I received an eARC for this book from NetGalley for an honest review. If you want to understand the finer details of why private equity is so intent on destroying our communities, this will be illuminating. It will also inspire you to action, as you watch a retail employee, doctor, journalist, and tenant fight back, via advocacy toward pension funds and establishing community hospitals. The media landscape, unfortunately seemed like the most dismal story, and the author made the excellent point that even though it is a public good, journalism is often not provided the funding it needs to remain independent and community-centered.

Bad Company examines the destruction left in the wake of private equity through the eyes of four individuals: a floor supervisor at Toys R Us, a rural doctor, a local reporter, and a mother living in public housing. Megan Greenwell alternates between these individual stories and telling the broader story of private equity in the industries they have slowly decimated in exchange for quarterly profits.

Bad Company is a well constructed examination of the destructive power of private equity in various industries. The four personal narratives are a great throughline of the trickle down effects of vultures stripping industries for their most profitable parts until they ruin what made the industry successful in the first place. People on the ground are hurt in exchange for a select few raking in profits. But Greenwell does a good job of showing how people can try to overcome the destruction of their industries to create new models of business. An effective book to try to create human connections in the catastrophe private equity has created, and while the book is not positive about broader reform, it shows that not all hope is lost if we work together.

Thank you to Dey Street Books and NetGalley for a copy of Bad Company in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this book was so good!! Informative, compelling, and enraging all at the same time. I would recommend for anyone looking to learn more about how private equity causes harm in so many different industries.

A thoroughly depressing account of the ways private equity firms are affecting everyday people in America. Greenwell looked at four ordinary people and examined the ways their livelihoods and situations were changed as well as how they have fought back. An important book, especially as the rights of citizens continue to be sold off to the highest bidder.

Journalist Megan Greenwell became interested in private equity—investment firms that buy out existing businesses with backing from institutional investors like pension funds and hefty loans—as editor-in-chief of Deadspin. She left the celebrated sports outlet after conflicts with its private equity owners. Here, she explores the industry through the eyes of four subjects, one each affected by private equity buyouts in retail, health care, housing, and the media, which turned their climbs along the middle-class ladder into struggles. Her rapport with her subjects and skillful storytelling humanize what could be a dry subject. She makes a convincing case that private equity’s pattern of loading businesses with costs and debt, neglecting the interests of employees and community members, and often failing to modernize or even maintain existing operations, can be deeply harmful. Even companies that could use the kind of turnaround expertise private equity firms often claim to possess—Greenwell’s examples include a rural hospital, a newspaper chain, and Toys“R”Us—are instead treated as cash cows, ensuring investment firms at least break even while the businesses fizzle. And with private equity billionaires donating to both political parties and prominent nonprofits, Greenwell offers little reason to believe much will change any time soon..

Bad Company follows four people in different industries (retail, medical, housing, and news media) before, during, and the aftermath of private equity. Greenwell does a great job laying the topic of private equity out in a beginner friendly way. Overall, I really enjoyed it!

This book is rage inducing and so good. Really well researched and presented clearly. Private Equity is confusing and I basically knew nothing going in, and Greenwell breaks it down really well. This book is really about the four people's stories more than anything and won't give your the nitty gritty of PE, but if you're newer to the topic and want to understand the impact, this is your book. The stories are compelling (thought I wished for slightly more variety in outcome of her subjects). Short. Clear. Effective.

Bad Company is a searing, essential read that lays bare the quiet devastation wrought by private equity across America. Megan Greenwell’s reporting is vivid and deeply human, grounding abstract economic forces in the real lives of workers whose worlds were upended by corporate greed. Like Evicted, this book doesn’t just inform—it outrages, indicts, and demands attention. In an era where billionaires reshape policy while communities crumble, Bad Company feels urgently relevant. I couldn’t put it down—and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

A must read for all. Even if it may not directly affect you at the moment, "private equity is everybody's problem now." Greenwell makes understanding what private equity does accessible by following how it has affected four different people across four different industries: real estate, healthcare, newspapers, and retail. The evils of private equity truly know no bounds and this book will make you mad, but will leave you better informed so that maybe we can do something about it.

Thank you to Dey Street Books for the eARC! Bad Company published on June 10!

