這些撕破臉的離婚案告訴我們：別跟愛人合伙做生意
Polina Marinova
2018-03-05
美國加州洛杉磯，西岸的零售店"Tory by TRB"開張時，托里·伯奇和克里斯·伯奇夫婦。Photograph by Chris Weeks — WireImage/Getty Images
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如果你打算和親密愛人一起創業，可能要三思。感情好的時候，人們會叫你們夫婦企業界的“神雕俠侶”，感情一旦破裂就麻煩了。 還記得交友軟件Tinder聯合創始人惠特尼·沃爾夫和賈斯汀·馬廷離婚時的鬧劇嗎？永利度假村創始人夫婦史蒂夫·維恩和伊蓮·維恩的公開對罵也讓人記憶猶新吧？ 這樣的例子并不鮮見。以下列舉了三對高調企業家伴侶，最后都勞燕分飛。 Tinder創始人惠特尼·沃爾夫和賈斯汀·馬廷 怒火毀掉了曾攜手創立Tinder的情侶。2014年兩人分手可不僅是一場丑陋的戲劇性撕逼，最后還演變成性騷擾訴訟。2013年沃爾夫和馬廷開始約會，分手后兩人的關系急轉直下。沃爾夫稱，曾收到馬廷有性別歧視色彩的短信和電郵。她起訴Tinder及其母公司Match.com和 IAC/InterActiveCorp，稱遭到性騷擾，被迫退出Tinder的創業團隊。這場官司據稱以馬廷賠償100萬美元了結。此后馬廷從Tinder辭職，沃爾夫創立了女性用戶交友應用，名叫Bumble。 永利度假村創始人史蒂夫·維恩和伊蓮·維恩 《財富》雜志前副總編輯帕蒂·塞勒斯曾在2015年4月的一篇報道中評價：“企業界從未出現過永利度假村一樣水火不容的大戰。”伊蓮和史蒂夫是賭博公司永利度假村的創始人。伊蓮和史蒂夫兩度結婚又兩度離婚。伊蓮是公司第三大股東。2015年，為了保住在永利度假村的董事席位，伊蓮將與前夫的斗爭鬧得世人皆知。她說：“我有權待在董事會，監督今后發展情況。畢竟我是聯合創始人。”2015年4月24日，伊蓮未能獲得投資者支持，沒能保住永利度假村的董事席位。 運動時尚品牌Tory Burch創始人克里斯·伯奇和托里·伯奇 Tory Burch創始人的故事告訴我們，前任有可能另開一家公司跟你競爭來報復。億萬富翁投資者克里斯·伯奇和設計師托里·伯奇于1996年結婚，2004年共同開了第一家Tory Burch零售店。2006年，夫婦關系惡化（還對簿公堂），向法院提請離婚。這還不算完。克里斯出人意料地新開了一家時尚零售連鎖品牌C. Wonder。該品牌和Tory Burch的經營理念非常相似。主要報道女性生活方式的美國網站PureWow曾有一篇文章分析得很到位：“克里斯·伯奇開C. Wonder的靈感可能來自前妻托里·伯奇速寫簿上撕掉的一頁紙。”五年后，C. Wonder經營未見起色，2015年1月關閉了所有門店。（財富中文網） 譯者：Pessy 審校：夏林 ? |
You might want to think twice before you start a business with a romantic partner. The entrepreneur “power couple” title has a nice ring to it until things turn sour. Remember the messy, dramatic break-up of Tinder co-founders Whitney Wolfe and Justin Mateen? How about the very public battle between Steve and Elaine Wynn? Examples like this aren’t hard to find. Here are three high-profile entrepreneurial ventures that didn’t end happily ever after. Tinder’s Whitney Wolfe and Justin Mateen This Tinder match went up in flames. The 2014 breakup of co-founders Whitney Wolfe and Justin Mateen wasn’t just ugly and dramatic. It also ended with a sexual harassment lawsuit. Wolfe and Mateen dated in 2013, but after the relationship ended, things went downhill quickly. Wolfe said she received sexist text messages and emails from Mateen. Wolfe sued Tinder and its parent companies, Match.com and IAC/InterActiveCorp, claiming that she was sexually harassed and forced out of the startup. The lawsuit was settled for a reported $1 million, Mateen resigned from the company and Wolfe started her own female-friendly dating app called “Bumble.” Wynn Resorts’ Steve and Elaine Wynn As Fortune’s Pattie Sellers put it in an April 2015 article, “The corporate world has never seen a war quite like the one raging right now at Wynn Resorts .” Elaine and Steve Wynn co-founded casino-operator, Wynn Resorts. Elaine, twice-married to and twice-divorced from Steve, is the company’s third-largest shareholder. In 2015, Elaine went on a very public personal battle against her ex-husband to retain her board seat at Wynn Resorts. “I have earned the right to stay on the board and oversee the next phase of dynamic growth,” she said. “I cofounded that company.” On April 24, 2015, Elaine failed to woo investors and lost the battle to remain a director of the company she co-founded. Tory Burch’s Chris and Tory Burch Here’s the tale of what happens when your ex seeks revenge by starting a company to compete directly with yours. Billionaire investor Chris and designer Tory Burch married in 1996, and opened the first Tory Burch retail store in 2004. By 2006, things turned sour (and litigious), and the Burches filed for divorce. But that wasn’t the end. In a surprising move, Chris opened C. Wonder – a preppy clothing retail chain. And yes, it was very similar to the Tory Burch concept. A quote from a PureWow article sums it up: “The inspiration for Chris Burch’s C. Wonder could have been a page torn out of ex-wife Tory’s sketchpad.” After five years, C. Wonder failed to take off and shut all of its storesin January 2015. |
