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House of Lies
2012 · TV series · 30 min episodes · 5 seasons
Created by Matthew Carnahan
Charming, fast talking Marty Kaan and his crack team of management consultants know how to play the corporate game better than anyone, by using every dirty trick in the book to woo powerful CEOs and close huge deals. In the board rooms, barrooms, and bedrooms of the power elite, corruption is business as usual and everyone's out for themselves first. Nothing is sacred in this scathing, irreverent satire of corporate America today.
5 positive5 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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10 comments on Hacker News
Highly recommend watching management consulting tv drama/comedy - House of Lies
Trailer for season 1: https://youtu.be/pNLlHYJnj8I
>The company owner « joking » about how our sales team used alcohol, parties and embarrassing photos to make their customer buy our software.
That was an episode in House of Lies where the consultants sell their idea only through blackmail.
There is pretty illustrative TV series for the management consulting, House of Lies [1] Of course there is some comedy and all, but surprisingly solid and realistic picture of that business.
[1] https://www.sho.com/house-of-lies
I've been in technical, not management, consulting, but House of Lies felt disturbingly accurate.
Except I usually just stared at bad movies in hotel rooms to decompress after dealing with clients, rather than blow and strippers. Sue me, I'm boring.
This is based on a survey of Management Consultants. For those who have not worked with Management Consultants, or seen the Showtime series "House of Lies", these are not the guys you want to be your CEO. (The TV show is fictionalized, of course, but it's based on a book written by a management consultant.)
Their characteristics are rapaciousness, self focus, political and emotional manipulation and greed. They do well for themselves, not so well for the company.
So, I question the premise of this article from the beginning as its source material is not successful CEOs who spent more than 10 years at the company in question or in the CEO role.
Edit: I see I'm being buried. To be fair, there's a difference between a "management consultant" and an consulting engineer. consulting engineers get stuff done. Management consultants can also come up with great ideas (as shown in the show I referenced above) and can legitimately add value. But they are best as consultants, not employees and not CEOs. Of course generalizations are false if applied strictly- there are exceptions.
I just think that a better survey of successful CEOs would be necessary to draw any serious conclusions.
AND - more specifically- having worked with management consultants and a variety of CEOs of startups who didn't have startup backgrounds, for a startup you generally don't want a management consultant as your founding CEO.
The next study should be how many times we re-watch the same show / movie because nothing else appealing is on.
Have watched Edge of Tomorrow on HBO probably 20 times now and have started re-watching from the beginning House of Lies. Probably re-watch House of Cards next.
There is even a TV show which, among other things, depicts the tricks of bad consultants. It's called House of Lies and is based on the eponymous book.
"Soylent is betting on the fact that consumers want to separate the nourishment of food from the ritual of eating. That's a bit like saying, 'We can offer you the ability to reproduce without the inconvenience of having sex.'"
This is the best criticism of soylent; what they're doing just goes against the grain of how peoples' minds are wired.
Maybe it'll wind up gaining traction as a fad instead, like the meal replacement product on House of Lies[1] this past season[2].
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLPhbw0IBk8
[2] When I saw that episode, I wondered if it was meant as a deliberate spoof of soylent.
BTW, two fun books for consultants, and would-be consultants, to read are House of Lies[1] and The Firm[2].
Both are more about "management consulting" (aka, McKinsey, Deloitte, etc.) than what most of us probably have in mind, but they are both entertaining reads in their own respective right.
House of Lies is a sort of retrospective "tell all" from a former management consultant, and inspired a TV program of the same name. At times it's hard to tell how serious he is, and the TV show is clearly not meant to be a completely accurate documentary (although it may be more truthful than you'd think) but it's a fun read.
The Firm is basically the history of McKinsey, and while that might sound pretty dry and boring, it turns out to be fairly fascinating. Lots of interesting characters involved, and some fun drama and what-not. And it's interesting to see how McKinsey grew from basically nothing, to being the behemoth it is today.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/House-Lies-Management-Consultants-Steal/dp/B001QFY1SA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396981696&sr=1-1&keywords=house+of+lies
[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Firm-McKinsey-Influence-American-Business/dp/1439190976/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396981759&sr=1-2&keywords=the+firm
I think an easy answer to the "shopping sucks" problem is to sell them cheaply. If I can buy one episode of, say, House of Lies for $1, I'll give it a try and if it sucks, it didn't cost enough for me to care. This is more or less what AllofMP3 did, and it was great - the music was cheap enough that I'd happily take the risk of some of it being crap. It's similar to Apple's App Store as well, for that matter.