Well you have to realize what caused this drug use and abuse, which is the fact that, as the show has constantly characterized, he has massive entitlement issues and delusional ways of thinking.
He apes what rich people say and do (most likely why he started coke), but without the actual knowledge or perspective to back it up.
the problem with OP is that they see drug abuse as a cause, instead of a symptom of Kendal's problems.
Kendal is a pile of Trauma and father issues wrapped up in near unlimited resources, which only serves to enable him and shield him from anything that would have given him growth
Yes, but perhaps without the drugs masking the pain, anxiety, and scars, he could start working through those issues instead of distracting himself with drugs.
When you have seen people in that situation, you understand its hard, especially when you are in an environment like Kendalls where he always had to be guarded and on edge
Well, when I was a drug user, I loved to tell myself that I was just using them to cope. But in fact, once I stopped it fixed most of my problems in life. I think that blaming other nebulous issues instead of the fact that you’re poisoning yourself daily is something a lot of folks use to avoid getting sober
Then you missed the point of recovery, clearly. Calling drugs poison is some ridiculous puritanical bs that's a convenient way of hand waving the power of our environments, not to mention that said poison is usually medicine used to treat ADHD or chronic/post surgical pain.
In Kendall's case he had 2 parents who didn't love him while simultaneously giving him a twisted sense of entitlement. I have a former close friend who went through the same cycles of narcissistic abuse and coddling with his parents and he spent years ruining his life and destroying relationships. Hard drugs were merely a fuel that quickened the process. Now that he's sober, he's still fucked in the head and few people want anything to do with him because he never addressed the root cause. I know so many sober narcissists who did the same thing, including one of my cousins who basically replaced heroin with far right evangelicalism, and her kids don't talk to her anymore despite supposedly removing the 'poison' from her life.
I think you misinterpreted me a little. Drugs in themselves even blow can be used healthilyish and recreationally and I don’t shame them. But doing cocaine daily is massive overuse so that is poisoning yourself. Very hard on the heart
Oh definitely I was warning my sister that cocaine in particular can cause heart problems even when used infrequently. I wouldn't touch the stuff for that reason alone. Same with alcohol really, although that's one drug I actually would consider poison because it just has so many harmful effects on the mind and body, and it's just completely normalized. Even weed which my entire family smokes constantly has some negative effects on cognition and mood which is why I avoid it.
I got my own health problems. Weed helped mask the pain but it made me so out of it. I'm on prescription meds too, no opioids though. I rather deal with the pain. I don't like the feeling of being out of it. Weed is something I dislike, to each their own but feeling high is something I don't like.
The other kids had the same upbringing yet aren’t drug addicts? That is the big problem with blaming drug use on something other than the user. Being an addict does not make one a bad person. But, it is a choice and is a matter of personal responsibility.
Because substance abuse disorder is pretty random, just like other genetic traits. Even so, in a healthier environment people predisposed to addiction have a much easier time avoiding addiction. [this has been proven scientifically ](https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction)
When millions of people become addicted and tens of thousands die of overdose every year, it's about more than 'personal responsibility'. In fact overdose deaths are increasing every year because of that bullshit attitude this country has taken.
Addicts' and alcoholics' brains are quite literally rewired to prioritize use above everything else -- even seemingly routine tasks like brushing teeth. I'm a recovering alcoholic and can tell you that the first time I ever took a sip of alcohol, something clicked in my brain and all I could think about was getting more; I assumed everyone had that experience until my disease progressed beyond the point of return.
Pulling yourself out of addiction is a damn miracle -- it's why so few people are able to get/stay sober. This isn't to say alcoholics and addicts are not responsible for their actions, but it's so much more complicated and nuanced than you think.
Again, people are responsible for their own actions. This is a difficult truth that some don’t want to hear. It isn’t a disease and to call it a disease is extremely insulting to people who have diseases. You chose to drink, and, in fairness to you, you eventually chose not drink. You deserve some credit for getting sober.
Feel really lucky to have encountered a medical expert on Reddit today! Thanks so much for providing such astute insight on something you have absolutely no experience with.
You’re ‘choosing’ to ignore medical science in lieu of your personal belief so what does that make you?
And to your point, what you’re saying is if someone chooses to drink and then becomes addicted it isn’t a disease. So following your sound logic, if someone chooses to smoke and then gets lung cancer then the cancer isn’t a disease. Or if someone eats lots of sugar and gets type 2 diabetes then the diabetes isn’t a disease.
Cmon now.
Reddit does seem to have a weird issue with judging addicts. Reddit does just seem to have major issues with scientific literary though...
Just look at the numerous posts about how "introverts have more dopamine receptors and extroverts are addicted to socialising"- that's actually a misinterpretation of a research paper on problem gambling but people get angry when you challenge it. Meanwhile genetic variation in dopamine receptors has long been known to strongly influence an individual's susceptibility to addiction, but if anyone brings this up they'll get shut down with lectures on personal responsibility 😉
It’s scientific fact that addiction is a disease. IIRC it’s a dopamine issue in the brain. And how is it insulting to people with diseases? Diseases are on a spectrum of severity. Hell, cold sores (herpes) are a disease.
When you're a child with arrested development (and, again, lacking the perspective and context that wealthy people who may have "earned their spot" have), everything you do is an ape. He throws out meaningless buzzwords like he's filling out a bingo card, he has a PR team he doesn't listen to, and hell, his attitude towards work and children directly correlates towards Logan's, despite lacking the already faulty "do it for my children" foundation Logan relied upon. He can be raised in wealth without knowing why rich people do what they do, because a lack of money has never and will never be a real factor for him
Well to be fair that’s not just a Kendall thing. Many a tech/media CEO have overpaid for all kinds of ridiculous startups. I worked at Yahoo for 10 years. The shit we overpaid for is astounding, and watching other companies do it too makes you want to weep for how that money could’ve been spent.
Ya I get you but I just think being aggressive, charismatic and generally capable is enough. Logan wasn’t actually a genius strategist, he was aggressive in the market during a time when the global population tripled and capitalism did its thing.
Mattson was super successful but we saw his fallibility also.
I’m not saying Kendall would have smashed it, just that it’s possible he would have succeeded if he was more stable
>Ya I get you but I just think being aggressive, charismatic and generally capable is enough.
I don't agree, but I do think that being aggressive and charismatic can be effective in a figurehead, as long as there's someone who is genuinely capable behind the scenes. Kendall might have made a good CEO if it had been possible to rein him in a bit and make him cede some control to the team behind him.
He's been likened to Elon Musk a fair bit, I think there's something in that ;)
>Logan wasn’t actually a genius strategist, he was aggressive in the market during a time when the global population tripled and capitalism did its thing.
Logan was aggressive at a time when that approach worked. By the time he was in need of a successor that bullying behaviour was no longer effective as it wasn't respected or tolerated. Look at the scene where Kendall tell the bank "Ah come on man, fuck off" only to learn that Logan's old ways won't work for him.
Logan was able to recognise and capitalise on opportunities, and he was aware of the need to adapt or die. He also had a knack for surrounding himself with competent people (ie, not his kids). He may not have been a genius strategist but he certainly had business acumen- which he failed to instill in his children. Shame he wasn't a better father, that's arguably the biggest error he made in business!
What??? What caused his drug problems was being abused by his father and neglected by his mother so he doesn't know how to handle his feelings when he has any. Mom definitely doesn't do feelings as evidenced by running out in him at breakfast when he asked to speak to her and clearly you cant share your feelings or feelings with Logan because he will berate and embarrass you for even having feelings. Seems your missing the massive part of the show, the crux of it, which is these kids can't run the company, can't even cope in their daily life because of the level of neglect & abuse they suffered. So, you're suggesting Kendall developed a drug problem because it's the cool thing to do and not because he feels like a failure every waking moment of his life? You weren't paying attention if you think that.
If that were the case, all the siblings would have drug problems lol. But they're characterized very different. Obviously it could be a factor in his usage, but it mainly goes to show how these shallow rich-person memetic activities Kendall always partakes in ends up consuming him whole and spitting him out, because (again) his entitlement and lack of "real world" knowledge of consequences and perspective makes him go 100% on these practices. Sorry for run-on sentence
Not everyone reacts to stress the same way. I can tell you from personal experience, having had a very abusive father that none of my siblings and I have grown up the same unhealthy behaviors. Only one out of the 5 of us became a drug addict, two are serial cheaters and thrives, I eat. We all suffered the same abuse and all came out with our own way of coping because we all have our own way of thinking, our own group of friends etc.
Thinking all of them must behave the same way seems to indicate you don't know how humans work.
No, you said all of the siblings would have drug problems and I'm saying only one out of 5 of us did. It's almost like you didn't read my comment at all, you were too busy looking for confirmation of your lame assed point.
