A Hank Rearden Company?

[Selene]

US company Hilcorp gives 1350 employees $137,000 bonus

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/us-company-hilcorp-gives-1350-employees-100000-bonus-20151210-glkx1h#ixzz3uKvC8Eip

Does a $100,000 bonus for a job well done beat a pat on the back?

US oil and gas company Hilcorp's 1350 employees think so.

Every single employee - no matter how junior - received a $US100,000 ($137,000) bonus this year as part of a company-wide incentive program called "Dream 2015" to double the company's size.

This is the model that works and it works on a small scale office, or, a large company.

A special project gig,

It is replicatable and it has worked everywhere I have tried it.

The reward came after the privately held company realised its goal of doubling its oilfield production rate, net oil and gas reserves and equity value over five years.

It's not the first time that the Houston-based company has given enormous bonuses.

When Hilcorp doubled its size in 2011 as part of an earlier program called "Double Drive", each employee was rewarded with a $US50,000 voucher to spend on a "dream" car or cash.

As with many privately held US companies, the billionaire owner Jeffery Hildebrand prefers to stay out of the news.

A...

[Wolf DeVoon]

I dug into this a little deeper. Same age as Rearden, married to a socialite, generous donor to the Houston Zoo and numerous charities. Well regarded, good science background, paid his dues at Exxon. Self-made man. Started with two partners in the late 80's when it was possible to buy old, played-out property and rework the wells. Early entrant in the Eagle Ford shale, sold to Marathon and made his first billion (10x return on investment). Now has 500 employees and uses "open books" management to show his entire workforce the details of cost, profit margin. Doing difficult projects like tertiary recovery by injecting miscible CO2, a complicated process pioneered by Anadarko, a much larger firm. Producing gas to keep electric power plants operating in Alaska, after other operators failed at it. Filed plans to produce oil in Alaska by building a 20-acre gravel island several miles offshore. Doing it while others are going bankrupt.

Context: most guys at Exxon stay there 25 years, take a fat paycheck and benefits, no responsibility for profit or loss, molasses-slow "teamwork" that accomplishes very little on massive projects. They don't start their own companies.

[Selene]

And therefore you concluded that this guy is the real deal from a Randian perspective?

Are you sure about the number of employees?

The number in the article was 1350.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

About 184 million dollars.

There is no longer any "Randian perspective" for the simple reason she's dead.

If you want to meet a Randian hero you want to meet Frank O'Connor--no? Or how about T.J. Rogers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor?

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

And therefore you concluded that this guy is the real deal from a Randian perspective?

Are you sure about the number of employees?

The number in the article was 1350.

A...

1350 is possible. Trade sources talk about projects, not head counts. 500 staff may be dated info.

I doubt Hildebrand is an Objectivist (or familiar with Rand). If he was, he couldn't be a Hank Readen

[Selene]

About 184 million dollars.

There is no longer any "Randian perspective" for the simple reason she's dead.

If you want to meet a Randian hero you want to meet Frank O'Connor--no? Or how about T.J. Rogers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor?

--Brant

http://www.iamjohngalt.com/2011/04/why-oh-why-wont-they-listen-to-t-j.html

As soon as we read this, we thought of T. J. Rodgers -- today's living embodiment Francisco d'Anconia straight from the pages of Atlas Shrugged (he gets a whole chapter in our new book I Am John Galt). And what do you know -- the Journal thought of T. J. too!

Technology executives should download a copy of an essay that T.J. Rodgers, founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, wrote for the Cato Institute in 2000, soon after the Justice Department sued Microsoft in 1998 for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. In "Why Silicon Valley Should Not Normalize Relations with Washington, D.C.," Mr. Rodgers pleaded with his fellow technology executives to stay as far from politics as the traditional culture of Silicon Valley is from the culture of Washington.

"The free market in Silicon Valley is not well ordered or even predictable," Mr. Rodgers wrote. "When a start-up company fails in Silicon Valley, no one wails about the unfairness of foreign competition or the need for government intervention." He argued that the technology industry was different from heavily regulated industries such as autos or agriculture. "I do not want more government in Silicon Valley. Government can do only two things here: take our money, limiting our economic resources, or pass laws, limiting our other freedoms." In the case of antitrust, "the laws in effect make it illegal for a company to be conspicuously successful."

