seeing this after watching s3 finale there are layers like a croissant in here kendall was right. when pressed as to why he wasn’t interested/confident in the gojo-waystar merger, mattson said they needed data (vaulter), and that waystar’s stuff is stuck in the past, exactly kendall’s pitch here. with that in mind, this scene is an incredible piece of character work/foreshadowing
They got the data by gutting it. It was a shell of a company. Maybe it could have become something more, but no one on hand, Roy or Vaulter was capable of achieving that.
Nah, Vaulter was a bad deal. It was an online news brand, but it had no real tech, only data. Its real-world equivalent is G/O media which owns brands of outlets that are (or were) popular before being gutted exactly like this to just be seo web ad machines. They don't really complement something like Disney/FoxNews. Gojo is more akin to something like RU-vid or Hulu. It's a massive streaming platform that has the tech/servers to take something like FoxNews online.
Nope. Take a closer look at what happened with CNN's acquisition of Beme, Casey Neistat's startup. They made a bad decision by hiring buying a bad product because they were banking on the social media platform and the accompanying tech personnel. CNN was heavily relying on a tech miracle and launched CNN Plus, which ultimately crashed and burned. Legacy companies often struggle significantly when trying to transition into the tech industry. That's why successful news corporations are usually bought out by tech giants, such as WSJ being bought by Bezos (Amazon) and Times magazine being acquired by Benioff (Salesforce).
Idk if it's Jeremy Strong's acting or the makeup department, or both, but the deep, sunken look in Kendall's eyes is so perfect for his character at this point in the story. He just looks so strung-out and like he's hiding a secret that causes him non-stop pain. Masterclass.
The dynamic between Logan Roy and his 3 children are amazing... - Kendall seems like a tool but is honestly the best choice to take over the Company but his own inner demons keep holding him back. - Roman is a constant smart-ass who puts up this front like he doesn't care but it bothers him when no one takes him seriously/ - Shiv I don't think gives a damn about running Waystar Royco or taking over for Logan. She's bothered by being left out and hates not even being considered as Logan's successor. A job she doesn't even really want. She just wants her Dad to want her to have it. And my favorite part is how Logan knows all of this and strings them along. If you ever notice that's why whenever he's talking to one of his kids and says something that'll bother them, or tells them to do something that he knows they'll have a problem with. The camera will always points to Logan so we can see his reaction to one of his children doing whatever he tells them too. Amazing writing and Directing...
Logan is THE master manipulator and in many ways, he's grooming each of them to be one in their own ways while furthering his own agenda. It's such a dastardly cluster F of a family business.
what i love about the children's character is they're all so different and could actually complement each other. Kendall is smart but hasn't fully come into his own yet, he's very good infront of a camera, press conferences, he understands business but his insecurity makes him take the wrong decision. roman on the other hand, he has killer instincts when it comes to people, an enviornment, and he can smell bullshit from a mile away. He's a flawed character, but he seems the type of guy to fully accept the way he is. That's why he doesn't have a false preception of who he is, whereas Kendall subconsciously trying to be someone he isn't. Shiv is more like the middle i guess? shes in politics, so shes always been able to grasp the corporate dynamic inside the firm even if shes never been in. She's always been able to look at a bigger picture, and since shes in politics, what the optics would look like from outsiders and how the firm would look like to the american people
@@betaririzqikaer2451 Well it's a matter of which direction you want. Shiv wants it both ways. She wants the benefits of being an heiress such as financial leeway and independence, but also the benefits of being a stateswoman such as financial security and insulation. Not an easy thing to achieve when both life paths demand your full attention. She would have to seriously toughen up, and she may have what it takes, but may is not good enough. Kendall wants to bring the company into financial maturity like Shiv would do, but he would sacrifice any potential to make large moves in the future to do so. Kendall needs to grow a set in order to land those big contracts that the company chases, and he is in the process of doing so. Roman wants to make those big, splashy deals and would take any sustainability out of the equation in order to get his rocks off. He would be the easiest to get drunk off the power the company would afford him. He would be, as Kendall says, a Walking Fucking Lawsuit.
