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October 28, 2010
The Playboy and His Power Games
The New York Times
by Chip Brown
The Times devotes God-knows-how-many words to a profile of Mikhail Prokhorov without really getting to the root of anything. Here's the opening:
“Pretend you are putting a gun against my back,” said the Russian billionaire. We were standing in a small training room on the third floor of his house outside Moscow. Suddenly he pivoted, and any ideas I had of sprinting off with his wallet went poof. His loaded foot was poised to crush my knee. You had to wonder, Did he really need the full security detail that followed his chauffeured Mercedes around Moscow in a Land Rover?
The key was that your body had to be relaxed, he said. Not rigid. Not tense.
“You have to be soft.”
“You could have broken my leg.”
“Yes,” he said, “but in a very soft manner.”
NoLandGrab: Prokhorov might not be such a bad guy, 'cause while he just pretends, his business partner, Bruce Ratner, put a figurative gun to the head of Brooklynites — and the ESDC gave him the bullets.
Posted by eric at October 28, 2010 10:26 PM