...In an interview last week, Mr. Rodgers said that he isn't surprised that his warnings about entanglements with Washington have largely gone unheeded. "Milton Friedman once told me, 'The greatest enemies of the free market system are university professors and corporate CEOs.'"

[Wolf DeVoon]

T. J. Rodgers -- today's living embodiment Francisco d'Anconia straight from the pages of Atlas Shrugged

Did he blow up the docks in Santa Clara? Build a buggy software factory in Mexico?

[Brant Gaede]

Is he a playboy?

Was his father Thomas J. Watson?

--Brant

[Selene]

This 2009 article is so awkward as to be unreadable:

Last Updated Feb 25, 2009 2:18 PM EST

How did a Russian-born novelist become such an influential "thought
leader" for American CEOs, entrepreneurs, and MBAs — and
even Alan Greenspan? Consider the message behind Ayn Rand best sellers href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_fiction_the_fountainhead">The
Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which speaks to anyone with ambition and a big ego: The gifted should do what's
in their self-interest. If you have a sharp mind, it is your moral
responsibility to make yourself happy. The weak are not your problem. "I
am for an absolute laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy," href="

">Rand told CBS interviewer Mike
Wallace in 1959. "If you separate the government from economics,
if you do not regulate production and trade, you will have peaceful
cooperation, harmony, and justice among men."

Look at the language used by this slug...

T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, is a notorious Rand fan; Patrick W. Grady named his company Rearden Commerce after the steel magnate Hank Rearden from Atlas.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-do-ceos-still-love-ayn-rand/

[Wolf DeVoon]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-do-ceos-still-love-ayn-rand/

CBS is a predatory force and their New York headquarters should be short-listed for a surgical strike.

[Laissez Faire Law, p.41]

[Selene]

Amazing what a search with both names returns with...

Crusading CEO

During the past two decades, Rodgers has crusaded for employee stock options, railed against shareholder lawsuits, supported the employment of foreign-born, high-tech workers in Silicon Valley, and argued against federal subsidies to bolster U.S. chipmakers against rivals overseas.

In addition to surviving the vicissitudes of the semiconductor industry - - shares in Cypress are trading near a 52-week high after hitting a trough last year -- Rodgers has often made time to debate social issues such as affirmative action.

In one notable episode during the mid-1990s, Rodgers rebuked a nun who had criticized Cypress for its lack of women or minority board members, saying it would be immoral for him to pick directors based on criteria other than merit.

Rodgers, whose words and deeds call to mind a character from an Ayn Rand novel, said he formed his free-market outlook at Dartmouth, which he attended in the late 1960s after starring in athletics at his Oshkosh, Wis., high school.

"I got recruited to Dartmouth to play football," said Rodgers, who stood 5-foot-9 in cleats and shoulder pads.

But he quit football after a year to keep up with the demands of his courses in chemistry, physics and, ultimately, engineering. Rodgers remembers having to choose between Saturday games and Saturday classes.

"To me, Dartmouth is the pre-eminent college in the world, a small place, with small classes, that focuses on basic learning," said Rodgers, who turned 56 on Monday.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Silicon-Valley-CEO-takes-aim-at-diversity-2780689.php

[Selene]

Wow...even you Canadians have one...

Randianism, what she called Objectivism, now exists as a mass phenomenon, a grass-roots presence, a kind of folklore. “Who Is John Galt?”, her recurring slogan from Atlas Shrugged, can be seen on placards at Tea Party rallies, on leaflets casually affixed to telephone poles or on the shopping bags of Lululemon Athletics, the Canadian sports apparel company. The firm’s CEO, Chip Wilson, is an avowed Rand fan. So are the current corporate chiefs at Exxon, Sears, the BB & T Bank in North Carolina and the funky Whole Foods chain. http://theconversation.com/who-is-john-galt-ayn-rand-libertarians-and-the-gop-40033

"Chip?"...How un-Randian...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_Wilson <<<< No mention of Ayn in his Wiki...

[Wolf DeVoon]

So are the current corporate chiefs at Exxon

Whoa! - Rex Tillerson? No way. Eagle Scout, big league collectivist, has pals in Russia.