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Bad Company
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Bad Company

Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream ― An Exposé of Private Equity’s Devastating Impact on American Lives, Communities, and the Economy

Megan Greenwell
Dey Street, 2025
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Private equity firms have quietly taken over vast swaths of American life — health care, housing, media, and more — while profiting at the public’s expense. Through the gripping, deeply human stories of workers whose lives were derailed by private equity takeovers, journalist Megan Greenwell reveals how a once obscure corner of finance has become a destructive force within America’s economy and politics. Offering a powerful indictment of modern capitalism’s most ruthless architects, Greenwell urges a reckoning with who really holds power in America, and who pays the price.

Summary

Private equity (PE) firms purchase and operate companies for the sole purpose of extracting value from them.

In the 1960s and 1970s, economist Milton Friedman argued that publicly owned businesses should serve only one purpose: to maximize profits for shareholders. According to this view, any activity that doesn’t increase profits — such as providing stable jobs, reducing pollution, or serving the public good — is irrelevant. This philosophy became the intellectual foundation for private equity.

A private equity firm raises money from deep-pocket investors — such as public pension funds, state-owned investment programs, university endowments, and ultra-wealthy individuals — and uses those funds, along with substantial bank loans, to purchase companies. The PE firm then operates these companies for the sole purpose of enriching the firm and its investors. Any benefit to the portfolio company is a side effect. Often, the company suffers — along with its employees and the people it serves. PE firms will even drive a company into bankruptcy if that will benefit the firm and its investors.

Today, PE executives are some of the wealthiest and most influential figures...

About the Author

Megan Greenwell, an award-winning journalist, is a former editor at WIRED, Deadspin, and New York Magazine. Her writing has appeared in major outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, The California Sunday Magazine, and Slate.

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