the other partners had
Speaker 1: been pitching Mackenzie's like services, their consulting services to this
Speaker 1: Galleon group, Kumar and this uh Rajar Rottenham fellow, they
Speaker 1: reached this, they reached a private consulting agreement, which I'm
Speaker 1: interested in. So just kind of behind closed doors, they
Speaker 1: reached an agreement that violated Mackenzie's policies on confidentiality, which, okay,
Speaker 1: again we see them kind of maybe breaking their own
Speaker 1: rules a little bit. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the if.
Speaker 1: If they really are breaking the rules. If they are
Speaker 1: breaking the rules, are the rules just outward facing, I
Speaker 1: don't know. So. In October of two thousand eleven, Gupta
Speaker 1: was arrested by the FBI on criminal charges of sharing
Speaker 1: insider information from these confidential board meetings with Rajaratnam. Gupta
Speaker 1: was convicted in June of two thousand twelve on four
Speaker 1: counts of conspiracy and securities fraud and then was acquitted
Speaker 1: on two counts. So he did ultimately get found guilty
Speaker 1: of some stuff. And the big questions here are things
Speaker 1: like how aware was mackenzie and company of this activity?
Speaker 1: Were they somehow complicit? Were they? Was he was he
Speaker 1: relying on the network in some to some degree? The
Speaker 1: answers probably, yes, yeah, I would, I would think so.
Speaker 1: And it's a weird great and it's not great, but
Speaker 1: it feels like a gray area here. Insider trading this
Speaker 1: idea that if you have these close connections between um,
Speaker 1: the company that is valued at a certain amount that
Speaker 1: you're betting on is going to increase in value, and
Speaker 1: then you're a hedge fund owner that is placing those
Speaker 1: values and somehow you've got this consultancy group that perhaps
Speaker 1: touches both things. I don't know that it puts tremendous
Speaker 1: power in that third party that that has that connection,
Speaker 1: because if you want to, you can pull those strings,
Speaker 1: or you can threaten to pull those strings I don't
Speaker 1: know that. Mmm. They just got caught, that's it. They
Speaker 1: got caught doing what what? Maybe they're kind of set
Speaker 1: up to do ben, That's the thing. So insider trading
Speaker 1: is so at least at least in our country here
Speaker 1: in the United States, insider trading is such a a
Speaker 1: hazy concept, you know, yeah, because it's not you sharing
Speaker 1: anything necessarily in this setup, you know, in a way,
Speaker 1: it's a consultancy group, it's a partners that it's connected,
Speaker 1: but really not that connected. And at this level, the
Speaker 1: laws are pretty rigorous about this, but they can also
Speaker 1: be fairly complicated. So insider trading occurs all the time
Speaker 1: in the United States. For a while. For a long time, actually,
Speaker 1: members of the US Congress were not subject to the
Speaker 1: same insider trading laws that everybody else was, in theory
Speaker 1: subject to. That checks out, man. Sure, if you're in
Speaker 1: the Senate, you've gotta be able to grease those palms somehow,
Speaker 1: and if you could do it on your own time,
Speaker 1: and it's not somebody else greeezing your palm. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: it is somebody else. Oh wait, oh it's corruption, Oh god,
Speaker 1: oh no, some of us are more equal than others. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So let's pause here for a word from our sponsor
Speaker 1: and return to some more tales from the Black Book
Speaker 1: of the Mackenzie Company. Get ready for Enron. It's coming.
Speaker 1: We're back in how pressy And yes, you are correct,
Speaker 1: my friends. And Ron. So Enron was the creation of
Speaker 1: a guy named Jeff Skilling. Jeff Skilling was mackenzie consultant
Speaker 1: for twenty one years and when Enron collapsed, he actually
Speaker 1: went to jail. He did relatively rare for a lot
Speaker 1: of financial crimes. Uh. Mackenzie reportedly fully endorsed the dubious
Speaker 1: accounting methods that caused the company to implode in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, and Enron reportedly used Mackenzie for twenty
Speaker 1: different projects. And it became a situation where mackenzie consultants
Speaker 1: would say, you know what, and Ron is kind of
Speaker 1: a sandbox for us. Let's just let's shake things up.
