Forever 21在9月提交破产申请时，这家快时尚连锁企业在文件中描述了自己的历史，读起来有时像是为一本回忆录或网飞(Netflix)的特别节目做宣传。
Photos of the company’s husband and wife founders, Do Won and Jin Sook Chang, and their two daughters appeared under headings like “Forever Striving: A Story of Grit, Determination, and Passion.” The filing emphasized the improbable success of the Changs, who immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1981 and built a multibillion-dollar business from scratch.
公司创始人张东文和妻子张金淑夫妇，以及他们两个女儿的照片出现在类似《永远在奋斗：一个关于勇气、决心和激情的故事》(Forever Striving: A Story of Grit, Determination, and Passion)这样的标题下。申请文件强调了张氏家族所取得的不可思议的成功，他们于1981年从韩国移民到美国，白手起家建立了一家价值数十亿美元的企业。
There were references to the daughters’ undergraduate degrees from “Ivy League universities” — both are top executives at the company — and summer breaks spent at Forever 21 stores.
文件提到他们的两个女儿在“常春藤高校”获得本科学位——她们都是公司的高管——暑假都在Forever 21店铺度过。
At its peak, the retailer brought in more than $4 billion in annual sales and employed more than 43,000 people worldwide in hundreds of stores. Now it is leaving 40 countries and closing up to 199, or more than 30%, of its stores in the United States as part of its bankruptcy, and former employees and industry experts are pointing to the Changs’ insular management style as a significant reason for the collapse. They cite disastrous real estate deals and the chain’s bungled merchandising strategy in recent years.
在鼎盛时期，这家零售商的年销售额超过40亿美元，在全球数百家门店雇佣逾4.3万名员工。如今，作为破产的一部分，它将退出40个国家，关闭在美国的199家门店，占总数的30%以上;前雇员和行业专家指出，张氏家族的封闭管理风格是其破产的一个重要原因。他们列举了近年来灾难性的房地产交易和该连锁企业搞砸的营销策略。
“On the founder side, this hubris thing is pretty common, but it’s particularly deadly if you’ve been successful for a long time,” said Erik Gordon, a management expert at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. “They didn’t have a board of directors to give them a reality check, they didn’t have equity analysts to give them a reality check.”
“对于创始人来说，这种傲慢很常见，但如果你已经成功了很长时间，这种傲慢就尤其致命，”密歇根大学罗斯商学院(University of Michigan Ross School of Business)的管理学专家埃里克·戈登(Erik Gordon)说。“他们没有董事会给他们进行实情核查，他们没有股票分析师给他们进行实情核查。”
He added: “You can live in your self-created bubble for a lot longer, but then the bubble pops.”
他补充道：“你可以在自己创造的泡沫中生活更长的时间，但之后泡沫会破灭。”