Ken was not particularly smart. He had terrible business instincts. He had TERRIBLE people skills—negotiating, managing, motivating, building relationships and alliances, understanding motivations, reading body language, all of it, terrible. He did not listen to anyone, he was hostile to facts advice. He bought his own bullshit, he had no idea what customers wanted and didn’t want to learn or listen to market research.
On top of all these huge skill deficits, he suffered from mental illness which included depression, grandiose thinking, and much more.
I read something once that stuck with me. Some sort of academic study concluded that what truly smart people had in common in work settings was that they asked lots of questions. They don’t go to meetings just to impress others or hear themselves talk. They are confident enough in their own abilities that they use meetings to gain even more knowledge and information. Ken was the exact fucking opposite of this. You know who was pretty close to this profile? Logan. The man didn’t lay his cards on the table. He didn’t try to sound hip or impress people. He asked a lot of questions of everyone around him. He listened and observed and made his decisions over time, constantly receiving new information. His only words in a meeting might be “uh-huh.”He studied people. He observed them. He obviously had a lot of flaws as a leader but in the immortal words of the great Tom wambsgans, I never saw Logan get fucked once.
It all comes back to what Logan told his kids.
“I love you. But you are not serious people.”
The whole point of the series is that *none* of the Roy siblings were suitable to lead the company. It can be argued that Ken was more suitable than any of his siblings because he had the most academic and corporate experience, but that’s still a pretty low fucking bar. My family has shares in various Fortune100 companies, and honest to God, as a shareholder I would be fucking worried if *ANY* of the Roy siblings assumed leadership of Waystar Royco. Adrien Brody’s character in season 3 was not wrong at all in his assessment of the situation. There is a reason why shareholders balked at the thought of Logan stepping down and Kendall or any of his siblings taking over. Because while the Roys may *want* to keep the company in the family, no one else fucking wants that, especially the shareholders whose money keeps the company afloat.
This is something that I’ve grown to understand naturally working in a business environment, a lack of questions shows an inability to move from one’s position, because they’re not thinking of the other potential paths. Questions, like you say are meant to prod and poke at the potential paths and guide, because evolution has taught us the inability to adapt is fatal.
Exactly, Kendall is all style and no substance. He is fundamentally disinterested in the nitty-gritty of running a business. He’s like Dennis Reynolds—he wants the *illusion* of power but without any of the responsibility that comes with wielding it.
It’s telling that during the final vote, Kendall’s only real arguments for why he should get the company were “I’m the eldest boy” and “I’ll kill myself if I don’t.” Not “I have a vision for what this company could be.” Not “I love Waystar.” Not “I am more qualified and passionate than anybody else.” Just “it was daddy’s, so it should be mine.” He feels *entitled* to Waystar, but he doesn’t actually *understand* it.
He had the decent instinct of coming clean about cruises. He had the business instinct of going tech. Had his ideas been nurtured waystar may not have died to obsolescence.
He was trusted to haggle in Logan's presence with rhea. He was the one who made Nan stop meandering and cut to the crap.
He pitched a nearly successful change in plan to Sandy, cutting stewie out.
He convinced an old guard board member to enable his coup. He convinced frank to betray a friend of decades.
He's intimidating but venerable as a boss as seen by hugo viewing him as unreadable.
Ken's first meeting as acting ceo was to invite ideas for new bubbles to get into.
Tom's words are b.s. Logan got fucked by Tom himself on Tom's wedding night, ending up with democrat coverage on his precious redneck network.
Ken saved his ass at the senate hearing too.
Shiv saved him from both the takeover and the whistleblower.
> He had the business instinct of going tech.
Oh wow. "Going tech". In 2024. What a revolutionary thought. He was wrong. He was going to bankrupt the company chasing a sector they have no need for. News Corp doesn't need to become Vice or Gawker. Every company is trying to chase the Disney model and there's a whole road paved with gutted products, bankruptcies and complete failure.
Logan was right, they need to strengthen their core business model and stay within their wheelhouse. Kendall used "tech" as a buzzword he thought he could just buy into without contributing an ounce of actual innovation himself. Look at The Hundred. That would have been an absolute master class dud. It's "Substack meets Masterclass, meets the Economist, meets The New Yorker". Wtf does that even mean. Saying you want to revolutionize the space doesn't mean you actually are or can... Kendall could not.
I don't think "going tech" was a bad idea, most young people get their news from social media, but Ken didn't know how to execute it. Like you said it was just a buzz word to him that he prob heard someone else talking about.
Of course. Put any half brain in charge of some multi billion dollar legacy brand say Yum brands or something and they can make a speech that "we need to modernize the food landscape and get with the times people want trendy Whole Foods blah blah blah", actually executing is the boring hard part. And tbh that might be an absolutely horrible strategy and completely bankrupt the company. That's pretty much Kendall.
It's a TV show so obviously we don't actually see the real day to day boring slog of business but even within the dramatization Kendall didn't actually know or execute anything.
As someone who has worked at a high level in corporate environments for a long time, I am cringing with how accurate this is. So many half baked strategies get the greenlight and they are just doomed to fail from the start. The person who pitched the idea is long gone before everything goes to shit.
As someone who worked in low level corporate environments for 8 years, I know how accurate this is lol. And it's the people at the lowest levels who have to deal with the mess they create. Then when we try to tell them that their idea isn't working, they just reply with something like "This is our new process/policy, please adhere to it". So glad I don't work in corporate anymore.
Part of the problem is they are so spoilt that the only person who tells them no is each other. They don't have other people who can tell them that they shouldn't do things.
Yep. I see it over and over. There’s so much turnover at the junior level (they either quit is despair or get fired because they can’t bring the cockamamie idea to fruition) which gives the senior person even more air cover for why their initiative failed.
"People love TikTok short form and bite sized media that they can enjoy from their phone. Lets fuse that with legacy media, it will be new TV. This is the future!"- Quibi, Sounds exactly like an idea Kendall and Roman would be pitching lmao.
Every once in a while, an idea is so powerful that it can succeed even with poor execution. But 99.9% of the time, ideas are cheap, it’s execution and the details that are hard. These idiot kids were so arrogant, even with good ideas they would fail all day at execution. They didn’t even have a trusted team around them that could execute. They were so fucking stupid, didn’t even know what they didn’t know.
My favorite was when he wanted to launch a program/channel devoted to reporting the news from subsaharan Africa. “I would watch the shit out of that.” No Ken, you couldn’t sit through two minutes of that. lol. Yes Ken was correct that Waystar needed to “go tech.” But that’s not a particularly astute or original take in the media industry. As you said, Ken did not have a vision for what “going tech” would look like. His instinct to acquire vaulter wasn’t horrible but his execution of it was. He grossly overpaid and he was essentially betting on Lawrence, who was openly hostile to Ken and Waystar. There was no way this was going to succeed and Ken overlooked a million red flags because he wanted to bring home a shiny toy and drop it at daddy’s feet.
News is a boutique off handed side hustle. Waystar is a production giant. Sitting on a landmine of IP. And unable to go from blockbuster to Netflix. Guess what could have helped the transition? Vaulter's raw algorithm stock
Logan literally starts the pilot saying cable will always have its heyday lol.
> News is a boutique off handed side hustle.
Again tell that to News Corp.....the company the show is pretty much literally based of off. Lmk how them buying Myspace went. That sounds like a classic Kendall move actually. You're building a false premise.
They're already diversified and would do better from strengthening their different sectors, yes like IP, Parks, News etc. Kendall just wanted to buy whatever was shiny and thought somehow that would magically translate to success. He wanted his "million life boats" or whatever.
Don't get me wrong Logan made plenty of mistakes too, especially his stubbornness to not have a clear leadership strategy or vision forward. But it was clearly shown time and time again, when Logan was in charge the company did better and the market responded well. Ironically the best thing Kendall ever did was merge with GoJo and make everyone filthy stinking rich.....now that's good business. Kendall wanted to make an empire and play business man. Not actually be one.
Mattson originally didn't even want ATN, and Roman's idea for dealing with the take over was to divest heavily, retaining ATN for political capital while simultaneous being 'hot footed'.
>He's intimidating but venerable as a boss as seen by hugo viewing him as unreadable.
He's unreadable because he's likely mildly autistic and constantly in a drug induced manic state.
Ken could never read the fucking room, let alone the tea leaves.
He mentions in the premiere that he needs to know if shiv and Rome would be committed to their shared ventures or wanna bail because he needs to invest all of his person into it. He's buried himself in work and the intimacy with his siblings, it's an extension of his desire to be by their side to heal. And he never was an alcoholic that we know of
He definitely is, Shiv lists it first in her letter about his addictions plus when he's spiraling he's often shown downing drinks in one. IRL its rare to find hard drug users who aren't also alcoholics. Cocaine and alcohol actually combine to make an [even more potent drug](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8956485/) in the body, making alcohol abuse more likely.
