Man Who Broke Capitalism
New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs. In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day. Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic.
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5recommend
16mentions
16people
2022–2026years
31% recommend69% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Recently read The Man Who Broke Capitalism by David Gelles which is an excellent review of the Welch years, how he worked, and how he sent his minions out across the corporate world to wreak havoc. Wonderful read and really provides perspective on why modern corporate America is what it is.
Light Out by Gryta and Mann follow up by focusing on the Immelt years and how he tried to keep the ball rolling despite the hole that Jack left him in. Also an excellent read.
Sounds like Power Failure covers a lot of the same material as these two earlier books perhaps with some historical material.
- This book probably has some interesting insights:
"You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing" - December 26, 2008
https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Order-Change-Turnaround/dp/1...
Probably mostly of the "do the opposite of whatever this guy says" variety. ;)
The top review on this book says:
This seems like a good follow up book too:The author credits James McNerney for turning around Boeing. He neglected to say which way they were turning. For example, he credits JN for outsourcing so much of the 787 -- which included the wings, perhaps the thing Boeing did best. The 787 ended up way over budget and three years late. That's good management?https://www.amazon.ca/Man-Who-Broke-Capitalism-America_and/d...
- > Maybe this is just idealizing the past but it used to feel like for the most part people wanted to be good and do good work and play fair. Some people were cutthroat vultures but it was distasteful and you would see pushback.
It seems that in the past things where somewhat different. The sole focus on maximizing shareholder value is something that happened quite recently. A lot of people trace that to Jack Welch who took over General Electric in the 80's
I highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Broke-Capitalism-America_and/... if you are curious about it.The book documents well the transformation which gave us the modern version of US companies.
- “ The Man Who Broke Capitalism” by David Gelles offers great insight into the man and his actions. It actually offers some solutions to the problems Welch caused.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59366216-the-man-who-bro...
- > How could such a group steal enough money to ruin the US?
Some remedial reading for you:
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Broke-Capitalism-America/dp/1...
- Unfortunately no, though I'm sure they exist.
AFAIK the go-to book on this history is "The Man Who Broke Capitalism" about Jack Welch. I haven't read it though so can't sign my name to it!
A few other threads that might be worth pulling on:
* Dee Hock, founder of Visa, advocated for stuff in this realm. Worth reading some of his writing.
* W Edwards Deming, oddly enough an American who is one of the father's of Japan's incredible manufacturing philosophy, believed in this more expansive idea of wholeness in industry ("Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge" is good)
* Progress & Poverty (the famous Land Value Tax book) oddly enough is what really made capitalism itself legible enough to me to realize the positive-sum nature of what well-designed capitalism can do
* Costco is probably the most obvious success case of a stakeholder-capitalist company succeeding in an ultra competitive market, even while being publicly traded. I'm sure there are phenomenal books on Costco but the Acquired podcast's episode is a fantastic primer.
* "How the Other Half Lives" by Jacob Riis is a snapshot of the precursor conditions that led to stakeholder capitalism. Basically industrialization threw huge numbers of people into conditions even more destitute than the perpetual battle with starvation that predated industrialization. Jacob Riis documented just how horrific this was and contributed to a wave of social, political, and philosophical reforms that culminated in the advent of stakeholder capitalism.
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