Speaker 1: Let's roll the dice, make it interesting, vague, it's baby, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see what we can do, like we can get
Speaker 1: away with does this make money if we just say
Speaker 1: this or we just do this. It's pretty brilliant. And
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen the documentary it's called Enron the
Speaker 1: smartest guys in the room. I would recommend it highly.
Speaker 1: Go check it out if you get a chance. Find
Speaker 1: it somewhere. Um, we have we done an Enron episode?
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't know if we have. We've
Speaker 1: talked about it a lot. Um. I think it's worth it,
Speaker 1: like just taking this, expanding it out in the whole episode,
Speaker 1: just because there's there are a lot of details in
Speaker 1: here about the weirdness that occurred there. Right, Okay, so
Speaker 1: it's the high level, quick and dirty look at this. Uh.
Speaker 1: Enron was the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at
Speaker 1: its time. It was also called the biggest failure of
Speaker 1: an audit. UH. The scandal went public in October two
Speaker 1: thousand one. Enron was an energy company based in Houston, Texas,
Speaker 1: and it is formed five. Uh. So you're doing the
Speaker 1: whole episode right now? This is a whole episode. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's like the hero of the facts sections. I can
Speaker 1: feel it. Well. A lot of people went to jail. Uh.
Speaker 1: It had until I think until world Com went bankrupt
Speaker 1: the very next year. And Ron was the largest corporate
Speaker 1: bankruptcy in history because I think it was valued at
Speaker 1: sixty three point four billion dollars and then it all
Speaker 1: went to put. Yeah, just so maybe we'll do an
Speaker 1: en run episode. Yeah, that should be worth it. It
Speaker 1: might be dry a little bit, but I think we
Speaker 1: can pull some stuff out of there, just from the
Speaker 1: insanity of our financial systems, like as they work with
Speaker 1: the energy companies and the actual energy prices and just
Speaker 1: all of these the way it's all interconnected, the way
Speaker 1: that sometimes to turn a law to profit. Uh, we
Speaker 1: will have tankers of oil waiting just off the coast, right,
Speaker 1: That's happened before. I mean that's you know, during the depression,
Speaker 1: people were starving to death in urban areas while farmers
Speaker 1: were just slaughtering pigs wholesale and then throwing milk in
Speaker 1: a creek in an attempt to raise the prices. Burn
Speaker 1: that wheat field man. This is the point where a
Speaker 1: consultant would come in and say, hey, we can improve
Speaker 1: this workflow, and they might be right, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason that the consultancy industry exists.
Speaker 1: If only the peaky blinders excuse me, the mckensey group.
Speaker 1: We're around back then, Wait not so in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, do you remember the financial crisis. Oh do
Speaker 1: I you have a tattoo of it? Yeah, everything that
Speaker 1: happened and there's that's crazy because the tattoo, it's just
Speaker 1: nothing because nothing changed. Bleak. I love it. So McKenzie
Speaker 1: Mackenzie gets accused of being a prime mover in the
Speaker 1: financial crisis, which because they were allegedly promoting the securitization
Speaker 1: of mortgage assets and asking banks to fund their operations
Speaker 1: with a lot of debt, and according to you know,
Speaker 1: their critics, this led to a poisoning of the global
Speaker 1: financial system and created ultimately that two thousand eight meltdown.
Speaker 1: There's a great article on this. There are several great
Speaker 1: articles on this, but one that will mention the financial
Speaker 1: crisis littleple war detail is Mackenzie how does it always
Speaker 1: get away with it? By a guy named Ben Chew
Speaker 1: writing for The Independent and what what they eventually came
Speaker 1: out in the wash about this was something incredibly despicable
Speaker 1: that ties in with their activities with insurance. So mackenzie
Speaker 1: and company sold major insurers at places like all State
Speaker 1: a new business model that was designed to turn claims
Speaker 1: into profits. Their strategy was known as good hands or
Speaker 1: boxing gloves, and yeah, uh, this really came into the
Speaker 1: public eye during some during Hurricane Katrina. Uh The idea
Speaker 1: was that internally, we would aim to make the process
Speaker 1: of filing for claims too difficult for people who were
Speaker 1: policy holders and too expensive and time consuming for lawyers
Speaker 1: to want to take the case, leaving insurance firms undisputed
Speaker 1: as they delayed or denied claims. Here's how the model worked.