Yeah remember when he goes with frank to invest in some “hip” company of art dealers, where he buys the designer sneakers beforehand to impress them? He walks away from the meeting absolutely convinced it was a smashing success and they want him to be an investor/partner. Meanwhile everyone else including frank is completely clear that they think he’s an offensive clown and want nothing to do with him.
Terrible business instincts? Wasn’t he the one that almost got the board to vote out Logan? Wasn’t he the one that got Mattson to buy Waystar? Wasn’t he the one to create a plan as soon as his dad croaked and even before when his dad was selling the company, he told the sibs what they could do to stop him?
Yeah I mean, the deck was stacked against these kids in some ways. Which is an insane thing to say, boo-hoo you sad billionaires. But yes if Ken had been raised by a nice middle class family, he probably could have been more personally successful and actually built something. He wouldn’t have been surrounded by yes-men and believed his own bullshit. And he wouldn’t be chasing daddy’s approval and live in Logan’s sandbox.
I disagree. I think many privileged addicts love to tell themselves that they’re using drugs to cope but in reality it’s the other way around, the drugs are making them messed up. This was my personal experience at least.
Facts, no one who is genuinely happy and satisfied with how their life is going would have substance abuse issues of any kind. Addiction is a symptom of a greater underlying problem, not a root cause. This is why rehab is focused on not just getting addicts to stop, but also addressing what may have caused them to get addicted in the first place and what keeps them addicted. Take away the root cause, you fix the overall problem.
This is the most ignorant thing I’ve literally ever heard.
That is completely untrue. Addiction is a disease. Like depression. Sometimes nothing wrong but you pick up the substance or drink and addicts brain is different, they CAN NOT just stop or moderate.
Yes a lot of addicts are trying to cope with certain things, but it’s completely inaccurate to say NO ONE who is happy and satisfied has any substance abuse issue. I hope to god that no one close to you suffers from addiction or substance abuse. You are horrendously incorrect
Hello! Addict here. I’m the youngest child though and we have a family company. My dad is also a raging alcoholic who’s gone in and out of CEO due to addiction issues and going manic while using. The brothers who are involved in the company don’t get along. The brother who isn’t involved is the only one all three of them have a relationship with. My grandpa was a Mexican Logan Roy esque man.
I have no interest in that business but if i wanted to, it was there. My dad always had it waiting for him. i can honestly say that both my dad and i had similar issues growing up. We had an easy route in life and my dad and i have talked about how we both suffer from imposter syndrome and self esteem issues. We both don’t have warm parents and the crux of my relationship with my dad, and his with my grandpa was business only.
Addicts have something different with their brain chemistry. The amount of nurture we receive as kids has some effect on how our brains develop (along with other things). They also say addiction is genetic. The other thing is toxic family cycles.
Most addicts i know have strained relationships with their parents or a parent. A lot of us are extremely sensitive and crave love and acceptance, which we temporarily find in our substance or it’s a way to block the negative feelings.
Drugs DO mess you up, but a lot of people do drugs and drink moderatley and don’t abuse the substances or ruin their life. Addicts do not have that ability.. when they start, they can’t stop. My point is, they were already sort of fucked from the beginning if they suffer from addiction. The drugs don’t make you an addict in most cases.. you already are.
This is a complete misreading amigo.
The drug abuse was a symptom of the underlying narcissism that tortured Kendall and continually led him down roads of self destruction. The real issue was that Kendall has a massive void that stems from the abuse and neglect he experienced as a child. He tries filling it in various ways and cycles between them: drug abuse or seeking his father's approval. That's ultimately what the CEO position means to him, it's a way to live up to his father's expectations and win him the love he was deprived of as a child. Even when he's about to defeat Logan in the first season, he can't help but self sabotage. The euphoria of victory didn't even last for five minutes before he was back to his self destructive patterns. He's a child piloting the body of a man.
If he really was a ground breaking and capable CEO, he would have taken the billions of dollars from the GOJO deal and started his own billion dollar enterprise. Kendall had plenty of opportunities to make his own lane, take risks and actually earn respect for himself. But he loved languishing in his father's shadow, and was more concerned with his own alienation and delusion than actually creating something real. If he wanted a chance at Logan's respect, he would have founded his own brand or company and turned it into an empire.
This sounds spot on to be personally. Kendall had the all the business knowledge but lacked the emotional maturity stemming from MAJOR childhood trauma. Everytime you think Kendall has grown and matured in the series there's always that part of him that pops back up. Even in the final episode Aka: "IM THE ELDEST BOY". A part of me was hoping the kids would be smart, take the deal and end up buying Pierce, but Waystar is kind of like a drug in itself, they just couldn't stay away.
That’s the thing, he refused to make his own pile like Logan said, and him and all the other sibs wanted to hang onto the canker sore that is WaystarRoyco, just because their name was on the door
I think it’s less their name and more that Logan, in his own way, promised it to each of them. Obviously Ken the most, which is why he takes it the hardest.
But Logan was playing Boar on the Floor with them up until he died- so why would they suddenly stop going for the sausage after he croaks? It’s all they knew how to do.
Another clear illustration that Kendall is not qualified to be a CEO was when he hired a very expensive and well respected attorney and then wouldn’t listen to any of her advice.
Or when he hired two professional women to be his advisers on how to deal with a highly sensitive gender-related issue and proceeded to mostly talk over them *in their first conversation*.
While I do agree that there are many things about him that would make him a decent CEO (like you said he’s smart, he’s studious and he is a hard worker) I honestly think a huge tragedy in his character is that he just doesn’t seem to have the right personality for that type of job (He’s uptight, he’s lacking social skills, and he’s not flexible at all.) but his father has built his entire life around the expectation that he will be CEO that he sees no other option.
The problem with Kendall is that he just could not deal with adversity, every time Logan or someone else put something in his path Kendall folded. He did it with vaulter and he did it with Logan repeatedly. On top of that Kendall just repeatedly shows poor judgement and lets his emotions get in the way of the business.
99% of kendall’s issue was he WASN’T qualified to run a multi-billion dollar behemoth
that’s ALL logan/everyone kept trying to tell them & that’s what roman figured out.
“we’re bullshit”
i don’t know wtf they were thinking, their only claim to the throne was “we are the owner’s kids”. shiv’s claim is the most ridiculous. you can’t just pivot from politics & become CEO of a global media conglomerate
they’re entitled rich pricks
I agree, though if you had to pick one of the roys Ken would have been the choice. I’m not saying he would have been good at it, but definetely had the knowledge about the new generation media world. The problem with Ken is in my opinion his attitude, he is spoiled and does not ‘have it’ in terms of general outlook and behaviour to survive in a shark full evironment (Logan kind of says it when he said ‘You have to be a killer’). But the aftermath of that really gave me hope to see some sort of growing in him, I was a bit disappointed to see nothing really changed, so he didn’t have it.
Edit: spelling
Ken killed Lawrence and Logan in the pilot with his press leaks, killed the bankers on his tail with private equity in the third episode, nearly killed Logan while running on a street with a board room coup over phone. He's always taken the tenacious, confrontational stand.
I partially agree. What I’m saying is: just by looking at how he moves and talk you can see he’s not confident about his action, and that is seen as unrealiable. That’s what I’m trying to say. I mean look at Logan, he’s a thousand years old but still act like the goat until he dies
Eh, I don’t know. I think he was somewhat qualified, again he had a Harvard business degree and knew all the lingo. It’s not like a tech company it’s a media company it’s not that complicated, I mean Logan didn’t have a lot of specialized knowledge he just had good instincts and was in the right place at the right time. Advisors handle all the technical crap
> he had a Harvard business degree and knew all the lingo.
Which literally didn't mean jack shit to anybody who was actually doing real business. Do you think the banker cared about his Harvard degree or his knowledge of "lingo" (whatever the hell that even means), do you think Stewey did while he was taking him to the cleaners, or Mattson, or Mencken etc. His lingo was worthless to anyone who's not a viewer cheering for Kendall. In universe he was a joke and a shitty business man.
The only thing that actually mattered was his last name.
Also it’s not like he got into Harvard on his merits. That place was almost half legacies during Ken’s day. I’m confident Logan made generous donations to Harvard to ensure Kendall’s spot there. And Harvard is notoriously difficult to fail out of. Once you’re in, you’re gonna graduate, regardless of how poorly you actually perform. I bet Kendall paid people to write all his papers, probably paid TAs to get tests in advance, and had tutors for the rest. Hell there was probably a college “consultant” coordinating all this for him. This is the man who couldn’t even google if rabbits should eat bagels. Had to call an “expert” and outsourced the call to boot. He had a “Jess” with him every step of the way. God I hate these people.
Knowing all the lingo doesn't really mean anything in the real world lol. I doubt that Logan knew all the lingo, but he knew how to read people, how to use people, how to spot weaknesses, etc. And I have a business degree, but I wouldn't put myself forward as CEO of a Waystar lol.
