New York’s Greatest Divorces: Your Handy GuideChristie Brinkley and Peter Cook’s divorce will be messy, sure — but they’ve got nothing on Donald, Ron, and Rudy. Let’s talk about legends, people.
Jack Welch Has Some Letting Go to DoThe former GE chief won’t shut up about his old job, Andrew Cuomo goes on a subpoena rampage, Katie Couric may have a book in her, and a homeless man blunders on to some very special blueprints in our daily roundup of news from the world of finance, law, media, and real estate.
The ‘GQ’ Whipped List Includes Some of New York’s MeekestWe were just tipped off to GQ’s list of “the twenty-five most emasculated, disempowered, henpecked husbands on the planet” by Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici. He was fascinated by the fact that Wendi Deng, our best friend, pushed Rupert Murdoch around so much. Well, yeah. Doesn’t everyone know that it’s the powerful men who love to be dominated? But what other New York men did GQ out as submissives? Despite the obvious and frankly just-for-show sexism (because everyone knows that all dudes who work for GQ are either gay or Sensitive) we clicked over, and we were not disappointed.
party lines
Jack and Suzy Welch Envy Each Other
Last night moguls and media types gathered to celebrate the revamp of Business Week. Henry Kissinger, Dylan Lauren, Atoosa Rubenstein, and Alexis Stewart (Martha’s daughter) all rallied at Guastavino’s to toast editor-in-chief Stephen Adler. Michael Eisner praised the redesign and then got down to business with us about — what else? — the Fox Business Network.”When you have Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes doing a project, you can’t discount it,” he told us. “So I suspect it will be competitive and successful.” Eisner reminded us that he has his own show on CNBC, a network he thinks is “pretty entrenched and well done.” “I think it will be a long time before they’re taken over the way CNN was taken over by Fox News,” he said. “It’s not really analogous.”
intel
Jack Welch (Unsurprisingly) Thinks Media Should Stop Focusing on High CEO Pay
Jack Welch thinks people should stop complaining so much about the vast sums CEOs are paid these days. The former GE chief — who faced his own CEO-compensation scandal when the perks of his retirement package came to light — told a star-struck audience at the 92nd Street Y Thursday night that the current poster boy for plunder, former Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli, a longtime GE exec under Welch, shouldn’t be blamed for wanting what his contract said was his. “Bob took a sinking company and put it back together,” he said, his wife the writer Suzy Welch, at his side. “But unfortunately Bob believed through his toes that he deserved to be paid what was in his contract, and when the stock market did not reflect earnings, it turned out to be a lightning rod. He didn’t change with the times.”