Nah it isn't just that. It's more like a test since Logan already had his opinion and Kendall just didn't have enough to change it and Roman didn't have as much as Kendall but he did have the right answer. As the same opinion as Logan.. which was the correct btw since Vaulter was fckg them. Logan could have send 5 multiple years experienced people there to check everything thru and thru, flip the place up and down over an week and someone read thru every email send from Vaulter but he doesn't need to and sending his boys is just to teach them and compete. Oh and it was also part of the is Kendall a killer since Vaulter was his project so can he see thru those rose tinted glasses that it needs to be axed.
Yeah honestly I felt bad for the vaulter employees but Lawrence was such a piece of shit to Kendall and so arrogant that I didn't really feel bad for him tbh.
Lawrence was a fool. It's not that he couldn't see what was going on around him, it's that he didn't think he had to. Logan Roy was basically Cthulhu to Lawrence.
That’s why one of my favourite lines is after Kendall starts the gutting process & Lawrence’s only retort is to mock him ‘that you (gutted Vaulter) cos your dad told you to’, and Kendall replies, ‘Find another chicken coop C*nt’, in response to Lawrence’s celebration mock of how he will as a new board member on the purchase of Waystar and on hearing of Logan’s stroke kill the company once he’s inside the ‘coop’.
I feel like here is where Logan sees himself split into two people. Roman has his intuition, and ability to sniff out people at their personal level. Kendall on the other hand can see the numbers. There’s a time for each set of abilities, in this case it was Roman’s time
I love this analysis. You can see Kendall flounder when he talks about company culture, and this is where Roman, who ironically can barely bring himself to sat values, rips him apart
Yea I think It's similar to the Lannisters in GOT where there's a piece of Tywin in each of his children: Jaime's military skills, Cersei's cunning ambition, and Tyrion's brainpower, yet both Tywin and Logan are constantly disappointed that their children aren't the full Lannister/Roy package. However, instead of letting them grow up, the patriarchs pit their children against each other to further their own ends as a mere exercise of power and control over the family.
@@solomonhayes9642 naa Kendal’s business instinct were quite wrong especially if they unionise. Waystar doesn’t even have a content problem that Kendall is trying to solve. Botb lack the very same thing - Digital infrastructure
I wish there were more conversations like this in the show. Where they discuss the actual business dealings and the merits of their products and stuff. We so rarely get to see what the Roys actually DO.
I can see your point, but as someone who doesn’t have a business mind AT ALL, I would find those convos hella confusing tbh 🤣 much prefer the scenes exploring the dynamics and interpersonal relationships between the characters
@@JamesCarter1998 I think that's why I want to watch the show too but I feel in order to really get a kick out of it, I would have to know and understand what it is that they're talking about and grasp somewhat of the business side of things.
that is kind of the point of the show. the roys actually DO very little. they spend their time backstabbing for influence and money and "living the life", but almost all the actual managerial stuff gets done by gerri, karl, frank and others on the lower rungs
In Logan’s mind, he’s been “preparing” Kendall to be ruthless his whole life, since his children were young and he had Kendall lock Roman in a cage to establish who was the “stronger” son.
You can see the bittersweetness in his eyes when he said " I'll take care of it dad". He was opposed but he also loved the idea to stick it to Lawrence
someone described kendalls strongest trait as his ruthless obedience to logan, and i have to agree. kendall is way more powerful when he fulfills the tasks that logan knows he is capable of, than trying to take logan down.
All time Logan episode. First he first gets Roman by taking his side over Kendall, then he gets Shiv to jump ship with Gil by telling her she’s taking over the company, and in the end he gets Kendall just by giving him a pat on the back (which pulls roman in even further) for gutting vaulter himself. Logan gets all three kids fully bought it and makes them willing to do anything for him
Everyone who says Roman is the most human should remember the time he pushed for Logan to layoff all those Vaulter employees just to get one over on Kendall
Love that moment where Roman is struggling to find a word other than "values", because "values" doesn't quite capture "make as much money as possible no matter how many lives we ruin and no matter how much damage we cause", but can't find one and spits out "values" after the hesitation.