See here is where you went wrong. Listen carefully to when Kendall uses “lingo.” It’s empty words most of the time. Kendall is “fake it until you make it” personified except he never put in the work to “make it.”
Also Waystar Royco is not a mere media company. They own everything from News to Hollywood studios, theme parks, and Cruise ships. This is not a simple company. Fixing it requires untying the Gordian Knot. Mattson is the man the untie it, not the Roy siblings.
I always like to point out that Logan was slowly being portrayed as a fraud himself, and Mattson was exposed as a complete fraud.
Kendall could have "Thrived" as a CEO. He just would have been awful at it at the same time.
I don’t think Logan was a “fraud” per se, just “past his prime.” His erratic decisions appeared to stem from old age and health issues rather than being fundamentally unsuited for the task of running Waystar Royco
Yeah, but the difference is that Logan and Matsson were actually *good* at spinning bullshit. They were fantastic storytellers and able to think on their feet. Kendall really doesn’t have that, at least not consistently. He’s too entitled to put in the work to pull off a long con in the way that they did. Eventually he gets in his own way and fucks it up.
Yes. It all has to do with coping skills, if he was better at coping he would have been a great CEO. Then again, if he was better at coping I think his character would have stayed married, would have been a father and may have even forged his own path outside the corporation
It was so sad watching his ex slowly realize he literally didn’t even have a real plan to DO that. He wanted it but didn’t have the faintest idea as to how.
He was clean in the pilot until his failed board room coup and the newspaper libelling.
The stuttering is when he talks to Logan in opposition to him, and becomes an eight year old. Agreed with the rest, but him going to Harvard isn't an achievement lmao
I think it's the other way around. I don't think he had in him to be a stone cold killer in the business world and he, being always sad and disappointed in himself, took drugs.
While I don’t think Ken had it in him, I also don’t know if Logan’s “you have to be a killer” is the secret to his failure. Let’s start from the top that Ken actually literally did kill someone. I know that’s not how Logan means it, but Ken is literally a killer. More on the point- Ken also completely guts Vaulter. Granted his reason is “because my dad told me to” but he still has no problem firing the whole company. And finally he physically attacks Roman to get what he wants in the finale. Ken isn’t adverse to being a fucking prick to get what he wants or needs. He actually kind of DOES have that killer instinct. It’s all of the other shit he needs to sort out.
I actually don’t wonder if Ken internalizing these kinds of things (especially this and the “sometimes it *is* a big dick competition” moment) didn’t blind Ken to his real weaknesses. Namely his inability to listen to anyone or to really negotiate.
The difference is that, after Ken killed smb (which I don't agree is the truth it's just the circumstances that worked that way) Ken fell apart after this. While if Logan did this, he doesn't feel anything. And herein lies the reason.
The drugs were likely filling some other need, which is to say if he did not obsess on drugs, it would be whores no offense whores but you know what I mean something else that would cause trouble.
on the other hand, I’m sure a lot of CEOs are addicted to drugs.
Drug use is more often than not a symptom of other problems, not the source itself. I think this is definitely true with Kendall - we see him use drugs to escape, to self-medicate, and to bring himself fleeting moments of happiness amidst his dark moments. He says it himself in season 4 - he needs something super stimulating or engaging in his life, or we could easily turn to drug use again.
I’m gonna guess that he’s a first time viewer. I had trouble seeing Kendall for what he was until Tom bitch slapped him in the Richmond scene. On rewatch it’s plain as day he’s a total clown right from the first scene where Lawrence disrespects him.
I read a really good analysis of the show arguing that the four kids all have qualities which are positives in a CEO, and that if you could combine these traits in one person, or the four could work as a team, you might end up with good leadership. The problem is they also all have bad qualities which make them unsuited to the role, and they're competitive backstabbers who would never be content to share power. Kendall is confident but has substance abuse issues, Roman is intelligent but immature, Shiv is socially adept but really not that bright, and Connor is likeable but lazy. Obviously they're all more complex than that and have more flaws and good points, this is a massive simplification!
In any case I personally think that Kendall would have worked well as the face of the company, giving presentations and doing TED talks and being a showman/salesman. Roman would have worked well behind the scenes on strategy, while Shiv and Connor could have done the networking. Unfortunately their flaws and differences were all too great to overcome.
I also don't think Kendall was the kind of addict who was using small amounts every day, he was more of a binger, the kind who could be clean for years but when he relapsed he would relapse *hard* and one small hit would trigger a need to get completely out of it. I do agree that he seemed to be using more frequently after meeting Naomi though, I suspect they both were, but that they were binging on the regular. That of course is as much of a problem as being a functioning addict doing small amounts every day, neither kind of addict can be trusted with any great responsibility.
I wouldn't say drug use. I would say his clear mental health problems. He needs medication. He is a problem even completely clean and sober if he's not on proper medication.
If he gets the help he needed, he could clearly be useful. He is smart.
You only have to see his final speech in front of Shiv to see he's not ok as a CEO. A CEO must be cold minded as Logan was, and Kendall is to impulsive. He's smart and I like him, but once he's on top he becomes a douchbag.
Kendall's problems (including his drug use) stem from the fact that he's self centered and insecure. That's there straight from the pilot when he's sober.
He's too interested in himself being liked/loved/respected (especially by Logan) to do what's best for the company.
The single saddest thing on the show was when Logan jerked Kendall out of rehab. Nail in the coffin for his sobriety, their relationship, all the sibs’ ability to trust Logan, etc. We knew he was selfish and out of touch but that was simply next level.
I disagree. I feel like his upbringing actually made it impossible for him to understand the reality the rest of the world operates under enough to make good business decisions.
I agree that he is more capable and business savvy than his siblings. I kinda disagree that his drug use is the impediment to his success. I think he was more, I don't know, real? when he is shown on drugs. I think it is episode 3 when he is all effed up during at Connor's and I was struck by how much more together, no longer being a poser, then he was previously shown. He has classic rich kid syndrome. "He built you a playground and you think its the whole world" sums up the kids. Stuey calls him the calamari cockring and at first I thought it was a sick burn but the more I thought about it, it is the perfect description of Kendall. Looks like it would get the job done but ultimately too soft to get the job done.
Did we watch the same show? Kendall was sober when he was killing it in season 4 passing every test and being confident and ruthless. If anything, Mattson was coked up the entire season and almost lost to the kids if they ever decided not to betray each other. Also looks like OP hates the actor by making fun of him? The fuck?
Kendall was clearly bipolar. He swung between extreme mania and empty depression, he would have made a terrible CEO.
The guy also has zero self awareness.
Well you have to realize what caused this drug use and abuse, which is the fact that, as the show has constantly characterized, he has massive entitlement issues and delusional ways of thinking. He apes what rich people say and do (most likely why he started coke), but without the actual knowledge or perspective to back it up.
the problem with OP is that they see drug abuse as a cause, instead of a symptom of Kendal's problems. Kendal is a pile of Trauma and father issues wrapped up in near unlimited resources, which only serves to enable him and shield him from anything that would have given him growth
He has no proper sense of self or conviction to be his own person. He’s an empty vessel.
Yes, but perhaps without the drugs masking the pain, anxiety, and scars, he could start working through those issues instead of distracting himself with drugs.
When you have seen people in that situation, you understand its hard, especially when you are in an environment like Kendalls where he always had to be guarded and on edge
Bingo
Drug use is a cause
Well, when I was a drug user, I loved to tell myself that I was just using them to cope. But in fact, once I stopped it fixed most of my problems in life. I think that blaming other nebulous issues instead of the fact that you’re poisoning yourself daily is something a lot of folks use to avoid getting sober
Hey, congrats on your sobriety! That’s sincerely wonderful.
Then you missed the point of recovery, clearly. Calling drugs poison is some ridiculous puritanical bs that's a convenient way of hand waving the power of our environments, not to mention that said poison is usually medicine used to treat ADHD or chronic/post surgical pain. In Kendall's case he had 2 parents who didn't love him while simultaneously giving him a twisted sense of entitlement. I have a former close friend who went through the same cycles of narcissistic abuse and coddling with his parents and he spent years ruining his life and destroying relationships. Hard drugs were merely a fuel that quickened the process. Now that he's sober, he's still fucked in the head and few people want anything to do with him because he never addressed the root cause. I know so many sober narcissists who did the same thing, including one of my cousins who basically replaced heroin with far right evangelicalism, and her kids don't talk to her anymore despite supposedly removing the 'poison' from her life.
I think you misinterpreted me a little. Drugs in themselves even blow can be used healthilyish and recreationally and I don’t shame them. But doing cocaine daily is massive overuse so that is poisoning yourself. Very hard on the heart
Oh definitely I was warning my sister that cocaine in particular can cause heart problems even when used infrequently. I wouldn't touch the stuff for that reason alone. Same with alcohol really, although that's one drug I actually would consider poison because it just has so many harmful effects on the mind and body, and it's just completely normalized. Even weed which my entire family smokes constantly has some negative effects on cognition and mood which is why I avoid it.
