Again Mr White is notalone.There is a reasonpeopletalk of businessempires:tycoonslikeRupertMurdocharelatter-dayCaesars,fixated on conqueringnewterritories.SteveJobseventuallyoutcompetedMicrosoftbecause he was so painstaking in perfectingApple’sproducts.Partnershipsaretheheart of a strikingnumber of businesses:whetherLarryPageandSergeyBrin or WarrenBuffettandCharlieMunger—orindeedGoldmanandSachs or HewlettandPackard. As forcontractingoutdistribution, it is de rigueurforhigh-growthstart-ups.
“BreakingBad” is even sharper on theforces of destruction in business. Mr White’srelationshipwithhispartnerfallsapart. He is regularly in conflictwithhisdistributors.And he sucks at work-lifebalance. Being in themethbusinessgives a uniquetwist to alltheseproblems.
Yetthesearetwists on commonthemes.Thebreakdown of relationsbetweenbusinesspartners,thanks to theacids of ego,greedandparanoia, is a perennialbusinessproblem.Strainedrelationsbetweencompaniesanddistributorsarecommon. In one of hisbooks Mr Christensennotesthatwhenever he hasattended a universityreunion he wasstruck by howmany of hiscontemporariessufferedfromterriblework-lifebalance:“Theirpersonalrelationshipshadbegun to deteriorate, even as theirprofessionalprospectsblossomed.”
Mr White’sbiggestfailing is also a commonone in business:hubris. The more successful he becomes, the more invulnerable he feels. Themorerules he breaks,themorerighteous he feels.Andthemorewealth he accumulates,themore he wants. An impressivevolume of social-sciencestudiessuggeststhatleadersare more willing to break the rules than followers.There is no shortage of corporateexamples,fromEnron to Olympus, to illustratethis.WalterWhite is a thoroughlyoddcharacter,but he alsoholds a worryingmirror to thebusinessworld.
Answer the following questions:
Answer the question by using a word or two words from the text.
Match the words and the translation.
Read about comparative constructions. Use the appropriate form of the adjective or adverb.
Form adjectives by combing the two words.
Combine the two sentences to express the same idea.