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Comment by troughway | Hacker News Reader

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The more productive conversation isn't around the tone of this particular "outrage piece," but the bombshell it references: The New York Times article about McKinsey's proposal of paying pharmacy companies rebates for OxyContin Overdoses [1]

1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/business/mckinsey-purdue-...

I think the even more productive conversation is centered around how these consulting firms (Deloitte, BCG, Bain, etc etc) have become giant black holes, sucking in massive amounts of hyper talented and competent people.

And then they have them building spreadsheets about how to more “economically” provide a product that was/is literally killing Americans at scale.

It’s part of a larger conversation that’s difficult to have, but I think is largely true: managerial and financial capitalism has been a complete disaster.

> hyper talented and competent people

Talented, but not hyper talented. At my school, consulting was sorta the career you did if you couldn't get a job doing something else (like tech or finance).

Probably highly dependent on which program you attend (assuming you’re talking about MBA programs). For some banking is the “high status” profession, for others it’s consulting, for still others it’s tech.

No, just my Harvard undergrad experience

I went to state school and do consulting at a B4 - you're right on the money, consulting (especially at Big 4 level) isn't sexy. MBB is a league sexier though, but gets beat out by PE and some good spots at the FAANGs

I don't doubt the proposal existed... But can someone explain why this is a good idea even assuming a lack of ethics? Would this really have changed the behavior of pharmacies somehow? Pharmacies don't have any influence over prescriptions, do they?

It’s likely related to McKinsey’s recommendations to Purdue that they attempt to get major pharmacies to “loosen up” on efforts to stop illegal opioid scripts (which had resulted in an 18% reduction in OxyContin units sold by one major chain in particular). Paying kickbacks based on ODs would be a pretty blunt instrument that, I think, would have triggered alarm bells at those pharmacies’ leadership.

Even considering such an idea is enough for it to get in writing or presented is such an egregious lapse of ethics that whomever does it should be fired immediately.

"Sorry we know you're going to lose customers if they die, what if we make up the difference for you so you keep selling our product?"

Because it creates a narrative that makes the reader feel good.

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