deck no. 13 Flashcards
frayed
być na włosku (o nerwach); postrzępiony; stargany
If someone, some day, finds a function for blockchain, expect Accenture to be there to advise bosses on its use—and to soothe frayed nerves.
strona, aspekt
facet
During an interview Thursday with Fox Business Network, he said unpredictable events are a facet of modern business and noted that Apple’s operations team has previously navigated earthquakes, tsunamis and other challenges.
old-timer
weteran
A disproportionate share of CEOs are old-timers from a handful of blue chips, not all of which have had a stellar run (think of GE, several of whose past executives went on to Boeing).
świadczyć, wskazywać
to testify
The placements testify to the brokering brawn of executivesearch firms.
running joke
wielokrotnie powtarzany dowcip,
It had become a running joke on Wall Street that whenever Jamie Dimon was asked, after beating cancer in 2014, how much longer he intended to stay at the helm of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), he always replied: “another five years”.
gnać
to hurtle
Last year, it was hurtling ahead with a plan to make the iPhone 11 in India, a manufacturing first for a company that had long relied on China to assemble its newest models.
to fall by the wayside
nie dawać sobie rady
European banks, which stormed into America in the 1990s, have fallen by the wayside in part owing to problems in sclerotic domestic markets where rock-bottom interest rates have crimped margins.
to play down
umniejszać coś, bagatelizować coś
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook continues to play down the need to significantly change Apple’s supply chain.
wstrząsać kimś, wypełniać kogoś (np. strachem)
to ripple through somebody
The Saudi move is also expected to ripple through the US junk bond market, where shale producers have borrowed billions of dollars in recent years.
to bet the farm
postawić, zaryzykować wszystko, co się ma (cały swój majątek)
Ever since he ascended to the top position at VW’s Wolfsburg headquarters in 2018, Mr Diess has been insistent: despite concerns about the lack of consumer demand, inadequate charging infrastructure and bottlenecks in battery supply chains, the company’s decision to bet the farm on electric vehicles is more than a high-risk gamble.
plush
luksusowy, komfortowy
Since the most desirable hires typically already hold plush posts, and are constantly wooed by rival recruiters, headhunters must fight hard for their attention.
problem (Business English)
blow-up
One blow-up in the post-crisis years made it appear that even Mr Dimon was incapable of running a bank as large as JPM had become. In 2012 it lost $6bn as a result of outsized derivatives trades by an employee known as the “London Whale”.
zgarnąć coś, rzucać się na coś (np. produkt w sklepie)
to snap up something
While they were struggling to stay afloat, JPM was in a position to snap up Bear Stearns and WaMu for a song.
sloppiness
niedbałość, niechlujność
Just as quickly, the business earned a reputation for sloppiness. Recruiters were “golf-course, back-slapping sales guys”, as one veteran admits.
placówka
outpost
One recruiter’s ex-boss recalls opening 30 outposts that decade, from Singapore to Sydney.
lumbering
ospały, ociężały
At the time Citigroup was considered the greatest American bank. It was twice as valuable as its newly merged rival; it had the biggest pile of assets of any bank globally; and it had earned an average return on equity (ROE) of 19.2% over the previous five years. JPM had registered a paltry 8.9%. It was seen as a lumbering laggard.
w młody wieku
at the tender age of …
Mr Dimon’s impatience to run Citigroup, the institution they built together, at the tender age of 42, ran up against Mr Weill’s unwillingness to relinquish the top job.
to link arms
wziąć kogoś pod rękę; połączyć siły
The coronavirus crisis is a dark cloud, but here is its silver lining: Americans are finding ways to link arms and handle it themselves.
the going gets tough
zaczyna być ciężko
They offer a shoulder to cry on when the going gets tough.
weteran
old-timer
A disproportionate share of CEOs are old-timers from a handful of blue chips, not all of which have had a stellar run (think of GE, several of whose past executives went on to Boeing).
zostawić kogoś w tyle
to leave somebody in the dust
Over the past 15 years The Economist has described an array of global banks—Citigroup, Bank of America, HSBC, Deutsche Bank—that we thought could become serious rivals to JPM. It has left them all in the dust.
przekreślać coś, pokrzyżować coś (np. plany)
to put paid to something
As we explain this week, Mr Dimon has put paid to these doubters.
