This description of the private equity (PE) industry in Succession may be crude, but it is not inaccurate. The violence suggested by this metaphor is well earned: private equity is an extractive financial technique that leaves behind it many bankruptcies, layoffs, and unpaid bills. Its reputation was so tarnished by exploitative behavior in the 1980s and 1990s that it was rebranded from "leveraged buyout firms" to the more opaque term used today, private equity.

DEFINE: Explains that 'private equity' was a rebranding from the earlier, more candid term 'leveraged buyout firms' following reputational damage in the 1980s-90s. XREF: Connects the extractive characterization to the HBO series Succession, where the PE industry is dramatized through the metaphor of violent extraction.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 131