This was a week of extreme behavior. From embarrassment to enlightenment. We learned that John Thain, ousted by Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis, redecorated his Merrill Lynch office at a cost of more than $1.2 million. People who worked with Thain pre-Merrill tell me that he was not a really extravagant guy. But he was, at times, clueless.
Three people who worked with Thain at the New York Stock MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 30, 2009 8:03 PM ET
"We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer."
-- Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, on the floor of the Senate Friday. McCaskill introduced legislation stipulating that no employee of any company that accepts federal bailout money be allowed to earn more than the President of the United States. Obama's annual salary is $400,000. The bill came a day after Obama MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 30, 2009 7:28 PM ET
"Adversity builds character."
-- Charlotte Sellers, my mother, who died a year ago today, told me this constantly when I was growing up. I try not to use Postcards as a platform to get too personal, but if you'll permit today--to pay a tribute to her--I'd appreciate that. She was 87 and forceful and generous and beautiful until the end. My closest friend.
Marrying my father in 1944, she thought that she MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 29, 2009 5:24 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
MTV's former president, Christina Norman, is joining the most powerful woman in media to launch OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.
Winfrey's CEO appointment, announced Thursday afternoon, caps a talent hunt that's been going on quietly since May 2007 when Discovery Communications (DISCA) CEO David Zaslav pitched Winfrey on the idea of her own cable-TV network. Winfrey liked the idea instantly--"it's about living your best life," she says about OWN. MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 29, 2009 1:28 PM ET
"Most of the money we're investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job creation, generating or saving 3 to 4 million new jobs. And the vast majority of these jobs will be created in the private sector -- because, as these CEOs well know, business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country."
-- President Barack Obama to business leaders, MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 28, 2009 7:14 PM ET
By Greg Spierkel, CEO of Ingram Micro (IM). Based in Santa Ana, California, Ingram Micro is No. 69 on the Fortune 500, with $35 billion in 2007 revenues and 15,000 employees in 34 countries. Spierkel, who stepped up to the CEO position in 2005, is also on the PACCAR (PCAR) board.
I'm frequently asked by students and new associates, "How do you get to be a CEO?" I smile, knowing that MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 28, 2009 2:07 PM ET
"This is fantastic Internet property and it really doesn't deserve everybody trying to pick it apart. This is not a company that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens. That's my Wisconsin coming through."
-- Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz in Tuesday's fourth-quarter earnings call with investors after the market closed.
Bartz's comments reflect the challenge of taking charge at a onetime tech darling that has been weakened by MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 27, 2009 6:56 PM ET
I was with 25 powerful women and one man last evening. We agreed: The worst is yet to come, but if something good comes out of these crises, it might be because we're all questioning our higher calling.
The setting was the Manhattan home of Meredith Whitney, the Oppenheimer bank-industry analyst whose early calls on Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC), among other teetering giants, earned her a Fortune cover MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 27, 2009 2:22 PM ET
In his first annual letter for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates writes that Warren Buffett (BRK.A) recently sent him an excerpt from John Maynard Keynes' essay, "The Great Slump of 1930," which relates to today's crisis:
"This is a nightmare, which will pass away with the morning. For the resources of nature and men's devices are just as fertile and productive as they were. The rate of our MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 26, 2009 5:39 PM ET
There aren't many optimists these days. Bill Gates, thank God, is one.
His assets - actually the assets of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where the bulk of his wealth resides - are down like everybody else's. They declined about 20% last year, he says in his first annual letter for his foundation. Still, Gates notes in the letter released today, he and his wife have decided to increase their MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 26, 2009 2:43 PM ET
For the latest on the most influential women in business, philanthropy, government, and the arts, like us on Facebook. 
In a funny and candid interview, Google VP Marissa Mayer explains how she got to the top. Watch
Xerox CEO Ursula Burns shares how she once accepted a job with Dell but ended up staying with Xerox. Watch
Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
Gina Bianchini
