COVER STORY:

YOU RAISED THEM, NOW MANAGE THEM, by Nadira A. Hira, page 38

Nearly every businessperson over 30 has done it: sat in his office after a staff meeting and — reflecting upon the 25-year-old colleague with two tattoos, a piercing, no watch, and a shameless propensity for chatting up the boss — wondered, What is with that guy?! We all know the type. He is new, he is annoying and he and his female counterparts are invading corporate offices across America. Generation Y: Its members are different in many respects, from their upbringing to their politics. But it might be their effect on the workplace that makes them truly noteworthy. And as the baby-boomers begin to retire, triggering a ballyhooed worker shortage, businesses are realizing that they may have no choice but to accommodate these curious Gen Y creatures. Especially because if they don't, the creatures will simply go home to their parents, who in all likelihood will welcome them back. This crop of twentysomethings really is different. FORTUNE's field guide to Generation Y.

BOOK EXCERPT: CRAZY BOSSES, by Stanley Bing, page 49

Generation Y is here! Gen Y is sleek. More fun. And they'll be coming up the pipe into the bigtime power and money at just exactly the moment the massive horde of boomers finally is permitted to hit the beach for the duration. Bad news for the Gen X elders. To climb over the prior generation, however, Y-sters are going to need to know how to master the crazy people who occupy the top branches of the corporate tree. The good news for them is that Stanley Bing has just reformulated, repopulated, and reconstituted his 1992 classic, Crazy Bosses (Collins), stuffing the new version with fresh examples of pathology and a host of diagnostic tools and strategies. This excerpt is a look at the five aspects of the crazy boss — his (or her) five brains, so to speak.

MEET THE NEW AT&T, by Stephanie N. Mehta, page 58

If you ran one of the biggest companies in the world and you had a chance to change your name and reinvent your brand, you'd probably go with something that had a little personality. Something a tad offbeat. Something that appealed to the savvy youth market. Like Apple, maybe, or Orange. Or you could go with AT&T. That was the choice made by Ed Whitacre, chairman and CEO of the company formerly known as SBC Communications. It's been an interesting ride at the company: new lines of business, new competition, and soon a new CEO. So what's with the "new" 125-year-old name?
PLUS: AT&T's new chief is a little different from his predecessor. He's approachable and pop-culture-savvy, and actually has a PC in his office. FORTUNE takes a look at Randall Stephenson.

RICH KINDER'S BIGGER SLICE, by Adam Lashinsky, page 64

The $15.2 billion Kinder Morgan buyout is a model for the times. Top managers and financiers get rich, but conflicts abound. The offer, announced in late May 2006 by Rich Kinder and Goldman Sachs, took the company's directors — at least the ones the CEO hadn't personally invited to join the deal — completely by surprise. What was really stunning was what happened next: Kinder's deal turned out to be the first float in a parade of increasingly ambitious gambits. In months since, corporate America has seen a wave of multibillion-dollar buyouts—from HCA to Equity Office to TXU. But it's not just the war chests that are bigger this time; the potential conflicts are of interest too.

MICROSOFT VS. THE FREE WORLD, by Roger Parloff, page 76

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the FORTUNE 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers. But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. Microsoft claims that free software like Linux violates 235 of its patents. And as a manufacture company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google, Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties from distributors and users. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.

CHINA'S NEW CULTURAL REVOLUTION, by Sheridan Prasso, page 90

Seven years ago China had just agreed to join the World Trade Organization and was eager to embrace globalization in its mad rush to modernize. Western stuff was hot. Chinese stuff was not. But there's a not-so-subtle shift happening. After more than a decade of embracing all things Western, Chinese are turning to things Chinese. Today, mainland companies are no longer churning out only shoddy goods. They are producing products that in the eyes of consumers rival or are better than those in the West. Though sinofication presents a challenge most Western companies have yet to come to terms with, Chinese companies are increasingly benefiting from nationalist feeling, gaining market share in sectors such as passenger cars and consumer electronics that were previously the exclusive province of foreign companies. The challenge for Western companies is to figure out how to stay in the game and offer products that appeal to China's growing sense of Chineseness — to its national pride and strength of tradition.

MARVEL GOES HOLLYWOOD, by Devin Leonard, page 104

Spider-Man, as any comic book fan knows, isn't the most powerful superhero. But Marvel's wisecracking web-slinger is Hollywood's most bankable superhero. You'd think David Maisel, recently named chairman of Marvel Studios, the publisher's Hollywood division, would be eager to talk about Spider-Man's success, but he's not. According to a Lehman Brother's analysis, Marvel's combined take was only $62 million of the $3 billion Sony franchise. Fox's Fantastic Four, released in 2005, has grossed $624 million. Marvel only made $13 million. The three X-Men movies, also produced by Fox, grossed a combined $2 billion. But Marvel's total share was $26 million. Now it's up to Maisel to make Marvel's second string as lucrative for his company as the first team has been for Sony and Fox. To do that Marvel has begun making its own movies. This is the story of Marvel's misadventures in Hollywood, a tale of three executives, and its hopes to finally get it right.

DEPARTMENTS

FIRST Shaking the Bancroft Family Tree Court documents in a dusty New Mexico town shed light on Rupert Murdoch's fight for Dow Jones. Amazon's Seven-Year Itch Revisiting our May 2000 forecast of what the Seattle giant might look like some years out—say in 2007. The Battle Over Two and 20 VCs are sniping at private-equity firms about Senate proposals to tax their profits as ordinary income. COLUMNS Questions for… Netflix CEO Reed Hastings answers your questions about the company's Internet strategy, his role on Microsoft's board, and more. Value Driven Why the bosses (almost) always win in close shareholder votes. INVESTING The Well Isn't Dry Yet Oil is up, but many energy stocks haven't kept pace. A look at undervalued companies in a still-hot industry. Lessons From The Masters Stocks may make you more money, but bonds let you sleep better. BUSINESS LIFE How Green Is My Hybrid We put the hotly anticipated Lexus luxury hybrid to the test. Also, we rate eight fuel-efficient cars.

 

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CONTACT:

Katy Reitz
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Katy_Reitz@timeinc.com

 

Erin Clinton
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erin_clinton@timeinc.com

 

 

 

 

 

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