Carl Icahn Gets Invited Back To Boards Because He's Such A Good House Guest

“We get involved on the board. We don’t micromanage and interestingly we get invited back because we’re not a disturbance or a disruption. And Hanes is a good example — we bought it at 20 and it’s now at 80. And I think the CEO will say that in the beginning he was wary of us but he said that we helped him quite a bit. And Motorola I think I still stay friendly with Greg Brown (chairman and chief executive officer of Motorola Solutions, Inc.) who says we helped him. I think this model must be used in this country if we are going to remain competitive. One of the major reasons I think for the fact that we have unemployment is and we don’t compete is the mediocrity of so many of our managements and so many of our boards. I want to make it clear that there are some very good managers and some very good boards. But generally, it’s amazing how badly these companies are run.” [Reuters]