The Revolutionary

The culture he created at Bloomberg LP, which he founded after leaving Salomon Brothers in 1981, was at once democratic and competitive. After a sit-down meeting once went on too long, he had the chairs taken out of the conference room. The next week the meeting went faster. At Bloomberg he banned titles ("I've always thought titles are disruptive at best. They separate, create class distinctions and inhibit communications") and cut down on private offices (to cut down on closed-door plotting and scheming). It is a charming way of doing business; still, Bloomberg's soft touch has its steely side. In the private sector he refused to attend going-away parties for departing employees. "Why should I?" he asked rhetorically in his memoir. "I don't wish them ill, but I can't exactly wish them well either. I wouldn't mean it. We're dependent on one another—and when someone departs, those of us who stay are hurt." Those who remain are taken care of.

But he is far from a universally revered boss; there have been serious questions raised about the treatment of women within the Bloomberg corporate culture. In 1998, in a complaint against Bloomberg and the company filed in federal court in Manhattan, Sekiko Garrison, one of the earliest recruits to Bloomberg's largely female sales force, claimed that Bloomberg insulted and harassed her and other female employees. Garrison's most startling allegation was that when she told Bloomberg she had become pregnant, he told her to "kill it." She said that Bloomberg also expressed dismay that she was the 16th company employee to go on maternity leave. (A Bloomberg LP official called the allegations about discrimination against pregnant women "ridiculous … untrue," and said that the company "really goes above and beyond the norm in providing family benefits, and it's an incredibly family-friendly culture.")

In 2000, Bloomberg tried to walk out of a deposition after being asked about claims that he had pointed to various women in his office with the explanation, "I'd do her." "It was resolved," Neal Brickman, Garrison's lawyer, told NEWSWEEK. "I'm very happy with the resolution." He added that he could provide no further details—including financial details—about the settlement because the terms were "confidential." (Bloomberg and his city-hall office declined to comment on the details of the lawsuit. "We made a settlement and agreed not to talk about it," Bloomberg told me.)

At the same time the locker-room culture was in place, though, some of the top executives were women, and Bloomberg watchers think he has steadily grown out of a prolonged adolescence. "I've aged, that's for sure," Bloomberg says when asked if that is true. He then turns more reflective. "Yeah, sure, I think you get more tolerant, you get more of an understanding that we're all going to be buried in the same ground. With time you get more experience, and you get better at certain things."

His city-hall offices are arranged like a newsroom bullpen, and he works in the open, with his staff. "He came in as the caretaker, but he's been something of a revolutionary, which I think almost no one expected," says Julia Vitullo-Martin, a senior fellow at the right-of-center Manhattan Institute. From bans on smoking and trans fats to his pledge to make New York as green as possible by limiting carbon emissions—last Friday he announced his support for a carbon tax in order to reduce greenhouse gases—Bloomberg has become something of a rock-star mayor. At an elegant dinner for Conservation International last Thursday in Washington, Tom Friedman of The New York Times introduced Bloom-berg, saying, "The only thing a lot of us would like to change about Michael is his job title, but I won't go there …" He did not need to; the audience cheered on cue.

Former Democratic mayor Ed Koch credits Bloomberg with making the city a more tolerant place. "He's also brought racial relations to a point where there is no friction, or hardly any," says Koch. "He sets a tone. I believe it is by virtue of his personality." On one of the first days Bloomberg was in office, he saw Al Sharpton walking out of city hall. "Bloomberg went over and introduced himself," Koch says, "whereas Giuliani would probably have called the police." (Koch and Giuliani have had a falling-out.)