How Wrong I Was: Daniel Loeb’s Pursuit of Sotheby’s IS the Hero’s Quest Recently, while having coffee with my friend Sylvia, who teaches college courses on Literature, we began discussing the differences between real life events and literary tropes. I firmly stated that literature only represents what we want life to be, a fantasy. Literature has no grounding in daily life. In return, she threw a gauntlet: “I dare you take the subject of any news article, and I can illustrate how it fits into a classical literary narrative arc. Any. Subject.” Now, I’m a bit competitive (as well as a touch arrogant,) so I pulled out my tablet and started flipping through my bookmarked news pages and came across this: Daniel Loeb's Sotheby's campaign. Challenge accepted. Chewing on her hair for a second, my friend said: “Really? This is sophomore stuff. It’s the sixth part of the Journey of the Hero: Daniel Loeb has accepted the risk of the quest and is facing tests, collecting allies like Mick McGuire of Marcato Capital, Harry Wilson, Olivier Reza and enemies like William Ruprecht.” Now I majored in Economics so have no frame of reference for this. I like facts, neat little charts, and bullet points: not narratives. I always feel that news exists separate from ‘stories.’ My friend politely disagrees. “Biologically, we look for patterns,” she says. “People look for the story in news items. We connect dots and fill in blanks. Otherwise, news would simply exist as graphs and raw data.” When I challenged her on making this all up – she pulled up a list from her phone: Hero's Quest The ordinary world Call to adventure Refusing the call Meeting the mentor Crossing the first threshold Tests allies and enemies Approach to the inmost cave Ordeal Reward
The road back The resurrection Return with elixir Okay, I acquiesce the structure is a real thing. How does any of this apply? “Listen closely, Mitch. You’re about to get a college-level lecture for free.” So Sotheby’s is the “ordinary world” static and unchanged, a classic icon of the New York world and the greater art scene. Daniel Loeb sees the disparity between Sotheby’s and their major competitor’s (Christy’s) market share as a call to the adventure. She admitted without knowing details of Loeb’s personal life and professional practice determining Loeb’s “refusal to the call’ and ‘mentoring’ proves difficult if not impossible. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen,” says Sylvia. “We just didn’t witness it. It wasn’t public.” However, his signature “crossing of the first threshold’ rests in his Letter to Sotheby’s. In it Loeb illustrates the path of his quest, the ordeal he faces, the reward he is seeking, and resulting “road back”, “resurrection” and “the returning with elixir.” “It all fits the pattern, Mitch.” The conversation added a level to Loeb’s quest to save Sotheby’s. The conflict became personalized; ‘anthropomorphized’ Sylvia called it. Daniel Loeb’s role as change agent (activist investor, if you will) follows the model of a hero’s journey. So, I’m a big enough guy to admit I’m wrong (on the rare occasions I am.) I settled the bet; I paid for coffee. But as we were leaving I asked Sylvia, ‘what happens now? How does this end?” Sylvia told me, “The most interesting difference between narratives and actual events rises with the realization the patterns are not definitive and can overlap one another.” I think she owes me a coffee.