(Small) markets in everything
Ralph Nader spent a career bashing corporate executives. Now he’s written a book praising some. It’s not going down too well.
Tentatively called “Twelve CEOs I Have Known and Admired,” the book is more than a little off-brand for the man who upended the world of auto safety with the blockbuster “Unsafe at Any Speed” and then attacked corporate behavior in a number of other industries.
Based on a string of rejection letters from publishers, Mr. Nader said he fears he’s been typecast, making any accolades he might have for corporate tycoons a hard sell. His literary agent, Ronald Goldfarb, advised him to change course and go negative, he says.
“He wanted chapters on bad CEOs,” Mr. Nader said of Mr. Goldfarb.
“I didn’t tell him what to write,” Mr. Goldfarb retorts. “I told him what I could sell.” The two parted ways after working on the manuscript for three months.
Mood affiliation strikes again. Nader fans don’t want to positively affiliate with CEOs, and “love letter” types do not always wish to affiliate with Nader. (By the way, here is my 2014 chat with Nader.) Here is the rest of the Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg WSJ article.