In the 1987 film "Wall Street", some aspects of entrepreneurship that I found interesting is ethics, greed, and the different sides of the business world. In the film, Bud Fox is an unsuccessful stock broker who persuades his wall street icon Gordon Gekko into being one of Bud's clients by spilling information about an airline company (Bluestar Airlines) that he heard in a conversation with his dad, who works for the company. Gekko buys mass shares of the airliner and he gives Bud some more money to buy stocks with, but Bud loses money on them when he does it honestly. Gekko almost gets rid of Bud, but Bud agrees to spy on a man named Mr. Wildman to get information on what he is up to. Bud gets info, and this propels him into a lucrative position with Gekko, as he does unethical and illegal things to make both of them money. Bud convinces Gekko to buy Bluestar, hoping to expand the company, but soon learns that Gekko plans to tear down the company and sell its assets, leaving many including Bud's dad without a job. Bud hates that he is involved in this, as he wanted to focus more on entrepreneurship and helping society, so he goes through with a plan that ends up with Gekko not getting to takeover the company and he takes a huge loss on all the stock he bought in it. Bud leaked info to do this, and Gekko gets Bud arrested for it. Later, Bud (while wearing a wire for the police) talks with Gekko and gets info for the police, helping to take the greedy man down. The reason that this is entrepreneurial is because Gekko rose to the top, as well as Bud, by doing unethical things to make as much money as possible while affecting companies that otherwise are good and create value to society, unlike these wall street men who just cheat and destroy at any cost to make money.
The reason that this is interesting in the film is because it kind of is the other side of the business world: these people are not entrepreneurs, they do not come up with ideas and create value by producing and making products for society, but by using other people's money to profit for themselves as much as possible, no matter the cost. This movie was very similar to the other movie watched for class, "Other People's Money". Both of these movies are interesting because it doesn't really show any direct entrepreneurship but they do show the opposite side of it, the side that sort of goes against it. Just like how the wire company from "Other People's Money" was at a threat of being destroyed, so was the airliner company in this film. Both Gekko and Lawrence (from OPM) focused on greed specifically, which as we have talked about in class, is not something that an entrepreneur focuses on. It is extremely hard to make money as a business the ethical way as an entrepreneur, when there are men like Gekko and Lawrence.
These aspects affect society by destroying businesses and distorting the economy. Entrepreneurship is about creating value and improving society, not about making money at all costs for yourself. These wall street men that play unfairly do not do anything to help society or create value, they just threaten to take down good business. Society seems to almost support these aspects, as the romantics of the wall street life are constantly shown and not the destruction, the greed of making as much money as possible. Governments many times do not do anything to the people that cheat like Gekko, and this negatively affects the good entrepreneurs that have to deal with men like this when trying to succeed. The interaction between these aspects of entrepreneurship and society is one where the entrepreneur and true business owners are at a disadvantage to the other, greedy side. Men like Gekko threaten entrepreneurs. Being an ethical entrepreneur is almost like being at a disadvantage, because so many people cheat their way to the top or skip the step of actually being an entrepreneur. In class we have talked about ethics and seeing the difference of what is right and wrong, while pursuing to make profit. This film showed that it is not worth cutting corners to make it to the top.