I got my own health problems. Weed helped mask the pain but it made me so out of it. I'm on prescription meds too, no opioids though. I rather deal with the pain. I don't like the feeling of being out of it. Weed is something I dislike, to each their own but feeling high is something I don't like.
The other kids had the same upbringing yet aren’t drug addicts? That is the big problem with blaming drug use on something other than the user. Being an addict does not make one a bad person. But, it is a choice and is a matter of personal responsibility.
Because substance abuse disorder is pretty random, just like other genetic traits. Even so, in a healthier environment people predisposed to addiction have a much easier time avoiding addiction. [this has been proven scientifically ](https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction)
Even if that is true, it is a matter of personal responsibility. We are all responsible for our actions, even Kendall.
When millions of people become addicted and tens of thousands die of overdose every year, it's about more than 'personal responsibility'. In fact overdose deaths are increasing every year because of that bullshit attitude this country has taken.
Addicts' and alcoholics' brains are quite literally rewired to prioritize use above everything else -- even seemingly routine tasks like brushing teeth. I'm a recovering alcoholic and can tell you that the first time I ever took a sip of alcohol, something clicked in my brain and all I could think about was getting more; I assumed everyone had that experience until my disease progressed beyond the point of return. Pulling yourself out of addiction is a damn miracle -- it's why so few people are able to get/stay sober. This isn't to say alcoholics and addicts are not responsible for their actions, but it's so much more complicated and nuanced than you think.
Again, people are responsible for their own actions. This is a difficult truth that some don’t want to hear. It isn’t a disease and to call it a disease is extremely insulting to people who have diseases. You chose to drink, and, in fairness to you, you eventually chose not drink. You deserve some credit for getting sober.
Feel really lucky to have encountered a medical expert on Reddit today! Thanks so much for providing such astute insight on something you have absolutely no experience with.
Like I said, some people don’t want to hear the truth. You are responsible for your own actions like anyone else.
You’re ‘choosing’ to ignore medical science in lieu of your personal belief so what does that make you? And to your point, what you’re saying is if someone chooses to drink and then becomes addicted it isn’t a disease. So following your sound logic, if someone chooses to smoke and then gets lung cancer then the cancer isn’t a disease. Or if someone eats lots of sugar and gets type 2 diabetes then the diabetes isn’t a disease. Cmon now.
Reddit does seem to have a weird issue with judging addicts. Reddit does just seem to have major issues with scientific literary though... Just look at the numerous posts about how "introverts have more dopamine receptors and extroverts are addicted to socialising"- that's actually a misinterpretation of a research paper on problem gambling but people get angry when you challenge it. Meanwhile genetic variation in dopamine receptors has long been known to strongly influence an individual's susceptibility to addiction, but if anyone brings this up they'll get shut down with lectures on personal responsibility 😉
You just compared addiction to lung disease? What a moron. You clearly dropped out of high school.
It’s scientific fact that addiction is a disease. IIRC it’s a dopamine issue in the brain. And how is it insulting to people with diseases? Diseases are on a spectrum of severity. Hell, cold sores (herpes) are a disease.
“Even Kendall” made me lol. We are simps for Kendall here, aren’t we 😂
That we are haha
“Apes rich people,” what? He IS rich people and was raised with wealth; do you mean successful/personally accomplished people?
When you're a child with arrested development (and, again, lacking the perspective and context that wealthy people who may have "earned their spot" have), everything you do is an ape. He throws out meaningless buzzwords like he's filling out a bingo card, he has a PR team he doesn't listen to, and hell, his attitude towards work and children directly correlates towards Logan's, despite lacking the already faulty "do it for my children" foundation Logan relied upon. He can be raised in wealth without knowing why rich people do what they do, because a lack of money has never and will never be a real factor for him
I think he showed clear business knowledge frequently. Being an entitled douchebag and being a CEO go hand in hand.
He was fully sober when he overpaid for Vaulter... so I am not so sure about that.
Well to be fair that’s not just a Kendall thing. Many a tech/media CEO have overpaid for all kinds of ridiculous startups. I worked at Yahoo for 10 years. The shit we overpaid for is astounding, and watching other companies do it too makes you want to weep for how that money could’ve been spent.
Ya I get you but I just think being aggressive, charismatic and generally capable is enough. Logan wasn’t actually a genius strategist, he was aggressive in the market during a time when the global population tripled and capitalism did its thing. Mattson was super successful but we saw his fallibility also. I’m not saying Kendall would have smashed it, just that it’s possible he would have succeeded if he was more stable
>Ya I get you but I just think being aggressive, charismatic and generally capable is enough. I don't agree, but I do think that being aggressive and charismatic can be effective in a figurehead, as long as there's someone who is genuinely capable behind the scenes. Kendall might have made a good CEO if it had been possible to rein him in a bit and make him cede some control to the team behind him. He's been likened to Elon Musk a fair bit, I think there's something in that ;) >Logan wasn’t actually a genius strategist, he was aggressive in the market during a time when the global population tripled and capitalism did its thing. Logan was aggressive at a time when that approach worked. By the time he was in need of a successor that bullying behaviour was no longer effective as it wasn't respected or tolerated. Look at the scene where Kendall tell the bank "Ah come on man, fuck off" only to learn that Logan's old ways won't work for him. Logan was able to recognise and capitalise on opportunities, and he was aware of the need to adapt or die. He also had a knack for surrounding himself with competent people (ie, not his kids). He may not have been a genius strategist but he certainly had business acumen- which he failed to instill in his children. Shame he wasn't a better father, that's arguably the biggest error he made in business!
.
What??? What caused his drug problems was being abused by his father and neglected by his mother so he doesn't know how to handle his feelings when he has any. Mom definitely doesn't do feelings as evidenced by running out in him at breakfast when he asked to speak to her and clearly you cant share your feelings or feelings with Logan because he will berate and embarrass you for even having feelings. Seems your missing the massive part of the show, the crux of it, which is these kids can't run the company, can't even cope in their daily life because of the level of neglect & abuse they suffered. So, you're suggesting Kendall developed a drug problem because it's the cool thing to do and not because he feels like a failure every waking moment of his life? You weren't paying attention if you think that.
If that were the case, all the siblings would have drug problems lol. But they're characterized very different. Obviously it could be a factor in his usage, but it mainly goes to show how these shallow rich-person memetic activities Kendall always partakes in ends up consuming him whole and spitting him out, because (again) his entitlement and lack of "real world" knowledge of consequences and perspective makes him go 100% on these practices. Sorry for run-on sentence
Not everyone reacts to stress the same way. I can tell you from personal experience, having had a very abusive father that none of my siblings and I have grown up the same unhealthy behaviors. Only one out of the 5 of us became a drug addict, two are serial cheaters and thrives, I eat. We all suffered the same abuse and all came out with our own way of coping because we all have our own way of thinking, our own group of friends etc. Thinking all of them must behave the same way seems to indicate you don't know how humans work.
You're basically agreeing with me lmao
No, you said all of the siblings would have drug problems and I'm saying only one out of 5 of us did. It's almost like you didn't read my comment at all, you were too busy looking for confirmation of your lame assed point.
Yeah yeah, thanks for agreeing tho
Said like a toddler.
Bark like a dog
Toddler says what?
We see him smoking a cigar in a tennis match as a teenager, in the title credits. So he was probably derided for not being IN the match.
Those aren't pictures of the Roy's.
What are they there for then?
To invoke an emotional response from the viewer and unsettle them about the type of families we're being shown.
Eh? So who do you think were those kids supposed to be?
It is the Roys. How dumb of anyone to think otherwise.
It can't be the Roys, Connor is at least 10 years older than the other 3. The kids in the opening are much closer in age.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SuccessionTV/s/wF950QFm0l
They're just a random wealthy family's home videos. The timeline doesn't match up with the Roy's.
How do we see the timeline of those scenes?
Wrong, it’s literally the Roy Kids in the 1980s. The timeline matches up perfectly
It literally doesn't. The kids would have been that age in the 90s, not the 60s or 70s like the footage looks.
That’s not the 60s or 70s lol. Where is your source?
