Testosterone Inc

In Testosterone Inc.: Tales of CEOs Gone Wild, bestselling author and New York Post columnist Chris Byron chronicles the Gatsby-like saga of the rise and fall of the celebrity CEO. During the height of the 1990s bull market, they were America’s new heroes: the heroes of business. They were our bold new leaders, cutting the fat, pushing for productivity, implementing visionary plans, and making strategic deals.

When the bull market turned to bust and the applause turned to cat-calls, the world was shocked at the truth. Drenched in money and public acclaim, our CEO-heroes—mostly white, mostly male, mostly middle-aged—turned out to be not much different than a group of twenty-something rock stars—drunk on power and driven by sex, greed, and glamour.

Testosterone Inc. goes behind the boardroom doors to show the serial affairs and marriages of these acquisitive corporate titans. At the center of this story is Jack Welch, the biggest of America’s rock star CEOs and the former head of General Electric Co., surrounded by “mini-me” CEOs Ron Perelman of Revlon, Al Dunlap of Sunbeam, and Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco—all gone wild in public displays of consumption and predatory appetites writ large.

Byron gets inside the bars where Welch liked to hang out and pick up women with his early “business soul mate” buddies. Byron hovers unseen at the elbow of Ron Perelman and his mistress aboard the Concorde for a week in Paris in his mistaken belief that his wife knows nothing about his secret affair. Byron peeks behind the curtains of a U.S. Army officers’ quarters to behold Al Dunlap horrifying his first wife, who claimed in her divorce action that Dunlap would point his knife at her and say, “I often wondered what human flesh tasted like.” Byron becomes a fly on the wall to chronicle the longing for respect and serial womanizing of Dennis Kozlowski.

Frequently hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, Testosterone Inc. follows the intertwined lives of these four corporate heroes, from childhood to their ultimate moments of glory and the crash-and-burn calamities that followed, as man’s age-old hunger for power, greed, and temptation undid them all. From suicide to murder, from dysfunctional childhoods to dysfunctional marriages in adulthood, from business chutzpah to financial suicide, here is the ultimate untold business story of our time: what went on at century’s end, when testosterone got the best of businessmen everywhere, and CEOs went wild.

Acknowledgments vii

Prologue ix

1 “Is That a Gun in Your Pocket, or are You Just Happy to See Me?” 1

2 “I Want to Play in the Band!” 17

3 A Course for New Providence, or the Drowning Pools of Narcissism? 35

4 GE Loves Me! 43

5 Al and Dennis in the Passing Lane 67

6 Foolish Faith and the Case of Suzie Cream Cheese 85

7 Question From the Chairman: How Much Do I Weigh? 97

8 Stretch Role Time for Gary and the Preacher’s Daughter 117

9 Fitzy Comes Out of the Closet 133

10 Champagne Kisses and Caviar Dreams 145

11 Jack Meets Celebrity’s Dark Side 157

12 The Shiksa Goddess of Wall Street 173

13 Jane Beasley and the Spoor of An Older Man 201

14 Marvin Hamlisch Meets the World of Six Sigma 215

15 CEQo in Banjo-Land 231

16 Big Al Goes AWOL 249

17 Ron’s Next Democrat 265

18 Hugs and Kisses and Bouts of Nostalgia 281

19 Big Al and Ron Exit Fighting 295

20 Life Is a Cabaret 305

21 Let’s Party Like It’s 1999 321

22 That Pesky Neck Waddle 333

23 Suzy Hotstuff and the Case of Juan Dangeroso 349

24 Sonata for Soul Mates 359

Notes 377

Index 393

CHRISTOPHER M. BYRON has been writing about business and finance for over thirty years. He is author of the international and New York Times bestseller, Martha Inc., writes a weekly business column for the New York Post, and is host of a syndicated daily radio show, Wall Street Wake Up with Chris Byron. He is an analyst on Good Morning America, and appears frequently on CNBC, FOX News Network, MSNBC, and CBS Evening News, among other venues. His articles have appeared in Esquire, Playboy, New York, Worth, Men's Health, and Travel Holiday magazines. Byron graduated from Yale College and the Columbia University School of Law. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and lives in Connecticut with his family.

Praise for Testosterone Inc.

"Reads like a juicy novel." —Newsweek

"A best bet if you are looking for a business book in the mold of a novel by Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins, or Olivia Goldsmith . . . while there is a remarkable amount of business history, there is enough talk of divorces and other aspects of personal lives to justify taking this to the beach."
—The New York Times

"Entertaining and eye-opening . . . rarely do we get such a well-documented and readable account of such unacceptable behavior among those at the top of American business."
—Barron's

"Cheeky, mesmerizing, and sometimes out - of - bounds . . . Byron will have you shaking your head in amazement by the time you finish Testosterone Inc."
—BusinessWeek

"Unearths tantalizing stories of bad behavior."
—USA Today

"Irresistible, wonderfully well written, superbly documented. . . .This book is a fabulous read."
—The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

"Byron does a remarkable job of supplying the social, political, and business background in which these four repulsive individuals pursued their quests for wealth and fame. But it is the testosterone content of the book that keeps the reader riveted. This is basically a book about greedy, powerful men trying to fulfill their adolescent fantasies by taking mistresses and divorcing their wives to marry younger women."
—Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

"Combines an understanding of balance sheetswithan ear forgossipand aneye for human failings."
—Daily Telegraph (UK)