Swede

"So I made a deal with Milt Mackenzie, we put up our money—$60 million—and Swede took over as president. And it was an unmitigated, total, complete and irredeemable disaster. It was one of the biggest, the swiftest and, possibly because of that, the least painful of my disasters."

"That Jan Stenbeck was portrayed with skepticism is perhaps not so remarkable. His change projects have been risky, how the future would turn out was really unknown. He also says himself that it is normal for a guy like him to sooner or later go broke. But for a long time, there was a meeting of a dull, secure, unimaginative disinterest that, as a Swede, you can easily be tempted to characterize as typically Swedish, but probably better understood as an expression of a universal village mentality: the dangerous indifference of established truths and accepted beliefs to signals that do not fit into the pattern."

"When Van Meter received Ruben’s letter, he became furious. Here was a completely unknown Swede in the USA informing him, more or less in plain text, that he did not understand the American market. Moreover, he once again brought up the demand to meet Clay. Van Meter could only perceive the letter as a complete vote of no confidence against him."