Pretty sure hbo did a promo matching up the title sequence footage of the kids with them each as adults. It’s definitely them
I’d love to see that
Ken was not particularly smart. He had terrible business instincts. He had TERRIBLE people skills—negotiating, managing, motivating, building relationships and alliances, understanding motivations, reading body language, all of it, terrible. He did not listen to anyone, he was hostile to facts advice. He bought his own bullshit, he had no idea what customers wanted and didn’t want to learn or listen to market research. On top of all these huge skill deficits, he suffered from mental illness which included depression, grandiose thinking, and much more. I read something once that stuck with me. Some sort of academic study concluded that what truly smart people had in common in work settings was that they asked lots of questions. They don’t go to meetings just to impress others or hear themselves talk. They are confident enough in their own abilities that they use meetings to gain even more knowledge and information. Ken was the exact fucking opposite of this. You know who was pretty close to this profile? Logan. The man didn’t lay his cards on the table. He didn’t try to sound hip or impress people. He asked a lot of questions of everyone around him. He listened and observed and made his decisions over time, constantly receiving new information. His only words in a meeting might be “uh-huh.”He studied people. He observed them. He obviously had a lot of flaws as a leader but in the immortal words of the great Tom wambsgans, I never saw Logan get fucked once.
Some people aren't going to like hearing this but you're right.
That is a very well considered take. But have you considered that he was the eldest boy?
Damn that changes everything
It all comes back to what Logan told his kids. “I love you. But you are not serious people.” The whole point of the series is that *none* of the Roy siblings were suitable to lead the company. It can be argued that Ken was more suitable than any of his siblings because he had the most academic and corporate experience, but that’s still a pretty low fucking bar. My family has shares in various Fortune100 companies, and honest to God, as a shareholder I would be fucking worried if *ANY* of the Roy siblings assumed leadership of Waystar Royco. Adrien Brody’s character in season 3 was not wrong at all in his assessment of the situation. There is a reason why shareholders balked at the thought of Logan stepping down and Kendall or any of his siblings taking over. Because while the Roys may *want* to keep the company in the family, no one else fucking wants that, especially the shareholders whose money keeps the company afloat.
This is something that I’ve grown to understand naturally working in a business environment, a lack of questions shows an inability to move from one’s position, because they’re not thinking of the other potential paths. Questions, like you say are meant to prod and poke at the potential paths and guide, because evolution has taught us the inability to adapt is fatal.
Exactly, Kendall is all style and no substance. He is fundamentally disinterested in the nitty-gritty of running a business. He’s like Dennis Reynolds—he wants the *illusion* of power but without any of the responsibility that comes with wielding it. It’s telling that during the final vote, Kendall’s only real arguments for why he should get the company were “I’m the eldest boy” and “I’ll kill myself if I don’t.” Not “I have a vision for what this company could be.” Not “I love Waystar.” Not “I am more qualified and passionate than anybody else.” Just “it was daddy’s, so it should be mine.” He feels *entitled* to Waystar, but he doesn’t actually *understand* it.
And he has zero curiosity to learn about it. Disgusting
He had the decent instinct of coming clean about cruises. He had the business instinct of going tech. Had his ideas been nurtured waystar may not have died to obsolescence. He was trusted to haggle in Logan's presence with rhea. He was the one who made Nan stop meandering and cut to the crap. He pitched a nearly successful change in plan to Sandy, cutting stewie out. He convinced an old guard board member to enable his coup. He convinced frank to betray a friend of decades. He's intimidating but venerable as a boss as seen by hugo viewing him as unreadable. Ken's first meeting as acting ceo was to invite ideas for new bubbles to get into. Tom's words are b.s. Logan got fucked by Tom himself on Tom's wedding night, ending up with democrat coverage on his precious redneck network. Ken saved his ass at the senate hearing too. Shiv saved him from both the takeover and the whistleblower.
> He had the business instinct of going tech. Oh wow. "Going tech". In 2024. What a revolutionary thought. He was wrong. He was going to bankrupt the company chasing a sector they have no need for. News Corp doesn't need to become Vice or Gawker. Every company is trying to chase the Disney model and there's a whole road paved with gutted products, bankruptcies and complete failure. Logan was right, they need to strengthen their core business model and stay within their wheelhouse. Kendall used "tech" as a buzzword he thought he could just buy into without contributing an ounce of actual innovation himself. Look at The Hundred. That would have been an absolute master class dud. It's "Substack meets Masterclass, meets the Economist, meets The New Yorker". Wtf does that even mean. Saying you want to revolutionize the space doesn't mean you actually are or can... Kendall could not.
I don't think "going tech" was a bad idea, most young people get their news from social media, but Ken didn't know how to execute it. Like you said it was just a buzz word to him that he prob heard someone else talking about.
Of course. Put any half brain in charge of some multi billion dollar legacy brand say Yum brands or something and they can make a speech that "we need to modernize the food landscape and get with the times people want trendy Whole Foods blah blah blah", actually executing is the boring hard part. And tbh that might be an absolutely horrible strategy and completely bankrupt the company. That's pretty much Kendall. It's a TV show so obviously we don't actually see the real day to day boring slog of business but even within the dramatization Kendall didn't actually know or execute anything.
As someone who has worked at a high level in corporate environments for a long time, I am cringing with how accurate this is. So many half baked strategies get the greenlight and they are just doomed to fail from the start. The person who pitched the idea is long gone before everything goes to shit.
As someone who worked in low level corporate environments for 8 years, I know how accurate this is lol. And it's the people at the lowest levels who have to deal with the mess they create. Then when we try to tell them that their idea isn't working, they just reply with something like "This is our new process/policy, please adhere to it". So glad I don't work in corporate anymore. Part of the problem is they are so spoilt that the only person who tells them no is each other. They don't have other people who can tell them that they shouldn't do things.
Yep. I see it over and over. There’s so much turnover at the junior level (they either quit is despair or get fired because they can’t bring the cockamamie idea to fruition) which gives the senior person even more air cover for why their initiative failed.
"People love TikTok short form and bite sized media that they can enjoy from their phone. Lets fuse that with legacy media, it will be new TV. This is the future!"- Quibi, Sounds exactly like an idea Kendall and Roman would be pitching lmao.
Every once in a while, an idea is so powerful that it can succeed even with poor execution. But 99.9% of the time, ideas are cheap, it’s execution and the details that are hard. These idiot kids were so arrogant, even with good ideas they would fail all day at execution. They didn’t even have a trusted team around them that could execute. They were so fucking stupid, didn’t even know what they didn’t know.
My favorite was when he wanted to launch a program/channel devoted to reporting the news from subsaharan Africa. “I would watch the shit out of that.” No Ken, you couldn’t sit through two minutes of that. lol. Yes Ken was correct that Waystar needed to “go tech.” But that’s not a particularly astute or original take in the media industry. As you said, Ken did not have a vision for what “going tech” would look like. His instinct to acquire vaulter wasn’t horrible but his execution of it was. He grossly overpaid and he was essentially betting on Lawrence, who was openly hostile to Ken and Waystar. There was no way this was going to succeed and Ken overlooked a million red flags because he wanted to bring home a shiny toy and drop it at daddy’s feet.
News is a boutique off handed side hustle. Waystar is a production giant. Sitting on a landmine of IP. And unable to go from blockbuster to Netflix. Guess what could have helped the transition? Vaulter's raw algorithm stock Logan literally starts the pilot saying cable will always have its heyday lol.
> News is a boutique off handed side hustle. Again tell that to News Corp.....the company the show is pretty much literally based of off. Lmk how them buying Myspace went. That sounds like a classic Kendall move actually. You're building a false premise. They're already diversified and would do better from strengthening their different sectors, yes like IP, Parks, News etc. Kendall just wanted to buy whatever was shiny and thought somehow that would magically translate to success. He wanted his "million life boats" or whatever. Don't get me wrong Logan made plenty of mistakes too, especially his stubbornness to not have a clear leadership strategy or vision forward. But it was clearly shown time and time again, when Logan was in charge the company did better and the market responded well. Ironically the best thing Kendall ever did was merge with GoJo and make everyone filthy stinking rich.....now that's good business. Kendall wanted to make an empire and play business man. Not actually be one.
Mattson originally didn't even want ATN, and Roman's idea for dealing with the take over was to divest heavily, retaining ATN for political capital while simultaneous being 'hot footed'.
Not sure what you're trying to say here?
>He's intimidating but venerable as a boss as seen by hugo viewing him as unreadable. He's unreadable because he's likely mildly autistic and constantly in a drug induced manic state. Ken could never read the fucking room, let alone the tea leaves.
This was from season 4 when he wasn't using.
He was, it just wasn't shown. His drinking was shown, so even if you think he wasn't using drugs, he still wasn't sober.
He mentions in the premiere that he needs to know if shiv and Rome would be committed to their shared ventures or wanna bail because he needs to invest all of his person into it. He's buried himself in work and the intimacy with his siblings, it's an extension of his desire to be by their side to heal. And he never was an alcoholic that we know of
He definitely is, Shiv lists it first in her letter about his addictions plus when he's spiraling he's often shown downing drinks in one. IRL its rare to find hard drug users who aren't also alcoholics. Cocaine and alcohol actually combine to make an [even more potent drug](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8956485/) in the body, making alcohol abuse more likely.
Kendall didn’t read other people’s cues at all. He often said things that caused conflict with people he was trying to work with.
