The Four

to vote for who will represent them on the board. Most shareholders
we met with were fed up and felt the Times leadership had
mismanaged the company. Everything indicated the company was ripe
for change.
The following week, the Times’ CEO, Janet Robinson, and director
Bill Kennard asked to meet with Phil, without me, to see if we could
come to a settlement. This meant they knew they were going to lose at
the shareholder meeting. I felt Phil should demand all four seats we
had nominated directors for. But Phil said we should demonstrate
some good faith and settle for two. This was a mistake: we needed
several voices to break through the cacophony of the board’s
thoughtful comments, while not holding Arthur or Janet accountable
for any real leadership.
The Times Company agreed immediately, with one condition: I
wouldn’t be one of the two (see above: visceral dislike). Phil recognized
I had skin in the game and would not be co-opted by quarterly dinners
with Nick Kristoff and Thomas Friedman, along with $200,000 in
board fees (stipend and options). Instead, I would continue to push for
change. So, Phil demanded I get one of the seats, and they acquiesced.
At the annual meeting in April 2008, Jim Kohlberg and I were
elected to the board in an unexceptional shareholder meeting. After
the meeting, Arthur asked to speak to me alone. He took me into a
room and asked who the photographer was I had brought with me. I
hadn’t brought anybody with me. Not once, but two more times, over
the next hour, he pulled me into a room and demanded that “this
time” I tell him who the photographer was. “Again, Arthur,” I replied
with increasing irritation, “I have no fucking idea. Don’t ask me
again.” I don’t know if Arthur sees dead people or was so stressed
about having an uninvited guest shoved into his boardroom that he
was hallucinating. There was no photographer.
And so, our relationship began with a petty sideshow reflecting our
mutual distrust and disdain. He viewed me as an unwashed mongrel,
in over his head, who had no license to be on the board of the Gray
Lady. I viewed him as a silly rich kid with poor business judgment.
Over the next couple years, we would prove each other right.
Arthur lived and breathed the Times. His DNA was gray and
wrapped in a blue plastic bag. It was hard even to imagine Arthur