Althought the title mentions Pete Buttigieg, who was actually a "McKinsey alum," the article does actually talk about him. It looks way more into the dubious dealings of this massive consulting agency that's been around for almost a century. I do have to disagree with Aschoff on a lot here. She first attempts to criticize McKinsey for changing with different business trends to keep making money. That's kind of what business is about, and to criticize a business for actually changing when new knowledge comes around sounds somehow foolish. I really think she should have started instead with McKinsey's question business practices, which are way more serious.

She says that "public sector consulting is a $9 billion industry in North America." Again, this is a little misleading. Sure McKinsey has a ton of terrible relationships with the government, like recommending ICE to spend less on "food, medical care, and supervision for detainees," but this number overlooks a ton of good companies who are pushing for renewable technologies, ecosystem preservation, non-profits for a wide-array of programs, etc. It's implied that the $9 billion dollars is waste on corporate consulting like McKinsey. Maybe that's not what Aschoff wanted to say, but it's kind of what I interpreted.

I think the parts about McKinsey's hedge fund, MIO Partners, and its dealings with Purdue Pharma are definitely the most interesting parts (as well as it's relationship with foreign governments). There definitely needs to be more business regulation here.

But the ending with Pete Buttigieg is kind of a low-blow. I didn't want Buttigieg to be the President either, but middle-class people just take jobs like this to get ahead. Sure, we should scrutinize what he did for morally dubious things, but I would wager he had no idea of the majority of dealing of McKinsey and just accepted a good job offer, like nearly anybody would do. Titling the whole article off of him is a little dirty, I think.

The Atlantic apparently got an in-depth interview with him about what he worked on if you are interested: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/12/pete-buttigieg-mckinsey/603421/.