Lifted from Dennis Howlett‘s excellent article on Crack Cocaine Economics and six ways to get off it.
This talk by economist Steven Levitt, filmed at TED Talks shows what it is like being at different points in the crack cocaine gang hierarchy.
This is the basis of (or comes from) one of the more famous chapters of his freakonomics book.
Tweet ThisHe makes the comparison between the org structure of a modern enterprise and that of the gang, noting many similarities. The final slide (see illustration) has particular potency. As Steven observes, it doesn’t seem to matter how badly companies perform, the most senior executives always seem to enjoy top payouts. There is for instance a certain irony in this recent Guardian headline: Accountancy: Downturn means £1m uplift for Deloitte chairman.