They worked tirelessly for years to build their business, but a sudden economic downturn put paid to their dreams.
arystokratyczny
blue-blooded
The straight-talking son of second-generation Greek immigrants who settled in New York, he has brought a down-to-earth (some would say brusque) authenticity to what was once one of America’s most buttoned-up, blue-blooded financial firms.
world-beater
mistrz świata (osoba najlepsza w jakiejś dziedzinie)
JPM has since become a world-beater on a wide range of metrics.
nienależyty; nienadający się; nieprzydatny
inadequate
Ever since he ascended to the top position at VW’s Wolfsburg headquarters in 2018, Mr Diess has been insistent: despite concerns about the lack of consumer demand, inadequate charging infrastructure and bottlenecks in battery supply chains, the company’s decision to bet the farm on electric vehicles is more than a high-risk gamble.
luksusowy, komfortowy
plush
Since the most desirable hires typically already hold plush posts, and are constantly wooed by rival recruiters, headhunters must fight hard for their attention.
outpost
placówka
One recruiter’s ex-boss recalls opening 30 outposts that decade, from Singapore to Sydney.
high-rise
wieżowiec
On china’s border with Kazakhstan, a new Silk Road city has sprung up with such speed that Google Earth has scarcely begun to record the high-rises that now float on a winter mist above the steppe.
drudgery
harówka
Its tools take the drudgery out of their work, in order to make them more productive.
bezdyskusyjnie najwybitniejszy, najlepszy lub najbardziej ceniony w swojej dziedzinie
pre-eminent
In the 1990s he was the wunderkind sidekick to the imperial Sandy Weill, then boss of Citigroup, the world’s pre-eminent bank.
for a song
za bezcen, za półdarmo
While they were struggling to stay afloat, JPM was in a position to snap up Bear Stearns and WaMu for a song.
nijaki
nondescript
From far enough away most houses look the same. At cruising altitude over Dallas, Los Angeles and even much of New York, most dwellings are nondescript: beige- or grey-roofed, laid out in neat patterns.
knob
gałka, pokrętło
My perspective sitting here today is that if there are changes, you’re talking about adjusting some knobs, not some sort of wholesale fundamental change.
zdenerwować; wytrącić z równowagi
to unnerve
The entanglement unnerved some Apple executives, who encouraged company leaders to look outside China to minimize the risks of labor unrest or a change in Beijing’s position on Apple.
ukryć; przebrać
to disguise
A former European bank CEO says banks “went to enormous lengths to disguise” the economics of their US businesses.
przekazywać (władzę, obowiązki)
to devolve
Scions of business dynasties in places like India increasingly want to devolve control of subsidiaries to professional managers, says Dinesh Mirchandani of Boyden, one of the oldest search firms.
to pin down
sprecyzować coś
Like Matthieu, the search industry is secretive, and numbers are hard to pin down.
mądrala
clever clogs
It is tricky to build a culture—and foster a sense of purpose that clever clogs now demand of their employers—that appeals to both buttoned-down database managers in Bangalore and tattooed creative directors in Spitalfields.
pomocniczy
ancillary
The pressure to plan ahead has led to the growth of all sorts of other ancillary services too, from leadership development to board-effectiveness assessment.
to hold somebody to something
domagać się od kogoś dotrzymania czegoś (np. obietnicy, przysięgi)
Apple says it holds suppliers to the strictest standards in the industry.
pre-eminent
wybitny, dominujący
In the 1990s he was the wunderkind sidekick to the imperial Sandy Weill, then boss of Citigroup, the world’s pre-eminent bank.
ważny
consequential
Ms Sweet’s final predicament is perhaps the most consequential.
wytrzymywać (np. próbę czasu), być odpornym (na coś)
to withstand
Bosses should be physically fit to withstand the brutal workload, comfortable dealing with the media and, increasingly, woke.
workload
obciążenie pracą; ilość pracy
Bosses should be physically fit to withstand the brutal workload, comfortable dealing with the media and, increasingly, woke.
działający; dobrze funkcjonować, pracować na pełnych obrotach
up and running
The best we can do is sell a very small portion of the steel to southern regions or some priority construction sites that are up and running.
to have a shot at something
mieć szansę
An American firm’s investment banking head singles out Barclays as the only one that has a shot but says it is as much of an American firm as they are a European one thanks to the Lehman acquisition.
to dissect
dokładnie analizować
Synthesis, an advisory firm inspired by the recruitment of elite units in the Israeli army, even has shrinks dissect candidates’ answers to seemingly innocuous questions about their life stories.
placement
znalezienie pracy
The placements testify to the brokering brawn of executivesearch firms.
zastrzegać (coś w umowie); określać (prawa, regulacje)
to stipulate
The agreement stipulates that neither Elliott nor Silver Lake will interfere with the platform’s policies or rules.
