OT: Toys R Us Dead
Our favorite CEO has finished the job. Toys R Us won't emerge from bankruptcy. RIP Geoffrey the Giraffe
To be fair, it may have been an impossible job.
but its also kind of great that Dave Brandon failed so miserably. I recall reading that when he would go to UM Football related events prior to getting the AD job, he would introduce himself as "Dave Brandon, All-American...in business."
It is sad to see Geoffry the Girrafe go though
I didn't like Brandon very much when he left, but I find it hard to cheer the loss of what once was a thriving American company.
Liked going there as a kid and worked the warehouse a couple seasons in my teens. Good memories.
I don't mourn the buggie whip industry, nor do I mourn the loss of big box stores. These were the stores that bankrupted mom and pop toy stores Nationwide. In my lifetime.
Onward.
Big box stores are still physical stores, though. They pay local taxes and employ local people. Far better than Amazon.
Amazon killed every book store in America. Amazon is the worse
Not feeling argumentative enough for this tonight.
But just one step before the WWW. Big boxes were doomed w/o Amazon. We’re in a period of transition
Free market.
Rather than grab an Uber? Give me a break. When I was in Amsterdam we took a cab from the airport because it was right there. We took an Uber back to the airport when we left for half the price.
I feel bad for the people who will lose their jobs, I feel bad seeing a name go away that brought me so much joy in my youth. However, something better came along, and Toys R Us didn't find a good enough answer for it. Unfortunately that's how this stuff works.
This is the thing- you have two paths: Sustain your existence by innovating for tomorrow's customer, or simply accept that someone else will replace your existence by innovating for tomorrow's customer. Either way, it's your choice, and the people that lose jobs to 'evil' big business still have to own their decision to remain at the businesses built to serve yesterday's customer.
I understand the personal feelings associated with it, but the very logical framework used to justify blame and anger towards the big businesses, could have been used to justify blame and anger towards whatever businesses the mom & pops outmoded.
Zoom out...it's all the same, and the winners are the one's like Bezos who saw enough of the bigger picture to realize that the Toys R Us's of the world were basically begging to become obsolete the moment someone else figured out a better way.
So...blame Amazon? Or blame the lazy minds leading yesterday's business models?
I blame the latter, even if I'm one of the ones getting paid by said lazy minds- it was my choice to stay too long.
I mean, come on- If it wasn’t Walmart, it would have been some other retailer. If it wasn’t Amazon, it would have been some other massive company. The only common denominator in every ‘they took our jobs’ scenario, is the crusty business model.
Two fitting quotes:
"If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more." -Eric Shinseki
"I do not believe you can do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow." H. Nelson Jackson
I sell shopping centers for a living. Typically, big boxes generate more traffic, which benefits smaller businesses due to increase in customer traffic. Btw, big boxes aren’t dead either
Need more shopping centers like we need another hole in our heads.
They make great condos just like malls will down the line.
Their fate was probably sealed with the Leveraged Buy Out back in 2005 which loaded the company with massive debt that they could never dig out of. We all hold a lot of disdain for Brandon but the guy probably never had a chance; probably should have never taken the gig if his goal was to rebuild his reputation after his debacle at U-M and poor performance at Dominos.
I can see how Toys R Us struggles to compete against Target and Amazon but always thought Babys R Us did pretty good business. My wife and I went there all the time when our kids were born.
Brandon almost killed Domino's. He almost killed the University of Michigan athletic department. Finally, on his third try, he "succeeded." He killed Toys R Us.
I know there were plenty of outside factors, but when everything falls down around an executive everywhere he goes, sometimes you have to hold that executive at least partially responsible for the outcomes.
Toys R Us made a lot of bad decisions over the years. Hiring Dave Brandon just excellerated it’s death, he was a corporate bullet to the head to end the company’s suffering.
People work there...jobs are lost...Screw Dave Brandon and all, but not worth cheering
They're obviously cheering for capitalism.
With the money people save buying their toys from Amazon, they will buy more of other goods or services. People will need to be hired to produce and deliver those goods and services.
People will produce those toys - in China!
All we need is Chinese “manufacturing” and Amazon. No need for our hands to get dirty.
I wonder if the tombstone will say "Ever After?"
Might say "Quit drinking and go to bed."
The only job for him is at the zoo.
Isn't Geoffrey the giraffe with Chris Rock's voice? If yes, I could see that.
Chris Rock was the zebra
Right....you'd think I'd know better given the number of times that movie has been on in the car. My kids! I swear... not me.
A place the Brandon's (sic) could call home.
"If it ain't bankrupt, bankrupt it"
Apparently we all grew up.
I don't wanna.
if I did...
I wouldn’t be a Toys R Us kid :)
Situation is fluid, and rescue deal could still emerge
Well, not totally dead. Just mostly dead.
Dead, not fully dead. FIFY.
With all dead there's only one thing you can do.
Go through his pockets and look for loose change.
The bankrutpcy Court approved a pretty large bonus package for the executives...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/12/07/bankrupt-…
Easy to lol at this, especially around here with Brandon. But this company is dead and has no future, therefore the execs have no future there. They do have options, however, so in order to incentivize them to stay, bonuses are sometimes needed. Everyone walking away would make an even bigger mess of things.
It's worse when the execs drive the business into the ground. Not really true here, they were attempting to revive it.
The most surprising thing to me is that the entire US operations may end up in liquidation. I get that it's a bad situation, but I have to think there is some part of the business that's worth something.
That probably falls more on the advisors and lawyers negotiating the reorganization than it does the executives running the company.
Yea, people like Brandon are greedy assholes, but money isn't everything to them. What is important to them is preceived power, ego, and social standing. For example, Dave Brandon once took a massive paycut to become the Michigan AD. This is the same guy that had the nerve to chop down the nets in the NCAA tourney. I would imagine the fact that Brandon now knows that he failed at his past two positions is more damaging in his mind than loss of money.
Damn, well at least the shelve stockers and cash register operators will receive a hearty parting bonus too, since the poeple ultimately at fault for the company failing got this level of compensation... right?
right after he left.
Fuuuuuuuudge imagine buying quit a bit of that stock at even $5 a share. It's at $223 now. Hopefully Michigan football takes the same upward trend as that after he left. If so, we will have 8 national championships in 10 years
But I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys R Us Kid