Speaker 1: This is incredibly unethical. They would offer deliberately lower settlement
Speaker 1: to any policy holder who files a claim, much lower
Speaker 1: than they're actually entitled to according to what their insurance
Speaker 1: agreement is. If you accept the lower payment than boom,
Speaker 1: your claim is resolved liquid e split. If you say, hey,
Speaker 1: this says that I'm supposed to have X amount of cash.
Speaker 1: Why did you give me why amount of money? They
Speaker 1: will say we have to if you're denying the settlement,
Speaker 1: we have to process this claim, and that will be
Speaker 1: delayed and delayed and delayed forever until the policy holders
Speaker 1: are finally forced to accept the payment or just give
Speaker 1: up altogether. That's in addition to this, A guy named
Speaker 1: nave Deep Aurora was convicted for illegally depleting state farm
Speaker 1: of over five d thousand dollars over a period of
Speaker 1: eight years in cahoots with a state farm employee. So
Speaker 1: in addition to creating this model that says, hey, you're
Speaker 1: an insurance company, Uh, don't do your job and try
Speaker 1: to build people out of it and then pay us
Speaker 1: for telling you to do that, Uh, certain employees were
Speaker 1: also stealing money from the company. In addition, God, no
Speaker 1: thank you, Yeah, no thanks. Uh. They've also been associated
Speaker 1: with pharmaceutical I don't know if you call them scandals
Speaker 1: but controversies. Uh. There's a company called Valiant, Canadian pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: company that was investigated by the SEC. They've been accused
Speaker 1: of cooking their books and of using predatory price hikes
Speaker 1: to boost growth. The Financial Times had an intriguing statement here, Matt.
Speaker 1: They said, Valiance downfall is not exactly Mackenzie's fault, but
Speaker 1: it's fingerprints are everywhere. Jeez okay, yeah, I mean, what
Speaker 1: are you doing that? Three out of six of the
Speaker 1: senior exex were recent Mackenzie employees, and the the chair
Speaker 1: of the Talent and Compensation committee was also an ex Mackenzie.
Speaker 1: It feels it feels like Mackenzie has this like part
Speaker 1: time upright citizens brigade gig where they go around like
Speaker 1: the Move, like the TV show, not like just the
Speaker 1: emperorv Group where they're just wreaking havoc everywhere and chaos
Speaker 1: on purpose just to see what they can get away with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like that. And we have to ask if
Speaker 1: we're just hearing about the bad cases that made it
Speaker 1: to court. We most certainly are. I think that's without
Speaker 1: a doubt. But the bad cases are pretty pretty bad.
Speaker 1: And would the cases that are considered successful for the
Speaker 1: client and the company be considered successful for other people
Speaker 1: where they publicized because this this kind of company can
Speaker 1: do multiple things, but one of the things a consultancy
Speaker 1: is often going to be associated with is quote unquote
Speaker 1: streamlining fire the workforce, pay the pay the upper level
Speaker 1: management more or give them a sweetheart, golden parachute walk
Speaker 1: away deal kind of thing. And their competitors have also
Speaker 1: complained about unfair business practices. There was a court case
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen uh Mackenzie went to court over
Speaker 1: allegations from competitors that was purposely misleading or misinforming clients
Speaker 1: by not telling the whole truth essentially or as little
Speaker 1: of the truth as they could get away with because
Speaker 1: it wouldn't it wouldn't disclose conflicts like conflicts of interest,
Speaker 1: And this comes into play later, right, So like, if
Speaker 1: you are what's the easiest way to put it? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say that, Um, I'm Mackenzie Group and you are
Speaker 1: a credit here of financier and you hire me to
Speaker 1: bail out. Uh. Let's say nol has Um a bankrupt
Speaker 1: headphone company. The headphone mill is in trouble and it's bankrupt. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're in charge of how this bankruptcy happens. You go
Speaker 1: to me, Mackenzie and say, here's a couple of mill,
Speaker 1: here's a cool, cool few mill. What's the best way
Speaker 1: to restructure this? How do we determine who gets paid what?
