393. Megan Greenwell with Jay Willis: Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream

Did you know that private equity firms have a hand in many U.S. industries, including hospitals, daycare centers, supermarket chains, local newspapers, and prison service providers? They also manage highways, municipal water systems, fire departments, emergency medical services, and a growing swath of real estate. In her new book, Bad Company, journalist Megan Greenwell illuminates how ingrained private equity is, and how it’s preying on the most vulnerable people in our society, controlling congress, and causing destruction in communities around the country.

Private equity is a system of finance that pools money from outside investors and huge bank loans to acquire companies that hold a lot of debt. The company retains their debt, which makes it difficult for the company to recover and protects the investors from those debts. This might sound like a lot of finance jargon, but Greenwell wants to show how this industry is affecting all of our lives. Entire communities are ruined as a result of their buyouts. Workers lose their jobs. Communities lose their institutions. Only private equity wins, Greenwell argues.

Greenwell shares personal experiences of four workers and how private equity upended their employers and communities: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and an affordable housing organizer. Throughout these stories, Greenwell highlights how private equity executives are among the wealthiest people in the United States and are reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream.

Megan Greenwell is a journalist who has written or edited for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, WIRED, and ESPN. She is also the deputy director of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program, a workshop and college access initiative for students from low-income backgrounds. A California native, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their pug.

Jay Willis is a writer who covers courts, politics, and democracy. He is the editor-in-chief at Balls & Strikes, and was previously a staff writer at GQ magazine and a senior contributor to The Appeal. Before his journalism career, he practiced law at large firms in Washington, D.C. and Seattle.

Elliott Bay Book Company