when the chips are down
kiedy przyjdzie co do czego; w trudnej sytuacji (very difficult or dangerous situation, especially one that makes you understand the true value of people or things)
Indeed, while there will always be investors who wind up looking smart for investing in, say, an Amazon.com, when the chips were down, in most cases the stocks of unprofitable companies eventually head in one direction: lower.
popychać
to propel
His long-term aim is to convince capital markets to treat VW more like Tesla than an old-world car manufacturer, propelling it to a market value of €200bn, more than double its current €75 bn valuation.
fallout
skutek; skutki
The fallout is still being felt five years later, with VW on Friday agreeing to an €830m settlement in a lawsuit brought by more than 400,000 affected drivers in Germany.
pojawiać się jak grzyby po deszczu
to spring up
On china’s border with Kazakhstan, a new Silk Road city has sprung up with such speed that Google Earth has scarcely begun to record the high-rises that now float on a winter mist above the steppe.
przestarzały
antiquated
This antiquated model is on the verge of being disrupted.
to testify
świadczyć, wskazywać
The placements testify to the brokering brawn of executivesearch firms.
disproportionate
nieproporcjonalny, niewspółmierny
A disproportionate share of CEOs are old-timers from a handful of blue chips, not all of which have had a stellar run (think of GE, several of whose past executives went on to Boeing).
tu: poddawać się (czyjejś woli), ustępować (komuś)
to defer
But at present Redfin also uses agents to conduct home inspections, and defers to them if their assessment differs from that of the algorithm.
sprecyzować coś
to pin down
Like Matthieu, the search industry is secretive, and numbers are hard to pin down.
mistrz świata (osoba najlepsza w jakiejś dziedzinie)
world-beater
JPM has since become a world-beater on a wide range of metrics.
all but
prawie, niemalże
Making matters worse, shale firms were suffering even before the latest sell-off, as investors questioned their capacity for sustained profits. Capital markets have all but closed to the industry.
run-up to something
okres przed czymś
European banks expanded their balance sheets to 60 times their common equity in the run-up to the crisis, versus 35 times leverage at their US peers.
nie dawać sobie rady
to fall by the wayside
European banks, which stormed into America in the 1990s, have fallen by the wayside in part owing to problems in sclerotic domestic markets where rock-bottom interest rates have crimped margins.
wkraczać, angażować się
to step in
The bank said afterwards that he was “recovering well”, and that two trusted lieutenants, Gordon Smith and Daniel Pinto, had stepped in to run the bank until his return.
za bezcen, za półdarmo
for a song
While they were struggling to stay afloat, JPM was in a position to snap up Bear Stearns and WaMu for a song.
blue-blooded
arystokratyczny
The straight-talking son of second-generation Greek immigrants who settled in New York, he has brought a down-to-earth (some would say brusque) authenticity to what was once one of America’s most buttoned-up, blue-blooded financial firms.
poklepywanie po plecach
back-slapping
Just as quickly, the business earned a reputation for sloppiness. Recruiters were “golf-course, back-slapping sales guys”, as one veteran admits.
insistent
uparty
Ever since he ascended to the top position at VW’s Wolfsburg headquarters in 2018, Mr Diess has been insistent: despite concerns about the lack of consumer demand, inadequate charging infrastructure and bottlenecks in battery supply chains, the company’s decision to bet the farm on electric vehicles is more than a high-risk gamble.
scarcely
niewiele; prawie wcale
On china’s border with Kazakhstan, a new Silk Road city has sprung up with such speed that Google Earth has scarcely begun to record the high-rises that now float on a winter mist above the steppe.
zmierzyć się z czymś, uporać się z czymś
to get to grips with something
Who is a boss to trust when consultancies themselves are only slowly getting to grips with the meaning of technological upheaval?
nitrogen
azot
That culture was in part what led to Dieselgate, the 2015 scandal in which VW admitted to having sold 11m cars worldwide fitted with devices that under-reported emissions of nitrogen oxide.
to take on something
zmagać się z czymś, stawić czoła czemuś
While some of these unprofitable companies may be perceived as disrupters of future business and embraced by certain investors, most of their shareholders probably don’t fully realize the set of risks they are taking on.
antiquated
przestarzały
This antiquated model is on the verge of being disrupted.
powściągliwy
downbeat
Still, most outsiders are downbeat about the Europeans’ prospects, arguing that technology has made scale more important than ever in investment banking, while negative interest rates in Europe leave the continent’s banks with a weaker financial base.
