Margin Call (2011) - Senior Partners Emergency Meeting [HD 1080p] (Re-Upload / Audio Fixed)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites the scene as a model of clear, decisive communication and of leaders acting fast to survive, and recommends the film as the best take on 2008.
What it is
A clip from the 2011 film Margin Call in which senior partners hold an emergency meeting and decide to sell off toxic assets immediately. It is set at the start of the 2008 financial crisis.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2018 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec abvdasker · 2019-09 · on “WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO”
Oh man, what a fantastic film. It's a been a while since I saw Margin Call, but I still feel like it's one of the films that best captured the 2008 financial crisis. Jeremy Irons' portrayal of a Goldman CEO-like character — I think he's the one who delivers the line you quoted — remains probably the most convincing portrayal of that type of person I can remember. The wonderful board room scene: [this video]
Strong rec unfocussed_mike · 2022-04 · on “Be Less Technical”
Right. You can't hide the detail with a wave of the hand, you can definitely overcommunicate detail that is unnecessary, but the art of it is finding a way to explain the bit that matters in a way that makes it clear to the users that you're eliding detail that isn't important, without misleading them. There is a very fine example of this in cinema -- the senior partners meeting in Margin Call, where Zachary Quinto's character has to explain why the firm needs to sell all of a particular asset class: [this video] One day I will use the line Jeremy Irons uses in this clip. I don't want to spoil it by quoting it.
Recommends chiph · 2018-04 · on “Ask HN: Turning 40 soon – seeking personal and professional life advice”
Start of the Great Recession. S&P 500 went from 1400 to 800 in six months. I lost 40% of my retirement investment and it was ... distressing to say the least. Movie recommendations: Margin Call [this video] The Big Short [LINK]
Recommends photochemsyn · 2022-10 · on “Charles Mitchell and the 1929 stock crash”
Yes indeed. Probably the best cinematic take on that is in the movie Margin Call - here's the senior partners meeting: [this video] Essentially, the dissolution of Glass-Steagall allowed investment banks to create complex financial packages, each one constructed out of dozens if not hundreds of home mortgages. Each individual mortgage was graded but the packages were built out of a mixture of low-grade and high-grade mortgages. Since trading (gambling) with these packages was very lucrative, the investment banks worked with shady mortgage brokers to increase the number of packages by pushing adjustable-rate mortgages on gullible people who probably were not that familiar with compound interest ca
Recommends silvestrov · 2024-12 · on “Pat Gelsinger was wrong for Intel”
The movie "Margin Call" has an excellent scene where this happends: [this video] It is clear how it is setup that "to survive we must act now, not in a week, and we must do this expensive sell-off" The whole movie is very well worth watching: [LINK]
Cites nicbou · 2020-08 · on “How to Write in Plain English”
There is a place and a time for culture. Your electric bill is not one of them. I disagree with your last paragraph. Speaking clearly and decisively is a good thing, and people will usually appreciate it. People become famous for speaking clearly. I remember some general made the rounds for his plain, no-nonsense COVID-19 address. I wish I could find it again. I can only think of this scene right now. [this video]
Cites NegativeK · 2023-02 · on “Revenue is easy, profit is harder”
I'm reminded of the scene in Margin Call[1]: "There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat." [1] [this video]
Cites onetimeuse92304 · 2024-03 · on “Dead Air on the Incident Call”
Simple concept, the author is overthinking it. I have been "problem manager" for many large outages. I use the term "problem manager" to remind people that an outage is something you manage just like any other kind of project, except on much shorter time scales. Everything you learned about project management applies to dealing with outages. > Sometimes an investigator needs to go silent for a while to chase down a hunch, or collect some data, or research some question. As long as such a silence is negotiated in advance, with a specific time to reconvene, it can serve a crucial purpose. I call this functional dead air. Hey, if you are the kind of project manager that talks and does not liste