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    When Mckinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe Summary

    When Mckinsey Comes to Town
    Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe
    2.75 (4 Reviews)
    BusinessPoliticsEconomics
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    Overview of When Mckinsey Comes to Town

    Behind McKinsey's elite facade lurks a darker truth. Two NYT investigative journalists expose how the world's most powerful consulting firm turbocharges opioid sales and serves controversial clients. "Panoramic and devastating" (Patrick Radden Keefe) - this expose redefines corporate accountability.

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    Best quote from When Mckinsey Comes to Town

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    Though McKinsey allows consultants to refuse morally objectionable assignments, this shifts ethical choices to junior staff rather than leadership, and declining work can harm advancement prospects.

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    Key Takeaways

    1

    The Invisible Hand That Shapes Your World

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    A father of two comes home from his shift at a steel mill. Within months, he's dead-electrocuted on equipment that hadn't been properly maintained. A grandmother in rural Kentucky takes her prescribed pain medication, unaware she's stepping onto a path that leads to addiction and despair. A young consultant at the world's most prestigious firm discovers the "change that matters" she was promised means helping coal companies maximize profits while the planet burns. These stories aren't isolated tragedies. They're connected by invisible threads leading back to the same place: a consulting firm so powerful yet so secretive that most people have never heard its name, even as it quietly reshapes everything from your healthcare costs to your job security. McKinsey & Company operates where power concentrates-in corporate boardrooms, government offices, and the inner circles of authoritarian regimes. With 34,000 employees across 65 countries, this elite firm attracts the brightest minds with an irresistible pitch: not just wealth and prestige, but the chance to solve the world's toughest problems. Yet this promise of purpose masks a troubling reality. McKinsey's fingerprints appear on some of modern society's most devastating failures, from the opioid epidemic to historic wealth inequality. The firm's genius lies in its business model-give advice, not orders, then disappear before consequences arrive.

    2

    When the Consultants Arrive, Workers Pay

    3

    The Seduction of Idealism

    4

    Engineering Inequality

    5

    Turbocharging the Opioid Crisis

    6

    The Accountability Vacuum

    7

    Reckoning With Power