Some Thoughts on the AIG Bonus Issue

The NY Times today published a letter from a former employee, exceutive, of the AIG unit that had the major problems and the large bonus. The letter seeks sympathy for a job, well not quite well done but done.

Having never worked in the financial industry, I did have one opportunity in the mid 1980s at Salomon Bros but at the time my college room mate had just bought it and was Vice Chairman and the advice was that a baseball team did not need a brain surgeon, that organ was just missing in the business, it ran on gut. So I passed and was never happier, for shortly after that came 1987 and the collapse. I sought the security of high tech venture start ups. A secure safe spot in a troubled world!

To the point. In my world of venture start ups, you took the calculated risks, won some and lost some, but you were never rewarded if you failed, there just were no such things as retention bonuses. If you wanted another step up to try and hit another ball in another game you always cleaned up your mess if you left one and in many cases there just was no compensation, none, period.

You did it to gain credit, to maintain credibility. You just failed, so fix it and move on. As I have said time and time again, it is the entrepreneur who has created this country and its economy. It is that combination of Dutch and English adventure and focus which created a strong economy, not a Government, and not ab initio the financial community. The Dutch West India company did the financing but it was the actual Dutch in New Amsterdam, aka New York, who set about the business on a day to day basis.

Thus the self indulgent whining from those who may not have personally created the mess, and yet if one is an Executive Vice President there must be some nexus here, one would suspect, is both unprofessional and merely self serving. For those of us who have been in the trenches of entrepreneurial start ups, as they say, it comes with the turf. Get over it.