Greenberg

"*In fact, days after this board meeting, Winograd confided to Greenberg that he personally had no problem with AIG’s financials or with him or Smith. Winograd blamed PwC’s national office for the ultimatum. Samuel A. DiPiazza, who was PwC’s chairman at the time, declined Cunningham’s request for an interview for this book."

"There were a vast number of different enterprises in the Starr organization, with far-flung roots and structures in scores of countries. The organization was also therefore fragile, Starr having just died, a young Greenberg in command, and a mix of assets that might appeal to assorted insurance companies or takeover artists. Such an integration could not be accomplished all at once, but every phase had to be meaningful, and the company had to be protected throughout the transition from takeover risk. So Greenberg asked the largest shareholders, together owning about one-third of the total, to sign a shareholders’ agreement restricting their right to sell shares outside the group. Most did so."

"managers were trained that nothing but effectiveness mattered, so employees were hired, rewarded, and promoted without regard to other litmus tests, such as pedigree or politics. AIG invested heavily in employee training programs at all levels, in all countries. At training sessions, presentations would be made by AIG’s top global executives, including Greenberg. These programs stressed professionalism, referring to the importance of good judgment, integrity, and personal responsibility."

"Professionalism and excellence were the standard and there was a certain relentlessness to it—a relentless desire for excellence and to be the best. [Greenberg] was an iconoclast too, so he was not going to do something that everybody else did. He was going to do something different. So there was this feeling of innovation, of changing the way things were done. That became the core ethos of the company and we all bought into it. We all thought about new products and changing how we approached the business, to try something innovative. Whether it was technology or products or sales, we felt we were supposed to change, not protect the status quo. That was the difference."