“Mr Icahn is a fierce critic of the typical corporate boss, which, with a wit all too rare among Wall Street’s titans, he has turned into a theory of the “moronisation of American management.” The typical chief executive, he says, is “the guy you knew in college, the fraternity president—not too bright, back-slapping, but a survivor, politically astute, a nice guy”. To be a chief executive, you need to know how not to tread on anyone’s toes on the way up. You eventually become the number two, who “has got to be a little worse than the number one to survive”. When the number two becomes chief executive, he promotes someone a little worse than him as his second-in-command. “It is the survival of the unfittest,” reckons Mr Icahn. “Eventually we are all going to be run by morons.””

I think I found my new hero.