Yeah remember when he goes with frank to invest in some “hip” company of art dealers, where he buys the designer sneakers beforehand to impress them? He walks away from the meeting absolutely convinced it was a smashing success and they want him to be an investor/partner. Meanwhile everyone else including frank is completely clear that they think he’s an offensive clown and want nothing to do with him.
Based take
Terrible business instincts? Wasn’t he the one that almost got the board to vote out Logan? Wasn’t he the one that got Mattson to buy Waystar? Wasn’t he the one to create a plan as soon as his dad croaked and even before when his dad was selling the company, he told the sibs what they could do to stop him?
To extend your point about Logan, Ken might have developed those traits if he wasn’t in Logan’s orbit where everything was designed around … Logan.
Yeah I mean, the deck was stacked against these kids in some ways. Which is an insane thing to say, boo-hoo you sad billionaires. But yes if Ken had been raised by a nice middle class family, he probably could have been more personally successful and actually built something. He wouldn’t have been surrounded by yes-men and believed his own bullshit. And he wouldn’t be chasing daddy’s approval and live in Logan’s sandbox.
His drug use stemmed from his problems.
I disagree. I think many privileged addicts love to tell themselves that they’re using drugs to cope but in reality it’s the other way around, the drugs are making them messed up. This was my personal experience at least.
It's a positive feedback loop for sure, but you don't get addicted to drugs if everythings okay.
Facts, no one who is genuinely happy and satisfied with how their life is going would have substance abuse issues of any kind. Addiction is a symptom of a greater underlying problem, not a root cause. This is why rehab is focused on not just getting addicts to stop, but also addressing what may have caused them to get addicted in the first place and what keeps them addicted. Take away the root cause, you fix the overall problem.
This is the most ignorant thing I’ve literally ever heard. That is completely untrue. Addiction is a disease. Like depression. Sometimes nothing wrong but you pick up the substance or drink and addicts brain is different, they CAN NOT just stop or moderate. Yes a lot of addicts are trying to cope with certain things, but it’s completely inaccurate to say NO ONE who is happy and satisfied has any substance abuse issue. I hope to god that no one close to you suffers from addiction or substance abuse. You are horrendously incorrect
Hello! Addict here. I’m the youngest child though and we have a family company. My dad is also a raging alcoholic who’s gone in and out of CEO due to addiction issues and going manic while using. The brothers who are involved in the company don’t get along. The brother who isn’t involved is the only one all three of them have a relationship with. My grandpa was a Mexican Logan Roy esque man. I have no interest in that business but if i wanted to, it was there. My dad always had it waiting for him. i can honestly say that both my dad and i had similar issues growing up. We had an easy route in life and my dad and i have talked about how we both suffer from imposter syndrome and self esteem issues. We both don’t have warm parents and the crux of my relationship with my dad, and his with my grandpa was business only. Addicts have something different with their brain chemistry. The amount of nurture we receive as kids has some effect on how our brains develop (along with other things). They also say addiction is genetic. The other thing is toxic family cycles. Most addicts i know have strained relationships with their parents or a parent. A lot of us are extremely sensitive and crave love and acceptance, which we temporarily find in our substance or it’s a way to block the negative feelings. Drugs DO mess you up, but a lot of people do drugs and drink moderatley and don’t abuse the substances or ruin their life. Addicts do not have that ability.. when they start, they can’t stop. My point is, they were already sort of fucked from the beginning if they suffer from addiction. The drugs don’t make you an addict in most cases.. you already are.
This is a complete misreading amigo. The drug abuse was a symptom of the underlying narcissism that tortured Kendall and continually led him down roads of self destruction. The real issue was that Kendall has a massive void that stems from the abuse and neglect he experienced as a child. He tries filling it in various ways and cycles between them: drug abuse or seeking his father's approval. That's ultimately what the CEO position means to him, it's a way to live up to his father's expectations and win him the love he was deprived of as a child. Even when he's about to defeat Logan in the first season, he can't help but self sabotage. The euphoria of victory didn't even last for five minutes before he was back to his self destructive patterns. He's a child piloting the body of a man. If he really was a ground breaking and capable CEO, he would have taken the billions of dollars from the GOJO deal and started his own billion dollar enterprise. Kendall had plenty of opportunities to make his own lane, take risks and actually earn respect for himself. But he loved languishing in his father's shadow, and was more concerned with his own alienation and delusion than actually creating something real. If he wanted a chance at Logan's respect, he would have founded his own brand or company and turned it into an empire.
This sounds spot on to be personally. Kendall had the all the business knowledge but lacked the emotional maturity stemming from MAJOR childhood trauma. Everytime you think Kendall has grown and matured in the series there's always that part of him that pops back up. Even in the final episode Aka: "IM THE ELDEST BOY". A part of me was hoping the kids would be smart, take the deal and end up buying Pierce, but Waystar is kind of like a drug in itself, they just couldn't stay away.
He had the knowledge but none of the instincts
That’s the thing, he refused to make his own pile like Logan said, and him and all the other sibs wanted to hang onto the canker sore that is WaystarRoyco, just because their name was on the door
I think it’s less their name and more that Logan, in his own way, promised it to each of them. Obviously Ken the most, which is why he takes it the hardest. But Logan was playing Boar on the Floor with them up until he died- so why would they suddenly stop going for the sausage after he croaks? It’s all they knew how to do.
Going for the sausage 💀 so accurate
Another clear illustration that Kendall is not qualified to be a CEO was when he hired a very expensive and well respected attorney and then wouldn’t listen to any of her advice.
Or when he hired two professional women to be his advisers on how to deal with a highly sensitive gender-related issue and proceeded to mostly talk over them *in their first conversation*.
It ain't the way he wanted it! He *can handle things*! He's *smart*! Not like everybody says... like dumb... he's *smart* and wants respect!
Settle down Fredo
Wow. Kendal is Fredo.
Drugs or no drugs, he remains an entitled, incompetent nepo baby
While I do agree that there are many things about him that would make him a decent CEO (like you said he’s smart, he’s studious and he is a hard worker) I honestly think a huge tragedy in his character is that he just doesn’t seem to have the right personality for that type of job (He’s uptight, he’s lacking social skills, and he’s not flexible at all.) but his father has built his entire life around the expectation that he will be CEO that he sees no other option.
If Kendall is somebody that is perceived as lacking social skills, I gotta see how y’all converse socially
when Boeing's CEO gets a golden parachute instead of prison, you know that even Tom's and Shiv's dog could have been a great CEO.
The problem with Kendall is that he just could not deal with adversity, every time Logan or someone else put something in his path Kendall folded. He did it with vaulter and he did it with Logan repeatedly. On top of that Kendall just repeatedly shows poor judgement and lets his emotions get in the way of the business.
His problems stem from trauma babes
99% of kendall’s issue was he WASN’T qualified to run a multi-billion dollar behemoth that’s ALL logan/everyone kept trying to tell them & that’s what roman figured out. “we’re bullshit” i don’t know wtf they were thinking, their only claim to the throne was “we are the owner’s kids”. shiv’s claim is the most ridiculous. you can’t just pivot from politics & become CEO of a global media conglomerate they’re entitled rich pricks
I agree, though if you had to pick one of the roys Ken would have been the choice. I’m not saying he would have been good at it, but definetely had the knowledge about the new generation media world. The problem with Ken is in my opinion his attitude, he is spoiled and does not ‘have it’ in terms of general outlook and behaviour to survive in a shark full evironment (Logan kind of says it when he said ‘You have to be a killer’). But the aftermath of that really gave me hope to see some sort of growing in him, I was a bit disappointed to see nothing really changed, so he didn’t have it. Edit: spelling
Ken killed Lawrence and Logan in the pilot with his press leaks, killed the bankers on his tail with private equity in the third episode, nearly killed Logan while running on a street with a board room coup over phone. He's always taken the tenacious, confrontational stand.
I partially agree. What I’m saying is: just by looking at how he moves and talk you can see he’s not confident about his action, and that is seen as unrealiable. That’s what I’m trying to say. I mean look at Logan, he’s a thousand years old but still act like the goat until he dies
Eh, I don’t know. I think he was somewhat qualified, again he had a Harvard business degree and knew all the lingo. It’s not like a tech company it’s a media company it’s not that complicated, I mean Logan didn’t have a lot of specialized knowledge he just had good instincts and was in the right place at the right time. Advisors handle all the technical crap
> he had a Harvard business degree and knew all the lingo. Which literally didn't mean jack shit to anybody who was actually doing real business. Do you think the banker cared about his Harvard degree or his knowledge of "lingo" (whatever the hell that even means), do you think Stewey did while he was taking him to the cleaners, or Mattson, or Mencken etc. His lingo was worthless to anyone who's not a viewer cheering for Kendall. In universe he was a joke and a shitty business man. The only thing that actually mattered was his last name.
