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> Meanwhile, General Electric is in the process of splitting into three publicly traded companies, focused on health care, aerospace and energy. For some conte

> Meanwhile, General Electric is in the process of splitting into three publicly traded companies, focused on health care, aerospace and energy. For some context, GE is kind of riches-to-rags story. Check out this chart of the share price: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=NYSE%3AGE https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=NYSE%3AGE Here's a company whose stock is trading at 1994 levels. It never recovered from the "dot-com" crash of 2001. The dividend yield is nowhere close to a US treasury at any maturity. It's losing money left and right. A good chunk of that was the pivot, under Jack Welch's leadership, from actually making stuff into financial services, shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs along the way. GE was therefore well-placed for full-impact during the GFC.

kqr2 4y ago
There was a recent book about Jack Welch : The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366216-the-man-who-broke-capitalism https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366216-the-man-who-bro...
- geodel 4y ago
  Thank you. I will not miss to read this one. Last year I read https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Lights-Out https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Lights-Out
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  One of my favorite radio shows / podcasts (Fresh Air) interviewed the author of "The Man Who Broke Capitalism" back in June: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1102165413/did-jack-welch-break-capitalism https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1102165413/did-jack-welch-bre...
mdorazio 4y ago
What gets me is how Jack Welch was held up as an amazing businessman and model for corporate flexibility for years while his changes utterly destroyed GE's future for short-term gains. I'd argue the same thing about the Clinton administration and Greenspan specifically. There's got to be a better mechanism to force companies and countries to focus on long-term rather than short-term improvements.
- geodel 4y ago
  I'd say he was the original LinkedIn style Thought Leader CEO. His statements and performance was never critically analyzed by mainstream media when he was at top job for decades. In case anyone thinks it is past now. There is army of nincompoops who idolize him even today.
  - dsr_ 4y ago
    Stack ranking was his baby, too.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      Is that the same thing as 'rank and yank'?
      - holografix 4y ago
        Yes
        lowestprimate 4y ago
        Also known as playing double tennis against the people across the net along playing against the person besides you. Insane philosophy.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  > There's got to be a better mechanism to force companies and countries to focus on long-term rather than short-term improvements. Unions with a board seat. Employee ownership. Shares in the hands of pragmatic investors who value long term over extraction and dumping the carcass on the next fool. People like Welch and characters like Gordon Gecko aren’t heroes, they’re cautionary tales, the Frank Underwoods (House of Cards) of finance and corporate management.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > I'd argue the same thing about the Clinton administration and Greenspan specifically. I'm curious, what are the things that happened during the Clinton administration that you think were short-term gains at the expense of long-term improvements? I've always felt that many of the fiscal policies of Clinton were in favor of long-term stability (e.g. specifically his tax policies and balancing the budget). Now, with monetary policy and Greenspan specifically, I 100% agree that the "Greenspan put" was absolutely a disaster for long-term stability, but Greenspan was in office from 1987 - 2006 (originally nominated by Reagan), so I see his choices as pretty orthogonal to whoever was president at the time.
geodel 4y ago
So basically Six Sigma will now be split into 3 Two Sigmas
tootie 4y ago
Factoid: Of the ten largest companies in America before the Great Depression, only GE was still in business after the Depression.
- Aloha 4y ago
  A quick google search tells me this is false. Everyone of of those companies was certainly in business after the depression, most are today Company 1929 Revenues Standard Oil (New Jersey) $1,523 (SO NJ > Exxon > merged with Mobil Oil to form ExxonMobil) General Motors $1,504 (Reorganized in 2008, Still in Business) Ford Motor $1,143 (Privately held until 50's Still in Business) US Steel $1,097 (Still in Business) Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea $1,054 (Out of Business 2015) Swift & Co. $1,000 (Still in Business, Acquired by JBS SA in 2017 to form JBS USA) Armour & Co. $1,000 (Bought by Greyhound in 1970, divested many ways, impractical to explain without a diagram - probably counts as out of business) Standard Oil (Indiana) $495 (Amoco > Acquired by BP) Sears, Roebuck $444 (Alive? maybe a zombie business) General Electric $415
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    [Factoid] was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it is not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid
    - Aloha 4y ago
      I guess he used it correctly ;-)
- sgerenser 4y ago
  Seems dubious based on this: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/58635/what-were-the-largest-companies-in-the-world-before-and-after-the-great-depressi https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/58635/what-were-...
hcrisp 4y ago
Jack Welch was CEO of a different era. Remember when GE owned NBCUniversal? No? That was also under Welch. The WSJ lays some of the blame of GE's downfall at the feet of his successor, Jeff Immelt. > GE’s precipitous fall, following years of treading water while the overall economy grew, was exacerbated, some insiders say, by what they call “success theater.” Mr. Immelt and his top deputies projected an optimism about GE’s business and its future that didn’t always match the reality of its operations or its markets, according to more than a dozen current and former executives, investors and people close to the company. [0] Jack Welch didn't always make great decisions -- diversifying away from GE's core businesses into financial markets, media, etc. His last act of trying to acquire Honeywell failed. But it was Immelt who brought the company down. Immelt grew GE Capital from 40 to 55% of the company at the onset of the Great Recession, took government bailout money when it tanked, then divested it from the company when it was clearly a drag on profitability. He championed GE Digital which never materialized, and then made big bets on conventional energy just when renewables were taking off. I don't know if it could have been different in someone else's hands. But a little more truth-telling would probably have helped. Welch did think that appointing Immelt was his "biggest mistake" [1]. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jeffrey-immelts-success-theater-masked-the-rot-at-ge-1519231067 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jeffrey-immelts-success-the... [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-welch-one-regret-general-212714268.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-welch-one-regret-general...
- geodel 4y ago
  > Welch did think that appointing Immelt was his "biggest mistake" It is because Jeff did not (or not allowed) to continue with scammy accounting practices encouraged by Jack Welch to keep stock price and earning per share high. > Jack Welch didn't always make great decisions Big, if true.

