Fortune Magazine
Captain's Blog

Captain's Blog, stardate 5/17/07

The new issue of Fortune magazine profiles Generation Y, big banks seek to be all things to everyone, America sours on Starbucks, and Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer keeps you on top of it all.

By Andy Serwer, Fortune managing editor

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- -- NEW ISSUE OF FORTUNE: You know what? This generation of twenty-somethings really is different. You know why? Because they are the first generation raised by baby boomers - what we call helicopter parents (you know, always hovering!) This generation of kids has been coddled and tutored and loved too much since they was babies. All right so how do they (maybe YOU!) fit into the workplace? Someone's going to have to change. Guess who? That's Rii-ight! Their parents/bosses. The baby-boomers. This is the cool cover story written by Nadira Hira in your latest issue of Fortune. Oh, one other thing: it's a great read too!

ON MERRILL LYNCH: Had a cup of coffee with Stan O'Neal the other day. He's an interesting guy, right? You saw he made some more management changes at Merrill (Charts, Fortune 500) the other day. A nod to Greg Fleming, no? Stan is very much of the "no news about Merrill is good news" school and who can blame him? We spoke about all the big firms, including ML, wanting to be able to cover all sides of a transaction today - M&A, private equity, leveraged lending etc. - but that they all come from different places. For instance, Lehman (Charts, Fortune 500) comes from fixed income. Merrill has had a powerful retail brokerage business. So it's interesting to watch the firms grow from those positions. Thanks Jason Wright!

ON JP MORGAN: Also had a nice chat with the incomparable Jimmy Lee. He really is a Wall Street original. Jimmy has been around for a long time (not that you're old Jimbo!), and he is at the center of soooo many deals. I really think he's having a fabu time working with Jamie Dimon, you could just see it on Jimmy's face. So Jim, how's business? You must be kidding! The deal flow is just amazing.

STARBUCKS: It is true that Americans love a success story. Until it's too successful. Take Starbucks (Charts, Fortune 500). It was cute and cuddly, and then BOOM it's a behemoth. And a while back founder Howard Schultz was complaining about it losing its soul. He may have a point. Check this out!

LOOSE CHANGE: Went to the New York City Ballet's new "Romeo and Juliet" over the weekend. (Um, that would be Shakespeare and Prokofiev for you Linkin Park fans.) Choreographed by Peter Martins. How was it? A little bit too much narrative and not enough dancin' for me...Deep Blue pointed me to a Christian Science Monitor story that says fewer Mexicans are sneaking over the border this year which may be a bad thing because it could be a sign of a slowing economy. Dang!......Time Warner (Charts, Fortune 500) just sold the Atlanta Braves to Greg Maffei, oops I mean Liberty Media. Zell is selling the Cubs too. Maybe someone at Madison Dearborn will buy 'em?...So I met Mei Jingsong of Sina.com. Hi Mei! Nice to meet you! I think you're doing great stuff. I wonder how common a name that is in China? (Tee hee)...Hey have you checked out this random number generator from space? How cool is this? And another question (I'm full of 'em [not it!] today.) Have you read "Diary of a Real Estate Rookie: My Year of Flipping, Selling, and Rebuilding and What I Learned (The Hard Way)" by Ali Rogers? Ali also used to work at FORTUNE but now is much too glam for me...So another foolish man wearing a "I am the man from Nantucket..." t-shirt. To that I say no you aren't!.....Spitzer said I need to go to rehab and I said "No no no!"...I attended a fabulous party for the fabulous Julia Boorstin (you may remember her as a lapsed FORTUNE reporter who has now succumbed to the tempations of the small screen over at CNBC and doing - yes - a fabulous job)...Okay LeBron! Okay Rasheed! Okay Steve Nash! How much do you want it! Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.