Newmark's Door

Malone’s Law No. 1: "Whenever a company builds a new corporate headquarters, short the stock."

This first one dates to the early Eighties when I was writing for newspapers.   It was provoked by the construction of Hewlett-Packard’s headquarters in Palo Alto.  What I noticed at the time, and which was confirmed over and over again in the years to come, was that whenever a company finally reaches the point that it needs a fancy new headquarters, it has usually lost track of the lean and mean style that made it a success in the first place.  And if that doesn’t do it, then the months company executives spend pouring over the design of the new facility, jockeying for the best offices and lobbying for an executive dining room, inevitably distracts them from the real job of making money.