kqr2 4y ago

There was a recent book about Jack Welch : The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366216-the-man-who-broke-capitalism https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366216-the-man-who-bro...

geodel 4y ago
Thank you. I will not miss to read this one. Last year I read https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Lights-Out https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Lights-Out
EvanAnderson 4y ago
One of my favorite radio shows / podcasts (Fresh Air) interviewed the author of "The Man Who Broke Capitalism" back in June: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1102165413/did-jack-welch-break-capitalism https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1102165413/did-jack-welch-bre...

mdorazio 4y ago

What gets me is how Jack Welch was held up as an amazing businessman and model for corporate flexibility for years while his changes utterly destroyed GE's future for short-term gains. I'd argue the same thing about the Clinton administration and Greenspan specifically. There's got to be a better mechanism to force companies and countries to focus on long-term rather than short-term improvements.

geodel 4y ago
I'd say he was the original LinkedIn style Thought Leader CEO. His statements and performance was never critically analyzed by mainstream media when he was at top job for decades. In case anyone thinks it is past now. There is army of nincompoops who idolize him even today.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  Stack ranking was his baby, too.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    Is that the same thing as 'rank and yank'?
    - holografix 4y ago
      Yes
      - lowestprimate 4y ago
        Also known as playing double tennis against the people across the net along playing against the person besides you. Insane philosophy.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
> There's got to be a better mechanism to force companies and countries to focus on long-term rather than short-term improvements. Unions with a board seat. Employee ownership. Shares in the hands of pragmatic investors who value long term over extraction and dumping the carcass on the next fool. People like Welch and characters like Gordon Gecko aren’t heroes, they’re cautionary tales, the Frank Underwoods (House of Cards) of finance and corporate management.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> I'd argue the same thing about the Clinton administration and Greenspan specifically. I'm curious, what are the things that happened during the Clinton administration that you think were short-term gains at the expense of long-term improvements? I've always felt that many of the fiscal policies of Clinton were in favor of long-term stability (e.g. specifically his tax policies and balancing the budget). Now, with monetary policy and Greenspan specifically, I 100% agree that the "Greenspan put" was absolutely a disaster for long-term stability, but Greenspan was in office from 1987 - 2006 (originally nominated by Reagan), so I see his choices as pretty orthogonal to whoever was president at the time.

geodel 4y ago

So basically Six Sigma will now be split into 3 Two Sigmas

tootie 4y ago

Factoid: Of the ten largest companies in America before the Great Depression, only GE was still in business after the Depression.

Aloha 4y ago
A quick google search tells me this is false. Everyone of of those companies was certainly in business after the depression, most are today Company 1929 Revenues Standard Oil (New Jersey) $1,523 (SO NJ > Exxon > merged with Mobil Oil to form ExxonMobil) General Motors $1,504 (Reorganized in 2008, Still in Business) Ford Motor $1,143 (Privately held until 50's Still in Business) US Steel $1,097 (Still in Business) Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea $1,054 (Out of Business 2015) Swift & Co. $1,000 (Still in Business, Acquired by JBS SA in 2017 to form JBS USA) Armour & Co. $1,000 (Bought by Greyhound in 1970, divested many ways, impractical to explain without a diagram - probably counts as out of business) Standard Oil (Indiana) $495 (Amoco > Acquired by BP) Sears, Roebuck $444 (Alive? maybe a zombie business) General Electric $415
- wrycoder 4y ago
  [Factoid] was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it is not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid
  - Aloha 4y ago
    I guess he used it correctly ;-)
sgerenser 4y ago
Seems dubious based on this: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/58635/what-were-the-largest-companies-in-the-world-before-and-after-the-great-depressi https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/58635/what-were-...

hcrisp 4y ago

Jack Welch was CEO of a different era. Remember when GE owned NBCUniversal? No? That was also under Welch. The WSJ lays some of the blame of GE's downfall at the feet of his successor, Jeff Immelt. > GE’s precipitous fall, following years of treading water while the overall economy grew, was exacerbated, some insiders say, by what they call “success theater.” Mr. Immelt and his top deputies projected an optimism about GE’s business and its future that didn’t always match the reality of its operations or its markets, according to more than a dozen current and former executives, investors and people close to the company. [0] Jack Welch didn't always make great decisions -- diversifying away from GE's core businesses into financial markets, media, etc. His last act of trying to acquire Honeywell failed. But it was Immelt who brought the company down. Immelt grew GE Capital from 40 to 55% of the company at the onset of the Great Recession, took government bailout money when it tanked, then divested it from the company when it was clearly a drag on profitability. He championed GE Digital which never materialized, and then made big bets on conventional energy just when renewables were taking off. I don't know if it could have been different in someone else's hands. But a little more truth-telling would probably have helped. Welch did think that appointing Immelt was his "biggest mistake" [1]. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jeffrey-immelts-success-theater-masked-the-rot-at-ge-1519231067 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jeffrey-immelts-success-the... [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-welch-one-regret-general-212714268.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-welch-one-regret-general...

geodel 4y ago
> Welch did think that appointing Immelt was his "biggest mistake" It is because Jeff did not (or not allowed) to continue with scammy accounting practices encouraged by Jack Welch to keep stock price and earning per share high. > Jack Welch didn't always make great decisions Big, if true.