Dick Fuld may have earned his nickname "the Gorilla" for the aggressive way he stalked the trading floor at Lehman Brothers but the CEO may now be recasting its meaning by holding on to the troubled investment firm and its assets, unwilling to let them go at a price would-be buyers are willing to pay. Looking at pictures of Ghana, the ll year old gorilla in a German zoo who toted around her deceased son for days before allowing zookeepers to remove the corpse, we couldn't help but think: she's just like Fuld.
The poignant pictures of Ghana and her son, Claudio, can't help but stir the human heart. Many who watched her carry the corpse were provoked to anthropomorphize: she appeared to be mourning, expressing a grasp of the finality of death and grieving at the stubborn fact at mortality.
Of course, we don't know what Ghana was feeling. And scientists suggest that perhaps she wasn't grieving at all. She may, in fact, have been displaying a kind of evolutionarily helpful optimism. Natalie Angier of the New York Times explained the idea in yesterday's science section.
Dr. Hrdy, author of "Mother Nature" and the coming "Mothers and Others," said it made adaptive sense for a primate mother to hang onto her motionless baby and keep her hopes high for a while. "If the baby wasn't dead, but temporarily comatose, because it was sick or fallen from the tree, well, it might come back to life," Dr. Hrdy said. "We're talking about primates who have singleton births after long periods of gestation. Each baby represents an enormous investment for the mother.
From an evolutionary standpoint, not abandoning a stunned baby makes sense. Remaining open to the possibility that all that was invested in bringing the child to term, in birthing and in raising the child makes sense. Gorillas, like humans, are characterized in part by the ability to look beyond the immediate, to imagine possibilities that are not yet real.
But this instinct to hold onto objects in which we have made enormous investments can go too far. After all, a dead baby is a sunk cost. It cannot actually be recovered. Some mother gorillas have been known to hold on to the corpse of their offspring even as the body rots. They'd obviously be wiser to bury, or just discard, the dead.
Could Dick Fuld be acting out a kind of primitively evolved instinct to hold on to the institution in which he has invested so much of himself? That might be going to far. But Ghana certainly suggests new meaning to the old nickname Gorilla.
About Death, Just Like Us or Pretty Much Unaware? [New York Times]
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:24PM
That's cold.
I nominate this as your best post of 2008,Carney.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:24PM
got nothing else to report on, huh?
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:24PM
got nothing else to report on, huh?
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:24PM
got nothing else to report on, huh?
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:24PM
got nothing else to report on, huh?
Posted by HAM05 , Sep 03, 2008 3:24PM
hahaha - wow jc, this is a (albeit hilarious) stretch
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:37PM
That should be on the cover of Fortune
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:37PM
@2-5 Lehman risk manager? Not capable of managing risk or the ability to just post once.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:38PM
what, you don't like reading the same crap over and over again? how is @2-5 any difft that bess and carney...
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:39PM
Little known fact,
In Ashanti, the word Ghana (gaana) means Warrior King.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:46PM
Well known fact:
In English the word "Dick Fuld (Fold)" means testicular crease.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:47PM
HA, @11, nice.....
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:49PM
What are #'s for 1st-year gorilla associates?
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:53PM
ouch baby, very ouch!
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 3:58PM
We went to see the gorilla exhibit at the Bronx Zoo a few years ago – a very cool exhibit. The lowlight was watching the mama gorilla eat her own shit (and dutifully so I might add). Everyone was stunned at what was going on. It reminded me of the current status of LEH.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 4:05PM
Dick Fuld's ass is just as hairy as a gorilla's.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 4:20PM
Fuld is changing his name to Mr. Whipple
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 4:21PM
It's not just Carney. Lehman is all over the damn news lately including 2 articles in the WSJ right next to each other today.
#2-#5, I have good money that says you have some kind of direct or indirect stake in Lehman, side bet says the triple click occurred from the Mayo making your mouse slick. Takers?
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 4:28PM
#18 must know his bet is a sure thing, nobody would risk their mayo on anything but a sure thing.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 4:33PM
#9 - why are you here, then? For Joe's a.m. typos and grammatical errors, to distract from your own? FYI, I think Joe's on vacation this week.
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 6:59PM
if you shave that gorilla it would look like a DePauw co-ed
Posted by guest , Sep 03, 2008 11:18PM
Carney, this is very deep, very profound.
Most emotional post I've read. Sob. Well done.
I think you should start coming up with analogies from nature etc. for Lehman's eventual demise.
Posted by guest , Sep 04, 2008 6:08AM
question now, is Dick Fuld holding on to a stunned baby or a rotting corpse?
Posted by guest , Sep 15, 2008 12:09PM
A dead baby is a sunk cost. The most pathetic line I have ever heard. When your mother or father dies. dear author, remember they're sunk costs. Don't grieve, carry on with your ridiculous write ups.
Posted by guest , Aug 04, 2009 6:16PM
There is more evidence to think gorilla mothers feel sad when their baby dies than there is to think that they are just acting mechanically.