The article written by Bill Gates very much glosses over anything Welch did, with the notable exception of praising him as someone who wrote a bunch of books an

The article written by Bill Gates very much glosses over anything Welch did, with the notable exception of praising him as someone who wrote a bunch of books and who was looked at as a visionary. He goes on to mention a few things for the downfall: * Lack of understanding of financial investments by the management and executives * Encouraging hearing 'good news' and hiding 'bad news' by leadership, which meant they were ignorant of many festering problems that needed fixing * Diversity in enterprise -- lack of ability for anyone to understand how all the pieces fit together * Cooking the books to keep Wall Street happy I think perhaps you took something from the article that wasn't present, or I missed the part where he attributed 'simplistic' causes. However, in my personal opinion I think Gates is too close to the situation and the actors to have a qualified and unbiased opinion. Refusing to blame Welch for anything besides being slightly ignorant of financial complexities illustrates that he isn't willing to look at Welch's leadership critically.