7 ms·

That's a real shame. Most large, old American companies have fallen into that trap. Notably RCA (gone) and GE (going). I hope Apple doesn't eventually succumb.

That's a real shame. Most large, old American companies have fallen into that trap. Notably RCA (gone) and GE (going). I hope Apple doesn't eventually succumb. Tim Cook's successor matters.

mulmen 6y ago
Apparently GE sold off trains which seems like a pretty good business to own?
- jonas21 6y ago
  Out of all the business lines GE has sold off over the years (computers, appliances, financial services, lighthing, television, etc.), why trains?
  - senko 6y ago
    GE was a slow-mo train wreck for years (pun intended). Recently read "Lights out", about their problems in the last ~20 years, fascinating read, heartily recommended.
    - cultus 6y ago
      And yet Jack Welch somehow came to be looked upon as a management guru instead of someone who gutted the long-term viability of GE in favor of financialization.
      - loganfrederick 6y ago
        Luckily I think history is doing its job in changing how Jack Welch's legacy will be remembered. I don't think students or upcoming businesspeople are really learning Welch's approach anymore.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        Jack Welch has definitely fallen out of favor considering the results obviously illustrate his failures.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    They needed cash and it’s a profitable business so they sold it.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - ahi 6y ago
    The business lines you offered as examples are low margin commodities or stuff GE really sucked at. Trains seems like a reasonable high margin line of business for a company that is actually good at industrial engineering.
- charwalker 6y ago
  If it was train lines including rail ownership I can see why they would want to drop out. Logistically that's a nightmare unless it's totally private. Then again around here the rail lines are mostly owned by grain/grass farmer groups who ship product by rail and can load from their farm directly. Passenger lines that share the rails wait for those trains.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    It was the business that builds trains.
  - cratermoon 6y ago
    GE was a big player in the diesel-electric locomotive market, starting with the GE Universal series, then the Dash 7, Dash 8, Dash 9, and Evolution. The division was sold off at some point there, I think before the Evolution. Back in the earliest days the engines themselves were provided by companies such as Cummins but in the 60s GE started building its own prime movers.
  - bumby 6y ago
    As stated by another post, they built the trains but didn't own the track. However, I'm not sure your conclusion about owning railroads is a nightmare is true. Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet's company) bought Norfolk Southern in 2007 and it's done fairly well since. My understanding is that these are relatively stable businesses because the barrier to entry is large enough to stifle competition.
- beambot 6y ago
  GE Transportation still exists, just in a different form. It's called Wabtec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabtec_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabtec_Corporation Just because it didn't retain the name "GE" doesn't mean the business is gone.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Yes it exists but GE doesn’t own it.
- fock 6y ago
  but is it high-margin, high-growth? The same thing is happening in Germany with Siemens for years... - just 10-20 years later than the US. Once they did everything (for real): car parts, control software, nuclear reactors, trains, solar cells, semiconductors, computers (even mainframes), medicine products, household appliances. Nowadays: BLOCKCHAIN. I guess the job of a chinese "we will rule the world"-planner is a lot easier through western greed, than it should be.
  - fauigerzigerk 6y ago
    >but is it high-margin, high-growth? They sold trains and bought into oil & gas exploration. If high growth is what they're aiming for I'm not sure they picked the right horse.
  - rusticpenn 6y ago
    They still do almost all of those things. Look at their yearly report. They are also making huge profits from them.
DocTomoe 6y ago
Apple is already on it's way to the trashheap. There's a reason why innovation has essentially stopped and now comes down to "a few megapixels more in the camera", while quality control - both in their hardware as well as their software - has taken a big hit. I guess they will succumb faster than the old Xerox-age market leaders, because they are not focussed on consulting (= making other companies believe their constantly syphoning money from them brings value).
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >There's a reason why innovation has essentially stopped and now comes down to "a few megapixels more in the camera" How is literally designing your chips to a point where they could be desktop class to replace x86 not innovation? What other company is doing this? I can't imagine a "finance company on the out" deciding that they will bring all chip development in house.
  - hugi 6y ago
    I recently started developing my own chips and put them on all my desktops. Thinly sliced potato, hot oil, a bit of salt… Delicious. Seriously though, some people just don't like Apple and they make a lot of noise about it.
  - echelon 6y ago
    > How is literally designing your chips to a point where they could be desktop class to replace x86 not innovation? That's more a sign that the company wants more profit by owning the top to bottom stack. Perhaps they saw the existing chipsets as not delivering what they wanted or not scaling to fit demand, but it's still an investment not directly tied to product (their core competency).
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > That's more a sign that the company wants more profit by owning the top to bottom stack. They pretty much had their hands tied. Intel failed to deliver for years now, and AMD never had a competitive offer on mobile and still does not.
WalterBright 6y ago
Contrary to popular knowledge, free market companies don't grow to take over the world. They grow until they get strangled by their own bureaucracy, and then rot away to be replaced by a younger, nimbler company without the bureaucracy. History is full of examples. Just look at the top 10 American companies by market cap, decade by decade.
- laurent92 6y ago
  As opposed to non-free market companies, that stay even when they are strangled by their own bureaucracy.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Non-free market companies are propped up by force.
- areyousure 6y ago
  Sounds like an interesting exercise. Let's look at the ten largest American companies by market capitalization in 1960. 1. American Telephone & Telegraph is now called AT&T and was in the top 10 within the last decade. 2. General Motors has dropped off the top 100 for a while, but was the world's largest automaker within the last decade. 3. E.I. du Pont Nemours dropped off the top 100 in the last few years, but was the world's largest chemical company within the last decade before selling off Dow. 4. Standard Oil Co of NJ is essentially ExxonMobil and has been the #1 largest company within the last decade. 5. General Electric has been in the top 10 within the last decade. 6. IBM has been in the top 10 within the last decade. 7. Texas Company is now called Texaco and is part of Chevron, which has been in the top 10 within the last decade. 8. Union Carbide had one of the world's largest industrial disasters, and its later history is involved with duPont above as part of Dow. 9. Eastman Kodak ceased being relevant in the last 20 years. 10. Sears Roebuck & Company has collapsed, last being the largest retailer in the 1980s. tl;dr: Of the top 10 in 1960, half have been in the top 10 within the last decade (including the former #1) and one has been #1 within the last decade.
  - 6y ago
bumby 6y ago
How much of this is due to changes in the nature of the economy vs mismanagement? In the 50s and 60s the largest companies were focused in manufacturing and oil. Now the largest are in tech because the economy is different. GE is an interesting example because, as a conglomerate, I would think it's better poised to strategically change the focus of it's business...maybe that's the point of the IBM spin-off.