So many people in the comments were tricked by Roman's speach, that really proves that when you speak full of confidence you can convince anyone of anything lol
@@lukasmadrid1945 it was good intuition though, not sure why Kendall wanted to keep Vaulter so badly though given the amount of times Lawrence disrespected him and didnt have his back.
@@shahriachowdhury9552 i always thought of that as the point. Vaulter is a good company and even w/ the ceo being a dickwad kendall still wanted to keep it. Obviously none of that is said its just my interpretation
Except he was 100% right and Vaulter is a bunch of useless latte-drinking twats. The data Lawrence provided for Kendall was bullshit. They were unprofitable. But seems like Ken's big words about "the future" tricked YOU.
@@shahriachowdhury9552 So much of this is personal battles between them. The big picture is a company as big as Waystar can buy and sell whatever they like and it can make very little difference to them in the end, Vaulter was just one of the many companies they've acquired. But it was Kendall's choice, he wanted to fight for it and Roman wanted to fight against it because of that. There's probably valid business reasons as to why it should bet kept or gutted but in the end it doesn't matter because Logan just wants to use these situations to test his kids and they fall right into it.
I love this scene because Roman really is right. In fact he's right way more often than he's wrong, he's just immature and tends to buckle under pressure. Kendall on the other hand is cold and calculating, capable of being a killer when he needs to be, he just has a bad habit of swinging at the wrong pitches. Combined, they make a powerful team. Roman identifies opportunities with his intuition and surprisingly good people skills, then Kendall formulates the plan and puts it into action with ruthless efficiency. I can easily see Kendall and Roman ending the series as CEO and COO respectively.
I get the sense that Logan's assessment of Kendall as an executive is basically right. He's got a lot of book learning and might make a good professor of economics at a business school. But when it comes down to it, he just doesn't have the intuition for interpersonal relations that Logan has, nor for quickly seeing the relevant facts and ignoring the rest. Take Roman, here- I was very impressed by the move of taking some employees out and getting them drunk. While Roman might not have had the guts (but who knows?) to actually kill Vaulter like Kendall did, I think his assessment was largely on point.
This is one of the best illustrations of “power resides where people think it resides”. Logan knowingly went with the wrong decision, proving the actual outcome didn’t matter as much as showing strength and commitment to ideology. If he could get Kendall to do the wrong thing with conviction, he could make him into a killer.
@@lancelot4718 yup. But the point of his arc on the season was that he isn't as evil as Logan and that's why he couldn't twist the knife on him and become the " killer"
Kendall had the right instincts. He was proven right throughout the show however he was never given a fair shot with the siblings or his dad looking over his shoulder.
Roman took this position because he knew it was Kendall's baby, not because he thought it was beneficial to the company. I love this show, but there isn't one scene where I don't want to punch Roman in his fucking face.
I have to say even Logan complains Roman does not know the price of milk, but Roman has a much better sense about business. Kendall loves bad deals, he does not know when to stop and cut the loss.
It’s not business skills, Roman has people skills. He was able to tell these people were lying to him and keeping secrets. He took them out for drinks knowing that when people are drunk they tell you things they wouldn’t tell you when they are sober. He found out they were unionizing and that was the end of it for Gerri and Logan.
When I look at Kendall, I see a man without a country. Not hard enough to make it inside Waystar, and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough to make it outside.
if you are tied to a large conglomerate where one person is calling the shots - you better be watching the market on your back like an accountant - otherwise, you will be blindsided. knowledge is power, everything else is fluff.
The crazy part is that all three of them might honestly believe Vaulter is salvageable, but Roman pushes to kill it just to supplant Kendall, and Logan agrees just to test Kendall. Hundreds of people lose their jobs over petty family bickering.
Why? He just wanted the disagree with Kendall(and he admits later in the ep that he is not even sure it was right decision), and Logan just wanted to test Kendall because Vaulter was his baby and he knew it would be hard for him to kill it