gałka, pokrętło
knob
My perspective sitting here today is that if there are changes, you’re talking about adjusting some knobs, not some sort of wholesale fundamental change.
hard-scrabble
jałowy, nieurodzajny, biedny
What once would have been flattered to be called a hard-scrabble border town is now home to 200,000 people, giant outdoor video screens extolling the glories of a new Silk Road, and restaurants serving sashimi and European wine.
bang-up
bardzo dobry, świetny
If her firm keeps doing such a bang-up job in convincing clients that technology is central to their success, more of them might opt to build and run a bigger slice of it in-house rather than splurging on outside advice.
położenie; miejsce
locus
The locus of concern is in the world’s ocean of corporate debt, worth $74trn.
deft
zwinny (o ruchach); dobry (w czymś)
In some key businesses Mr Dimon has deftly taken advantage of the evolution of the financial system since the crisis.
dwelling
mieszkanie; dom
From far enough away most houses look the same. At cruising altitude over Dallas, Los Angeles and even much of New York, most dwellings are nondescript: beige- or grey-roofed, laid out in neat patterns.
pilny, naglący, nie cierpiący zwłoki
pressing
A survey by AESC, which represents 16,000 search professionals, ranks attracting diverse talent as the seventh-most-pressing issue for their firms in 2019, behind such things as attracting digital talent or creating a culture of innovation.
to fork over
płacić; sięgać do kieszeni
Homeowners traded property worth $1.5trn in America in 2019, forking over some $75bn in commission to agents, or around 0.4% of GDP.
lightning rod
piorunochron
The scandal alsomade the company a lightning rod for criticism of the industry from environmental groups and European law makers.
clever clogs
mądrala
It is tricky to build a culture—and foster a sense of purpose that clever clogs now demand of their employers—that appeals to both buttoned-down database managers in Bangalore and tattooed creative directors in Spitalfields.
to stipulate
zastrzegać (coś w umowie); określać (prawa, regulacje)
The agreement stipulates that neither Elliott nor Silver Lake will interfere with the platform’s policies or rules.
zarabiać na siebie
to earn one’s keep
Recruiters can be crucial in helping build consensus when, as is so often the case, boards are split. It is as diplomats that the best headhunters earn their keep.
to harbour doubts
mieć wątpliwości
Yet most large companies will continue to use search firms—even if they do not fully buy the science, or harbour other doubts.
mieć źródło w czymś; wynikać z czegoś
to arise from something
These mainly arise from technology—the prospect that big tech firms might challenge the big banks, or that new payments firms win huge customer bases independently of the banks, as they already have in China, or that new digital currencies take the world by storm.
sleuth
tajny agent, detektyw
These corporate sleuths aim to tease out how bosses do deals, how they behave under pressure and whether they have ever crossed any ethical lines.
szturmem
by storm
These mainly arise from technology—the prospect that big tech firms might challenge the big banks, or that new payments firms win huge customer bases independently of the banks, as they already have in China, or that new digital currencies take the world by storm.
comfortably
tu: z łatwością
In 2006 its investment bank won a fat share of the advisory fees on Wall Street but its trading business was comfortably outclassed by rivals.
to run the numbers
robić obliczenia; sprawdzić jakieś dane
We ran the numbers, and the picture is a bleak one, despite some high-profile successes.
wybulić
to cough up
Mortgage-related fines have cost it tens of billions of dollars—the most expensive being a $13bn bill for misleading investors over toxic securitised loans. JPM also had to cough up $2.6bn to settle allegations that it turned a blind eye to Bernie Madoff’s giant Ponzi scheme.
bronić, dowieść czegoś; oczyszczać z zarzutów
to vindicate
In summary, Mr Dimon declared that size, scale and staying power matter. This vision has been vindicated.
obwodnica; capitalized: the political and social world of Washington, D.C., viewed especially as insular and exclusive
beltway
Americans find answers beyond beltway.
menial
nie wymagający kwalifikacji, nudny
Its 500,000 or so employees perform menial functions (running clients’ overseas call centres or making their sales software connect properly to accounting) and more glamorous ones (uploading businesses to the cloud, designing their apps, building ai chatbots, even imagining their next ad campaign).
bifurcation
rozwidlenie, rozgałęzienie
You have this bifurcation, says Mr Moelis. If you want money and capital and size, go to JPMorgan, Citi etc. If you want scale, European banks are not there. If you want nimble and smart you’re going to go to us boutiques. The middle is the killing field.