That's a real shame. Most large, old American companies have fallen into that trap. Notably RCA (gone) and GE (going). I hope Apple doesn't eventually succumb. Tim Cook's successor matters.

mulmen 6y ago

Apparently GE sold off trains which seems like a pretty good business to own?

jonas21 6y ago
Out of all the business lines GE has sold off over the years (computers, appliances, financial services, lighthing, television, etc.), why trains?
- senko 6y ago
  GE was a slow-mo train wreck for years (pun intended). Recently read "Lights out", about their problems in the last ~20 years, fascinating read, heartily recommended.
  - cultus 6y ago
    And yet Jack Welch somehow came to be looked upon as a management guru instead of someone who gutted the long-term viability of GE in favor of financialization.
    - loganfrederick 6y ago
      Luckily I think history is doing its job in changing how Jack Welch's legacy will be remembered. I don't think students or upcoming businesspeople are really learning Welch's approach anymore.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Jack Welch has definitely fallen out of favor considering the results obviously illustrate his failures.
- mulmen 6y ago
  They needed cash and it’s a profitable business so they sold it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ahi 6y ago
  The business lines you offered as examples are low margin commodities or stuff GE really sucked at. Trains seems like a reasonable high margin line of business for a company that is actually good at industrial engineering.
charwalker 6y ago
If it was train lines including rail ownership I can see why they would want to drop out. Logistically that's a nightmare unless it's totally private. Then again around here the rail lines are mostly owned by grain/grass farmer groups who ship product by rail and can load from their farm directly. Passenger lines that share the rails wait for those trains.
- mulmen 6y ago
  It was the business that builds trains.
- cratermoon 6y ago
  GE was a big player in the diesel-electric locomotive market, starting with the GE Universal series, then the Dash 7, Dash 8, Dash 9, and Evolution. The division was sold off at some point there, I think before the Evolution. Back in the earliest days the engines themselves were provided by companies such as Cummins but in the 60s GE started building its own prime movers.
- bumby 6y ago
  As stated by another post, they built the trains but didn't own the track. However, I'm not sure your conclusion about owning railroads is a nightmare is true. Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet's company) bought Norfolk Southern in 2007 and it's done fairly well since. My understanding is that these are relatively stable businesses because the barrier to entry is large enough to stifle competition.
beambot 6y ago
GE Transportation still exists, just in a different form. It's called Wabtec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabtec_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabtec_Corporation Just because it didn't retain the name "GE" doesn't mean the business is gone.
- mulmen 6y ago
  Yes it exists but GE doesn’t own it.
fock 6y ago
but is it high-margin, high-growth? The same thing is happening in Germany with Siemens for years... - just 10-20 years later than the US. Once they did everything (for real): car parts, control software, nuclear reactors, trains, solar cells, semiconductors, computers (even mainframes), medicine products, household appliances. Nowadays: BLOCKCHAIN. I guess the job of a chinese "we will rule the world"-planner is a lot easier through western greed, than it should be.
- fauigerzigerk 6y ago
  >but is it high-margin, high-growth? They sold trains and bought into oil & gas exploration. If high growth is what they're aiming for I'm not sure they picked the right horse.
- rusticpenn 6y ago
  They still do almost all of those things. Look at their yearly report. They are also making huge profits from them.

