Ryan Crimmins
EEE-2083
September 14, 2022
In the film, “Other People’s Money” tells the story of Lawrence Garfield taking over the New England Wire & Cable Company. Garfield is known as the president of Garfield Industries and is named “Larry The Liquidator.” This film is considered entrepreneurial because Garfield owns his own investment company and then he invested in the New England Wire & Cable Company. He eventually finds out that his investments are making more than the actual company itself. So Garfield goes to the chairman of the Wire and Cable Company to propose an idea to buy the company and resell it to get way more money. This is where Garfield’s entrepreneurial brain comes into play and becomes a “liquidator” to make millions of the company to buying stocks and shares. He buys all the stocks and shares by using the phrase, “Other People’s Money” through investments. Jorgy is the owner of the company and the son of the founder who doesn't want to sell the company because he values it too much, so he hires his step daughter who is a lawyer to help save the company. During this, Garfield falls in love with the daughter of the company he is trying to buy, Kate Sullivan. Kate try’s to not allow Lawrence to buy her father’s company since she is the lawyer. They argue back and forth trying to agree on a deal, but never does. Lawrence is very entrepreneurial and tries to buy the company to make room for innovation while also trying to win Kate over. In the very last scene of the film Lawrence finds out from Kate that the company became profitable due to the airbags, so it was a success.
At first nobody believed Lawrence could do what he did even though through the whole process Lawrence kept an entrepreneurial mind in investing in the company. This film showed that society and entrepreneurship go hand in hand together, which can impact each other. At first the company was not successful because society didn't value it. In order for entrepreneurship and society to be a positive aspect toward one another is for both to be valued. In this instance society affected entrepreneurship by having to adapt to the innovation. The only reason Garfield paid attention to the business is because he saw it going downhill and wanted to help innovate it.
This film related to the many topics that we have covered in class like creative destruction and opportunity cost. Creative destruction is the creation of a new innovation replacing an old invention. In the movie nobody found value in the Wire and Cable company, so they innovated it and replaced it with the production of airbags, which is considered creative destruction. Another concept that was covered in the film was opportunity cost when Lawrence gave many opportunities to buy his share of the company, but he chooses to buy the share that has better value than the other. These two concepts are used in the film and are very important in the business industry. Valuing money is important and that is what Lawrence does, he makes it known that there is not anything else he values more than money. Other People's Money also showed that there is always a "bad guy" but it doesn't have to end that way. This film did a great job of showing this side of being an entrepreneur and the other side of dealing with a business.