This book did a great job at making me hate private equity - I liked the format of keeping individual's stories at the heart of the book and using that to branch off into the history of private equity.

Does a good job of not only showing the harm private equity does without any regard for its impact on people and the economy, but also how various sectors of the economy have changed over time and how much of our current landscape has been shaped by the never-ending lust for profit at all times.

In Bad Company, Megan Greenwell pulls back the curtain on the destructive influence of private equity firms, whose sole mission—to generate maximum profit for investors—often comes at immense human cost. With sharp reporting and deep empathy, Greenwell explores how this opaque, powerful industry has reshaped American life in ways most of us aren't aware of until it’s too late.

From retail chains gutted for parts, to nursing homes where patient care declines as profits rise, to newsrooms stripped of staff and mission, Greenwell brings the consequences of financial chicanery down to the ground level—where ordinary workers and communities are left to pick up the pieces. The sections on housing and health care are particularly chilling, showing how private equity firms insert themselves into essential services, extract wealth, and then leave ruin behind.

What makes this book stand out is its focus on people—not just policies or profit margins. Greenwell never loses sight of the lives destroyed, dignity eroded, and communities disrupted when decisions are made purely in service of capital.

While some readers may wish for more policy prescriptions or structural analysis, Bad Company succeeds as a necessary, accessible, and often enraging look at an industry that thrives in the shadows. It’s a wake-up call to anyone who’s ever asked, “Why does everything feel like it’s getting worse?”

Thank you to NetGalley and Dey Street Books for providing me with a copy of the book. It was published on June 10, 2025.

Bad Company by Megan Greenwell is an exploration of private equity and the impact it is having on the lives of the American people. The fact that Megan worked for a company bought by private equity adds even more oomph to the story. The focus on the people impacted (over just detailing the financial mechanism by which it happened) is what I think will help this story have more reach than other books on the topic.

This book was a fantastic look at the way private equity companies are hurting Americans. I appreciated the format following four different people impacted by private equity buyouts, as it really added a personal element to make this story even more impactful.

This book is phenomenal. It is a non-fiction book that brings you a lot of information about private equity firms while never being boring or dry.

The book follows the journeys of four people and how private equity firms affected their lives-- a journalist, a housing activist, a rural doctor, and a retail worker. You become invested in the lives of those discussed, and you really can see the impact private equity firms have had on their lives. These companies are affecting all aspects of everyone's lives, but many aren't even aware of the issues.

Whether you are an expert on private equity or just hearing about them for the first time, this book has something to offer for you. If you read just one non-fiction book this year, consider this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and Dey Street Books for the eARC!

I loved this book! It's fantastically written, meticulously researched, and so important for our times. As someone who works for a company that was purchased a couple of years ago by a private equity group, a lot of what Greenwell writes rings true for my experience as well.
I loved being able to follow 4 different cases and see how private equity ruins more than one type of company. Greenwell did a great job of choosing the four cases: retail, medicine, media, and residential living.
I also really appreciated the way Greenwell talked about what prevents our country from dealing with (or reining in) these private equity firms (thanks, Congress!).

This book was extremely well-researched and deeply readable. It could have been a bland repetition of facts about the industry, but the author humanizes various aspects of human impacts of the private equity industry. It also flows quite well as she moves between different individuals, giving her time to provide the audience with background on several industries without the copy becoming weighed down.

Great book! Great structure to show how private equity works on a macro and micro level. Tremendous writing showed the human side of those affected by private equity.

Bad Company is a fantastic book that shows just how far reaching the private equity crisis is. It follows four people before, during, and after private equity takeovers.

Before reading this book, I would have considered myself relatively well informed about private equity. I knew about the big retailers and media companies getting bought up and wrung dry before going under, but I had no idea how far reaching and insidious the problem really is.

I really enjoyed section 3. Hearing how each of the four individuals profiled is working to push back against private equity in their community concluded the book on a much more hopeful note than I had anticipated going in.

A critical book at a critical juncture. Bad Company examines the infiltration of private equity into pretty much any industry you can imagine, but also gives readers anecdotal hope via stories of real people and organizations that have fought back, and sometimes won, against this economic hydra.