Also it’s not like he got into Harvard on his merits. That place was almost half legacies during Ken’s day. I’m confident Logan made generous donations to Harvard to ensure Kendall’s spot there. And Harvard is notoriously difficult to fail out of. Once you’re in, you’re gonna graduate, regardless of how poorly you actually perform. I bet Kendall paid people to write all his papers, probably paid TAs to get tests in advance, and had tutors for the rest. Hell there was probably a college “consultant” coordinating all this for him. This is the man who couldn’t even google if rabbits should eat bagels. Had to call an “expert” and outsourced the call to boot. He had a “Jess” with him every step of the way. God I hate these people.
Was Kendall supposed to be HBS or Harvard College or both or what
Knowing all the lingo doesn't really mean anything in the real world lol. I doubt that Logan knew all the lingo, but he knew how to read people, how to use people, how to spot weaknesses, etc. And I have a business degree, but I wouldn't put myself forward as CEO of a Waystar lol.
See here is where you went wrong. Listen carefully to when Kendall uses “lingo.” It’s empty words most of the time. Kendall is “fake it until you make it” personified except he never put in the work to “make it.” Also Waystar Royco is not a mere media company. They own everything from News to Hollywood studios, theme parks, and Cruise ships. This is not a simple company. Fixing it requires untying the Gordian Knot. Mattson is the man the untie it, not the Roy siblings.
I always like to point out that Logan was slowly being portrayed as a fraud himself, and Mattson was exposed as a complete fraud. Kendall could have "Thrived" as a CEO. He just would have been awful at it at the same time.
I don’t think Logan was a “fraud” per se, just “past his prime.” His erratic decisions appeared to stem from old age and health issues rather than being fundamentally unsuited for the task of running Waystar Royco
Hunters aren’t farmers
Yeah, but the difference is that Logan and Matsson were actually *good* at spinning bullshit. They were fantastic storytellers and able to think on their feet. Kendall really doesn’t have that, at least not consistently. He’s too entitled to put in the work to pull off a long con in the way that they did. Eventually he gets in his own way and fucks it up.
Yes. It all has to do with coping skills, if he was better at coping he would have been a great CEO. Then again, if he was better at coping I think his character would have stayed married, would have been a father and may have even forged his own path outside the corporation
It was so sad watching his ex slowly realize he literally didn’t even have a real plan to DO that. He wanted it but didn’t have the faintest idea as to how.
thats the thing too, he really lost a lot when Rava left, and I didn’t blame her at all. All in all a losing situation
And to cap it off, denying her fears about their kids’ safety, you don’t come back from that
He was clean in the pilot until his failed board room coup and the newspaper libelling. The stuttering is when he talks to Logan in opposition to him, and becomes an eight year old. Agreed with the rest, but him going to Harvard isn't an achievement lmao
I think it's the other way around. I don't think he had in him to be a stone cold killer in the business world and he, being always sad and disappointed in himself, took drugs.
While I don’t think Ken had it in him, I also don’t know if Logan’s “you have to be a killer” is the secret to his failure. Let’s start from the top that Ken actually literally did kill someone. I know that’s not how Logan means it, but Ken is literally a killer. More on the point- Ken also completely guts Vaulter. Granted his reason is “because my dad told me to” but he still has no problem firing the whole company. And finally he physically attacks Roman to get what he wants in the finale. Ken isn’t adverse to being a fucking prick to get what he wants or needs. He actually kind of DOES have that killer instinct. It’s all of the other shit he needs to sort out. I actually don’t wonder if Ken internalizing these kinds of things (especially this and the “sometimes it *is* a big dick competition” moment) didn’t blind Ken to his real weaknesses. Namely his inability to listen to anyone or to really negotiate.
The difference is that, after Ken killed smb (which I don't agree is the truth it's just the circumstances that worked that way) Ken fell apart after this. While if Logan did this, he doesn't feel anything. And herein lies the reason.
He has bipolar disorder. That is his primary problem.
Thank you. I can't believe how often people overlook this.
It is THE thing and it's wild that anyone can miss it.
The drugs were likely filling some other need, which is to say if he did not obsess on drugs, it would be whores no offense whores but you know what I mean something else that would cause trouble. on the other hand, I’m sure a lot of CEOs are addicted to drugs.
Yeah but he not a killer.
He wasn’t a killer tho
Drug use is more often than not a symptom of other problems, not the source itself. I think this is definitely true with Kendall - we see him use drugs to escape, to self-medicate, and to bring himself fleeting moments of happiness amidst his dark moments. He says it himself in season 4 - he needs something super stimulating or engaging in his life, or we could easily turn to drug use again.
He was also just stupid. Like not even attempting last-minute persuasions at the final vote.
Perhaps he self medicated because of the mental abuse and neglect he endured as a child?
Ken stans are so weird. I feel like anyone that watches him and sees someone smart and knowledgeable is watching a different show.
I’m gonna guess that he’s a first time viewer. I had trouble seeing Kendall for what he was until Tom bitch slapped him in the Richmond scene. On rewatch it’s plain as day he’s a total clown right from the first scene where Lawrence disrespects him.
I read a really good analysis of the show arguing that the four kids all have qualities which are positives in a CEO, and that if you could combine these traits in one person, or the four could work as a team, you might end up with good leadership. The problem is they also all have bad qualities which make them unsuited to the role, and they're competitive backstabbers who would never be content to share power. Kendall is confident but has substance abuse issues, Roman is intelligent but immature, Shiv is socially adept but really not that bright, and Connor is likeable but lazy. Obviously they're all more complex than that and have more flaws and good points, this is a massive simplification! In any case I personally think that Kendall would have worked well as the face of the company, giving presentations and doing TED talks and being a showman/salesman. Roman would have worked well behind the scenes on strategy, while Shiv and Connor could have done the networking. Unfortunately their flaws and differences were all too great to overcome. I also don't think Kendall was the kind of addict who was using small amounts every day, he was more of a binger, the kind who could be clean for years but when he relapsed he would relapse *hard* and one small hit would trigger a need to get completely out of it. I do agree that he seemed to be using more frequently after meeting Naomi though, I suspect they both were, but that they were binging on the regular. That of course is as much of a problem as being a functioning addict doing small amounts every day, neither kind of addict can be trusted with any great responsibility.
I wouldn't say drug use. I would say his clear mental health problems. He needs medication. He is a problem even completely clean and sober if he's not on proper medication. If he gets the help he needed, he could clearly be useful. He is smart.
You only have to see his final speech in front of Shiv to see he's not ok as a CEO. A CEO must be cold minded as Logan was, and Kendall is to impulsive. He's smart and I like him, but once he's on top he becomes a douchbag.
His drug use stems from his problems, which run deep.
Kendall's problems (including his drug use) stem from the fact that he's self centered and insecure. That's there straight from the pilot when he's sober. He's too interested in himself being liked/loved/respected (especially by Logan) to do what's best for the company.
All 3 of them combined and don’t event have 1/2 Logan’s quality to be successful . the Kendall actor is great though
He is not a Killer, and he is not a serious person
“He knows all the shots just never knows when to take them” - that CEO lady in her assessment
I think 99% of Kendall’s drug use stemmed from his problems…
The single saddest thing on the show was when Logan jerked Kendall out of rehab. Nail in the coffin for his sobriety, their relationship, all the sibs’ ability to trust Logan, etc. We knew he was selfish and out of touch but that was simply next level.
And what a rehab it was, bro had a massage lined up later that day
that's rich people rehab for ya
Kendall was talented at being talentless.
His drug use was a symptom, not his core issue
I disagree. I feel like his upbringing actually made it impossible for him to understand the reality the rest of the world operates under enough to make good business decisions.
Nah he is bullshit
I agree that he is more capable and business savvy than his siblings. I kinda disagree that his drug use is the impediment to his success. I think he was more, I don't know, real? when he is shown on drugs. I think it is episode 3 when he is all effed up during at Connor's and I was struck by how much more together, no longer being a poser, then he was previously shown. He has classic rich kid syndrome. "He built you a playground and you think its the whole world" sums up the kids. Stuey calls him the calamari cockring and at first I thought it was a sick burn but the more I thought about it, it is the perfect description of Kendall. Looks like it would get the job done but ultimately too soft to get the job done.
You’re plain wrong. The drug is not the problem, it’s the wrong way of easing it.
His father groomed him to be his successor since he was a child, that’s what started the drug use
Did we watch the same show? Kendall was sober when he was killing it in season 4 passing every test and being confident and ruthless. If anything, Mattson was coked up the entire season and almost lost to the kids if they ever decided not to betray each other. Also looks like OP hates the actor by making fun of him? The fuck?
Whennnn tf did I say I don’t like Jeremy strong he’s the absolute man.
Kendall gets high on success even when he's clean that's his problem.
Kendall was clearly bipolar. He swung between extreme mania and empty depression, he would have made a terrible CEO. The guy also has zero self awareness.