DocTomoe 6y ago

Apple is already on it's way to the trashheap. There's a reason why innovation has essentially stopped and now comes down to "a few megapixels more in the camera", while quality control - both in their hardware as well as their software - has taken a big hit. I guess they will succumb faster than the old Xerox-age market leaders, because they are not focussed on consulting (= making other companies believe their constantly syphoning money from them brings value).

nemothekid 6y ago
>There's a reason why innovation has essentially stopped and now comes down to "a few megapixels more in the camera" How is literally designing your chips to a point where they could be desktop class to replace x86 not innovation? What other company is doing this? I can't imagine a "finance company on the out" deciding that they will bring all chip development in house.
- hugi 6y ago
  I recently started developing my own chips and put them on all my desktops. Thinly sliced potato, hot oil, a bit of salt… Delicious. Seriously though, some people just don't like Apple and they make a lot of noise about it.
- echelon 6y ago
  > How is literally designing your chips to a point where they could be desktop class to replace x86 not innovation? That's more a sign that the company wants more profit by owning the top to bottom stack. Perhaps they saw the existing chipsets as not delivering what they wanted or not scaling to fit demand, but it's still an investment not directly tied to product (their core competency).
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > That's more a sign that the company wants more profit by owning the top to bottom stack. They pretty much had their hands tied. Intel failed to deliver for years now, and AMD never had a competitive offer on mobile and still does not.

WalterBright 6y ago

Contrary to popular knowledge, free market companies don't grow to take over the world. They grow until they get strangled by their own bureaucracy, and then rot away to be replaced by a younger, nimbler company without the bureaucracy. History is full of examples. Just look at the top 10 American companies by market cap, decade by decade.

laurent92 6y ago
As opposed to non-free market companies, that stay even when they are strangled by their own bureaucracy.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Non-free market companies are propped up by force.
areyousure 6y ago
Sounds like an interesting exercise. Let's look at the ten largest American companies by market capitalization in 1960. 1. American Telephone & Telegraph is now called AT&T and was in the top 10 within the last decade. 2. General Motors has dropped off the top 100 for a while, but was the world's largest automaker within the last decade. 3. E.I. du Pont Nemours dropped off the top 100 in the last few years, but was the world's largest chemical company within the last decade before selling off Dow. 4. Standard Oil Co of NJ is essentially ExxonMobil and has been the #1 largest company within the last decade. 5. General Electric has been in the top 10 within the last decade. 6. IBM has been in the top 10 within the last decade. 7. Texas Company is now called Texaco and is part of Chevron, which has been in the top 10 within the last decade. 8. Union Carbide had one of the world's largest industrial disasters, and its later history is involved with duPont above as part of Dow. 9. Eastman Kodak ceased being relevant in the last 20 years. 10. Sears Roebuck & Company has collapsed, last being the largest retailer in the 1980s. tl;dr: Of the top 10 in 1960, half have been in the top 10 within the last decade (including the former #1) and one has been #1 within the last decade.
- 6y ago

bumby 6y ago

How much of this is due to changes in the nature of the economy vs mismanagement? In the 50s and 60s the largest companies were focused in manufacturing and oil. Now the largest are in tech because the economy is different. GE is an interesting example because, as a conglomerate, I would think it's better poised to strategically change the focus of it's business...maybe that's the point of the IBM spin-off.