In his famous book The Big Short, Michael Lewis writes that “when, in 1981, [John Gutfreund] turned Salomon Brothers from a private partnership into Wall Street’s first public corporation . . . from that moment, the Wall Street firm became a black box”. Though Lewis was writing about banking, he was referring to a problem that existed not just at Salomon, or even just within the financial sector, but in nearly all American corporations, even public ones. In all too many areas, with the exception of basic financial information, corporations remain black boxes.
麥可•路易斯(Michael Lewis)在其著名著作《大空頭》(The Big Short)中寫道：「1981年，約翰•古特弗羅因德(John Gutfreund)將所羅門兄弟(Salomon Brothers)從一傢俬人合夥公司變成第一家上市的華爾街公司……從那一刻起，這家華爾街公司就變成了一個黑盒子。」儘管李維士寫的是銀行業，但他指出的問題不僅僅存在於所羅門兄弟，甚至不僅僅存在於金融業，而是存在於幾乎所有的美國公司，甚至是上市公司。除了基本的財務資訊之外，在太多方面公司仍然是黑盒子。