Missing Mike

摘要

Many a successful company has faltered after the departure of its charismatic founder. On the surface, the media and financial-information firm that Michael Bloomberg built is still thriving despite his sudden career shift in 2002, when the billionaire left to become mayor of New York. The story of how Bloomberg trounced Reuters, a British company that used to dominate the market, is an oft-cited business classic-thanks not least to Mr Bloomberg's own self-congratulatory but insightful telling of it in a book, "Bloomberg by Bloomberg". Yet there are signs that all is not well. Mr Bloomberg's exit is proving a big loss for the firm's risk-taking and unusually tough corporate culture (which the mayor is now trying to replicate in New York's traditionally flabby City Hall). Maintaining growth at the firm in the longer term could be difficult.