The movie Wall Street is the story of a very persistent worker on Wall Street, Bud Fox. Fox starts out stressed and on the line for a client who refuses to pay an account, Fox knows he needs to find a way out of the situation so he decides to visit a very successful man in the stock world in hopes to gain him as a client. Bud shows up to Gordon Gekko's office on his birthday with cigars to impress him to hopefully get a chance to talk to him. Hello was not impressed by Fox, so Fox gave him an insider tip about an airline he got from his dad and Gekko later acted on the information making Fox Gekkos broker. This caused a big loss but Gekko then gave him another chance. Gekko didn’t just want to be Fox's client, he wanted Fox to follow and spy on a very wealthy CEO, Wildman, to find out what he is doing with stocks. Fox figures out what he is planning on buying and tells Gekko, they have everyone buying this stock ruining the Wilmans plan. Wild man then shows up to Gekkos house and they make a deal for the man to get all the stocks back for around 70 million. This deal made Fox a profit of $800,000, and made his career kick off. Fox started acting on insider tips to make Gekko and himself richer and richer. Fox's next plan was to turn the Bluestar around and better it but Gekko wanted to liquidate the company and profit. Fox teams up with Wildman to manipulate stocks so the company would be safe. Fox's plan did work out for him but he got caught participating in insider trading and more than likely has to serve time at the end. Fox's moves were all very entrepreneurial and did make him a very large profit, but what he was doing was not legal so he ended up having to pay for what he did in the end
This movie along with every other movie we have watched in class has shown me that anyone and everyone can be an entrepreneur, legal or not. Fox was extremely intelligent and could have ended up very successful if he didn’t let greed get in the way and start making highly illegal decisions. I also find it crazy that a lot of laws just don’t really apply to the wealthy like they do the average person. Gekko had Fox sign a contract that Gekko had no knowledge of what Fox was doing with his stocks even though he was well aware and also pushed it onto him. I do realize Gekko more than likely would have been in trouble as well after the wire but he is so wealthy and it obviously wasn’t his first time partaking in insider trading, it is also likely that most of his net worth was accumulated illegally as well and he didn’t get “caught” for so long. This movie shows you a lot of things that happen behind the scenes of stocks and shares and how wealthy people basically play with everyone’s livelihood just so they can make a couple million bucks and screw so many people over. This movie is a great portrayal of greed and betrayal.
This aspect of entrepreneurship affects society by the choices that are made by brokers and their clients. I am not so sure if I would say Fox was affecting society as much as Gekkos choices were, but Fox had to follow through with what Gekko wanted since Gekko was his client so it would be a team effort between the two. Gekko can decide he wants to make a couple million dollars and buy up an entire company , then leave everyone who worked for that company jobless. Wealthy people can either make or break someone’s life with one decision. Society affects entrepreneurship mainly just by buying and trading because they are the main reason stocks change frequently so I would say that brokers and clients make all their moves and have to heavily consider the choices that are being made by society. I would say the relationship between society and the entrepreneurs in the movie can be either neutral, negative, or good. It just all depends on the choice the client makes, for example Gekko wanting to liquidate an entire company for money he didn’t really need which would harm thousands of people.
