My review of Power Failure: the downfall of America's greatest company

Summary

In 2001, General Electric was the most valuable company on Earth. It was worth $600 billion, employed 300,000 people, and business schools taught the "GE Way" as gospel. By 2018, it had lost 90% of its value, fired its CEO, slashed its dividend for only the second time since the Great Depression, and was fighting for survival.William Cohan's Power Failure transforms this collapse into a Shakespearean tragedy about corporate culture and American capitalism. From Edison's first light bulbs to Jeff Immelt's desperate final days, Cohan shows how the company that literally illuminated America became "a huge unregulated bank with a light-bulb logo."The result is equal parts invention history, boardroom knife-fight, and forensic accounting thriller. Here are my favorite ideas of this 700-page tome.1. The Cult of the Imperial CEOGE didn't just have CEOs—it had demigods. The company ran on quasi-religious faith that the right leader could bend markets and reality itself.The mythology started with Edison but reached its apotheosis with Jack Welch, who ruled for 20 years like a corporate Caesar. When Welch chose Jeff Immelt as his successor in 2001, he literally wept at his retirement party—not from sentiment, but from doubt about his successor. Years later, dying of renal failure, Welch sobbed to Cohan: "I fucked up. And I don't know why."The succession battles were blood sport. When Steve Bolze tried to position himself as Immelt's heir, board members invoked Emerson: "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." He didn't, and was gone within months. The board itself cowered before these imperial CEOs.Key Quotes"This was American capitalism. GE was America.""Jeff has the unfortunate task of following a legend. It's like being a baseball player and following Babe Ruth." - Jack Welch, 2001"I haven't had a bad day in 20 years." - Welch, whose actual days included criminal price-fixing trials and a record EPA Superfund cleanup2. The Devil's Bargain of FinancializationAnother ...