Speaker 1: And I say, all right, I've got the perfect plan,
Speaker 1: but I don't tell you that as you and I
Speaker 1: were cracking this deal, I went through a different company
Speaker 1: and bought up a ton of this debt. So now
Speaker 1: what I'm doing is saying, well, you gotta pay that
Speaker 1: or not been incorporated first. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And then so like, okay, well you're the expert, and
Speaker 1: so you pay not been incorporated first. Then on top
Speaker 1: of that, cool mill, I've got all this other money
Speaker 1: with you know. That's that's a very very very oversimplified
Speaker 1: version of how that kind of thing would work. It's
Speaker 1: also illegal, and you can see why it is. I'm
Speaker 1: just having this thought here. This is such a a
Speaker 1: rich person's thing, this idea of a consultant in this way,
Speaker 1: this type of partner, and that's why it exists at
Speaker 1: these higher levels. Only CEO is only um the top
Speaker 1: levels of the white collar amongst the world. Here of
Speaker 1: paying somebody a lot of money to figure out how
Speaker 1: you need to structure your payments for something, because you've
Speaker 1: got this massive amount of money that needs to go
Speaker 1: out in these different places. You've got this massive amound
Speaker 1: money that needs to be um shuttled along in some way.
Speaker 1: But I don't have time for that with all this money.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring somebody else in to do it. And
Speaker 1: no wonder like corruption, even just to the amount we're
Speaker 1: discussing here, occurs when you're talking about that level of money.
Speaker 1: My god, somebody is going to think about themselves. And again,
Speaker 1: this is a huge company. So in their defense, they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: look if something happens and it's illegal or it's incorrect,
Speaker 1: then we will we will fix it. Yeah no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: not speaking against the company. I just think it's that
Speaker 1: is human nature when you're dealing with this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So just for an example,
Speaker 1: they said that they wanted to they they overhauled their
Speaker 1: South Africa office, apparently after after US dealing such debilitating
Speaker 1: damage to s Common and Transnet, and then the stories continued.
Speaker 1: So in the case of the US Immigrations and Customs
Speaker 1: Enforcement or ICE, Mackenzie stopped working with them after it
Speaker 1: was disclosed the firm had done more than twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of consulting work for the agency. And this
Speaker 1: is where we hear an explicit version of that defense.
Speaker 1: A managing partner said the contract, which was not widely
Speaker 1: known until The New York Times reported it, to people
Speaker 1: in the company itself. According to them, he said it
Speaker 1: had rightly raised concerns, So they're not going to do
Speaker 1: it anymore. That is odd for ICE to be having
Speaker 1: a relationship with Mackenzie. Why is it? Why PR and
Speaker 1: they're not a PR firm. It could be workflow, I guess,
Speaker 1: so it could be something along the lines of how
Speaker 1: do we move the most people. How do we uh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, like monitoring of a border or something, or
Speaker 1: what is our process for it could be something that's
Speaker 1: innocuous is how do we handle records? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Any number of things it could be and
Speaker 1: just setting up facilities that kind of thing. I wonder
Speaker 1: if that had anything to do it interesting. So one
Speaker 1: one other one that we would be remiss if we
Speaker 1: didn't touch on is Mackenzie's work with authoritarian regimes and
Speaker 1: business and policy support for regimes. It comes in the
Speaker 1: news every so often, and again, long time listeners, you
Speaker 1: recall that regime is the word people use instead of
Speaker 1: government when they don't want to, when they don't want
Speaker 1: you to think another country's government is legitimate. So North
Speaker 1: Korea calls the U. S Government US regime, and the
Speaker 1: US calls North Korea the North Korean regime. Absolutely, So,