dokładnie analizować
to dissect
Synthesis, an advisory firm inspired by the recruitment of elite units in the Israeli army, even has shrinks dissect candidates’ answers to seemingly innocuous questions about their life stories.
to cough up
wybulić
Mortgage-related fines have cost it tens of billions of dollars—the most expensive being a $13bn bill for misleading investors over toxic securitised loans. JPM also had to cough up $2.6bn to settle allegations that it turned a blind eye to Bernie Madoff’s giant Ponzi scheme.
kiedy przyjdzie co do czego; w trudnej sytuacji (very difficult or dangerous situation, especially one that makes you understand the true value of people or things)
when the chips are down
Indeed, while there will always be investors who wind up looking smart for investing in, say, an Amazon.com, when the chips were down, in most cases the stocks of unprofitable companies eventually head in one direction: lower.
stopniowo zmniejszać ilość czegoś
to nibble away at something
Other innovations are nibbling away at the many other tasks that estate agents do.
to overreach oneself
przeliczyć się z siłami
Yet some of the bankers who were involved in the expansion believe that it was a lack of ambition—not overreaching — that has left the European banks in such a dilemma now.
patchy
nierówny (np. o wynikach)
But even in the period before the financial crisis, which European banks regard as their heyday in the US, their record was patchy.
notice
zawiadomienie, ogłoszenie, wypowiedzenie
The government also has helped funnel workers to Foxconn, posting notices online.
by storm
szturmem
These mainly arise from technology—the prospect that big tech firms might challenge the big banks, or that new payments firms win huge customer bases independently of the banks, as they already have in China, or that new digital currencies take the world by storm.
wycisnąć z kogoś ostatnie poty; stanowić poważną konkurencję dla kogoś
to give somebody a run for their money
It was a sign of his steely determination to reach the top that, with a beady eye on Mr Weill, he said the merger would “give Citi a run for its money”.
liaise with somebody
współpracować z kimś
Jay Powell, the Fed chairman, worked hard to liaise with G7 central banks before his rate cut last week.
oszczędność
frugality
The value he had created at Bank One was mostly generated by frugality, not revenue growth.
consequential
ważny
Ms Sweet’s final predicament is perhaps the most consequential.
przeliczyć się z siłami
to overreach oneself
Yet some of the bankers who were involved in the expansion believe that it was a lack of ambition—not overreaching — that has left the European banks in such a dilemma now.
wystarczać, zadowalać
to suffice
Once the actual headhunting begins, recruiters hire armies of researchers to comb through databases containing millions of profiles; gone are the days when a cabinet full of CVs and organograms of superstar firms like IBM would suffice.
przymusowy zakaz opuszczania np. (budynków w przypadku zagrożenia dla ludzi)
lockdown
On Wall Street the credit spreads of risky bonds have blown out, while in Italy, a bank-dominated economy that is already in lockdown, the share prices of the two biggest lenders, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit, have dropped in the past month by 28% and 40% respectively.
the odds are stacked against somebody
ktoś jest bez szans
Despite Mr Diess’s confidence, the odds of achieving this goal appear to be stacked against the German carmaker.
to disguise
ukryć; przebrać
A former European bank CEO says banks “went to enormous lengths to disguise” the economics of their US businesses.
to grind to a halt
zatrzymać się;
In a week in which production of Audi’s electric e-tron model ground to a halt because of battery shortages, Mr Diess added he was confident the company had identified enough lithium-ion cell supply to see it through to the end of 2023, by which point it hopes to have produced 1m emission-free vehicles.
eminent
wyjątkowy; wybitny
Each of our stakeholders is essential. Those words were part of a declaration signed last August by 181 bosses of big American companies belonging to the Business Roundtable, an eminent lobby group.
on hand
pod ręką
Refocusing your business around a new app? Accenture will be on hand to write the code—but can also supply designers to make it look pretty.
to leave somebody in the dust
zostawić kogoś w tyle
Over the past 15 years The Economist has described an array of global banks—Citigroup, Bank of America, HSBC, Deutsche Bank—that we thought could become serious rivals to JPM. It has left them all in the dust.
nieproporcjonalny, niewspółmierny
disproportionate
A disproportionate share of CEOs are old-timers from a handful of blue chips, not all of which have had a stellar run (think of GE, several of whose past executives went on to Boeing).
flab
tłuszczyk
This vision has been vindicated. First, during the pre-crisis years, he focused on ridding the bank of flab.
prawie, niemalże
all but
Making matters worse, shale firms were suffering even before the latest sell-off, as investors questioned their capacity for sustained profits. Capital markets have all but closed to the industry.
