Famous Jockey Quotes

When he died, much was made of how singular Steve Jobs had been. For comparisons, observers needed to reach back to the mythic inventors and showmen of earlier eras, particularly Thomas Edison and Walt Disney. Jobs was singular, to be sure. But he also was of a type. He was what psychotherapist and business coach Michael Maccoby called a “productive narcissist.” In 2000, Maccoby published an insightful article in the Harvard Business Review that applies Freudian terminology to three categories of executives Maccoby had observed in corporate life. “Erotics” feel a need to be loved, value consensus, and as a result are not natural leaders. These are the people to whom a manager should assign tasks—and then heap praise for a job well done. “Obsessives” are by-the-books tacticians with a knack for making the trains run on time. An efficient head of logistics or bottom-line-oriented spreadsheet jockey is the classic obsessive. The greats of business history, however, are “productive narcissists,” visionary risk takers with a burning desire to “change the world.” Corporate narcissists are charismatic leaders willing to do whatever it takes to win and who couldn’t give a fig about being liked. Steve Jobs was the textbook example of a productive narcissist. An unimpressed Jobs was famous for calling other companies “bozos.” His own executives endured their rides on what one called the “bozo/hero rollercoaster,” often within the same marathon meeting.

Interestingly, Jockey’s first attempt to enter India wasn’t with the Genomals. It was with Associated Apparels in 1962. Through the 1960s, many foreign innerwear brands were launched in India. Associated Apparels introduced the then world-famous Maidenform bras (owned today by Hanes) and tied up with Jockey to launch Jockey underwear in 1962. The international brand, Lovable, entered India in 1966 through a licensing deal and became a huge success. Along with it entered the brand Daisy Dee, through a subsidiary of Lovable, followed by Feelings. In 1971, Maxwell Industries launched VIP-branded innerwear for men in the economy segment, catching the attention of the discerning public with an advertisement featuring a Bollywood actor. In 1973, however, Jockey decided to leave India after the Indian government used the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) to force multinational companies to dilute their ownership in their Indian ventures to 40 per cent. After Jockey exited India, its competitors flourished. Associated Apparels continued to focus on mid-premium innerwear during the 1980s and was successful in establishing themselves as a dominant player in the mid-premium innerwear segment through Liberty (men) and Libertina (women). Maxwell Industries, during the 1980s, launched the brand, Frenchie, to cater to the mid-premium innerwear segment. In 1985, Rupa & Co. emerged in the innerwear market, offering products across categories, including men, women and kids, and became one of the biggest manufacturers and sellers of innerwear in India. The success of Rupa was followed by many other domestic brands in the 1980s and ’90s, including Amul, Lux Cozi and Dollar in the men’s category, while Neva, Bodycare, Softy, Lady Care, Little Lacy, Red Rose, Sonari, Feather Line, etc., were the key players in the lingerie market. Then came the liberalization of 1991. With the regulatory hurdles to enter India removed, Jockey decided to return to India. And this time, it chose the right partners.

The truth of the New Democrats’ purpose was presented by the journalist Joe Klein in his famous 1996 roman à clef about Clinton’s run for the presidency, Primary Colors. Although the novel contains more than a nod to Clinton’s extramarital affairs, Klein seems broadly sympathetic to the man from Arkansas as well as to the DLC project more generally. Toward the equality-oriented politics of the Democratic past he is forthrightly contemptuous. Old people who recall fondly the battles of the Thirties, for example, are objects of a form of ridicule that Klein thinks he doesn’t even need to explain; it is self-evident that people who care about workers are fools. And when an old-school “prairie populist” challenges the Clinton character for the nomination, Klein describes him as possessing “a voice made for crystal radio sets” and “offering Franklin Roosevelt’s jobs program (forestry, road-building) to out-of-work computer jockeys.” Get it? His views are obsolete! “It was like running against a museum.” That was the essential New Democrat idea: The world had changed, but certain Democratic voters expected their politicians to help them cling to a status that globalization had long since revoked. However,