Speaker 1: if you ever want to know how your country feels
Speaker 1: about another country, just see who they see who they
Speaker 1: call a regime. It is. It is such a simplistic shortcut,
Speaker 1: but I guarantee you it works. It's very true, and
Speaker 1: now I'm seeing it in my head. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: those countries are automatically a legitimate you know how your
Speaker 1: rulers feel about them. The Iranian regime for sure, right. Uh,
Speaker 1: these are the phrases they get thrown around, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's plenty of we were always at war with
Speaker 1: East Asia kind of stuff going on there too. But
Speaker 1: in Mackenzie's case, they popped up in the news quite
Speaker 1: recently in December of eighteen because there was this big
Speaker 1: company retreat in China and it was held next to
Speaker 1: the Chinese government internment camps where thousand of wagers are
Speaker 1: being detained as we speak. And we did an episode
Speaker 1: on this earlier in modern concentration camps. Yeah, that's an
Speaker 1: odd place to have your lavish retreat. Oh, and we
Speaker 1: also have a list here of I guess some prominent
Speaker 1: clients that mackenzie has worked for. Um, let's see the
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia regime. No, I'm just kidding. It's the monarchy there, Um,
Speaker 1: Turkey's autocratic leader or the gun And let's see, Oh,
Speaker 1: the president of Ukraine who was ousted. It's a former
Speaker 1: president Victor Um. Yeah, Yanokovich, I believe i Kovich that's it.
Speaker 1: And then several other Chinese and Russian companies who are
Speaker 1: under or were under sanctions, heavy sanctions at the time.
Speaker 1: People to Mackenzie just swoops in and says, you guys
Speaker 1: need some help. Well, guess what this hand. It's very helpful.
Speaker 1: And don't worry. It doesn't know what the left hand does, right,
Speaker 1: or at least it doesn't talk to the left hand,
Speaker 1: my friends. Yeah, so let's just trading. If it's a
Speaker 1: trading thing, then we can make something else of right.
Speaker 1: So what what we're exploring then, or what we have
Speaker 1: explored today, is the story of a company that operates
Speaker 1: largely out of the headlines the halls of power. It's
Speaker 1: it's a power behind the throne, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: this corporate vizier that advises um companies, corporations, countries in power,
Speaker 1: and many times it comes into conflict with the law,
Speaker 1: with various countries legal systems. So the question is are
Speaker 1: we seeing just the bad stuff are we? Are we
Speaker 1: only hearing about Mackenzie when there's a problem. Well, we
Speaker 1: are hearing a lot about Mackenzie's problems when they pop up,
Speaker 1: and there does seem to be a pattern. Are we
Speaker 1: being unfair when we say that this or organization is
Speaker 1: committing crime, or our journalists being unfair when they say that,
Speaker 1: we'd like to we'd like to hear from you, so
Speaker 1: let us know what you think of this. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: for conclusions, Mackenzie is not going away anytime soon. We
Speaker 1: are not kicking someone while they're down in any way.
Speaker 1: And from their perspective, again, they don't actually do these things.
Speaker 1: They advise clients. The clients take it from there, but
Speaker 1: not everyone's buying this. One last note. In January this month,
Speaker 1: a bankruptcy case just got reopened here in the US,
Speaker 1: alleging Mackenzie was illegally making money off bankruptcy cases it
Speaker 1: became involved with, and more so than it has established
Speaker 1: a pattern of doing this, that this is not a
Speaker 1: one off thing but something more akin to a business practice.
Speaker 1: I'm just putting this out here. This whole story reminds
Speaker 1: me of a movie that I saw way back when,
Speaker 1: I say, way back in the day, over ten years ago,
Speaker 1: called Michael Clayton that it's stars, I want to say,
Speaker 1: George Clooney and oh god, I can't remember. I think
Speaker 1: Tilda Swinton's in it too. It's this fantastic movie where
Speaker 1: there's this what they called a fixer would come through.
Speaker 1: And that's what this whole thing feels like to me. Fixers,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. I think in my head. That's
Speaker 1: how I'm how I'm choosing to view Mackenzie, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure is just a a shallow view of what it
Speaker 1: is and what it actually is. But that's what it
Speaker 1: feels like to me, and I wonder if you feel
Speaker 1: that same way. Let us know. Yeah, and a look,
Speaker 1: and also, consultant firms aren't inherently bad right now, you're
Speaker 1: just getting something done efficiently. I think that's it. Well,
Speaker 1: you're getting someone's opinion. Yeah, that's what it consulted. Like,
Speaker 1: here's my opinion based on my experience. This is what
Speaker 1: I advise, right Uh. And plenty of people have done
Speaker 1: can salting work before I've done it, not on this level, um,
Speaker 1: but it you know. I just want to emphasize that
Speaker 1: we're not saying all these firms are are terrible. We're
Speaker 1: not saying that everyone involved is a bad guy. But
Speaker 1: we are saying that Mackenzie has a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, and it goes way
Speaker 1: beyond just who their clients are and what they do
Speaker 1: for those clients, it goes into court cases, it goes
Speaker 1: into collapsing uh state sector industries, it goes into tons
Speaker 1: of dirty money. And this is you know, at that point,
Speaker 1: those statements are not our opinion. They're the opinion of
Speaker 1: legal systems of courts. So it's not even us saying
Speaker 1: it at this point, you know what I mean? No?
Speaker 1: Al Right, well, hey find us yeah on social media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Meet
Speaker 1: your fellow listeners and talk about talk about Mackenzie Group
Speaker 1: until they buy our corporation to shut us down. Where
Speaker 1: here's where he gets crazy. That's our community page on Facebook.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Instagram. I'm at them bowling.
Speaker 1: Then that's not a Dora right, No, no, just making sure.
Speaker 1: And these are not our gyles socks, these space socks.
Speaker 1: Those are awesome, dude, I just have boring ones on
Speaker 1: right now. They're awesome things. That makes you a better consultant.
Speaker 1: I'm not distracting you. This is where we find out
Speaker 1: that Paul Decond works for Mackenzie. Oh. I could totally
Speaker 1: see Paul him doing it. Oh man, he cleans up,
Speaker 1: He cleans up so nicely, and he's just like rolling
Speaker 1: under the radar when he's in here as mission control.
Speaker 1: I can see it doing a great job with it too.
Speaker 1: Oh also, this has nothing to do with anything other
Speaker 1: than maybe ending on a little bit of a lighter note.
Speaker 1: H Paul, I don't know how you're going to feel
Speaker 1: about this. And fellow listeners, you haven't heard Paul on
Speaker 1: the air, but I was watching stand up from one
Speaker 1: of uh one of my favorite comics, John Mullaney. I dude,
Speaker 1: I thought Mullaney as you said that. And super producer
Speaker 1: Paul Deckett. Do you remind me of John Mullaney in
Speaker 1: the coolest way? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see,
Speaker 1: I could see, I could see Paul Tellton some of
Speaker 1: those stories. Oh man, I hope you grew up to
Speaker 1: be like his character that he played on the Broadway
Speaker 1: show that he did. I hope you. I hope you
Speaker 1: come into that one day. But you're not making the
Speaker 1: decision for him, you're advising him, right, True, that's true.
Speaker 1: That's so if anything goes wrong with that, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not your fault. Matt, Matt and co. Uh So,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for tuning in. Please do let
Speaker 1: us know what your take is on these things. Are
Speaker 1: these companies something that should be in the world, are they?
Speaker 1: Are they criminal organizations? Or are the opponents and critics
Speaker 1: just being alarmist. You know, there's definitely stuff they want
Speaker 1: you know, and everything indicates that several of those secrets
Speaker 1: are secrets because they are a legal activity. But again,
Speaker 1: a few bad apples, there's a whole bad orchard. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You can always can always argue the
Speaker 1: bad apple thing in almost every situation. And you can
Speaker 1: call us directly with your take one eight three three
Speaker 1: st d w y t K. That's stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know, by the way, in letters. Uh
Speaker 1: so call us, leave a message you may get on
Speaker 1: the show. Okay, I guess that's it. And if you
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