Haier's success with GEappliances

Welch destroyed General Electric from the inside out. Below is one of my several articles published on Quora about GE and/or Welch. Not the best article I've written. but the most viewed and upvoted with 212,000 views and almost 3000 upvotes. Here is the cut and past of it off Quora:

Brad Woods, former Asst. Chair, Department of Electrical Engineering at Wright State University (1999-2009)

Updated Apr 19 � Upvoted by

Kerwin Kerr, Retired GE Tool & Diemaker at General Electric and Reddy Ganta, former Technology Manager at General Electric

Brad Woods

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, began the current death spiral of GE. His goal, by his own admission, was to get General Electric largely out the electric industry (despite the name of the company) and transform it into a service company.

General Electric was created as an electrical supply and research/development company. A fact attested to by one of the founding fathers being Thomas Edison. It had nearly 100 years of infrastructure and experience, and was known to the world as "everything to everybody when it comes to electricity." At least that was its function until "neutron" Jack Welch came along. "Neutron Jack" began dissecting GE early in his career, with the sale of GE Heating and Cooling Products Division in Tyler Texas, to Trane in 1982. In his own words he stated, he "did not like HVAC." Soon following were GE Housewares sold to Black and Decker in April 1984 and GE Consumer Electronics and Audio, sold to Thomson in France in 1987.

Jack's primarily goal was to get into capital, specifically banking and insurance. Money from the sell of General Electric's historic divisions was used to purchase banking, finance, and insurance companies. Something GE was not designed nor adequately equipped to handle. GE also purchased NBC, and consequently Universal Theme Park, in Florida. A giant of electrical manufacturing with world wide markets was reduce to being a bank, and insurance company, running a TV studio and operating roller coasters at a theme park.

Sell off, that is divestiture of GE divisions, continued with the loss of GE Plastics, sold to SABIC of Saudi Arabia and the sale of General Electric�s 100 year old historic electric motor division. More recently, Welch's sycophant, the former CEO, Jeff Immelt sold the mega giant, "GE Appliances" to Haier-Qingdao of Communist China, in June of 2016.

I am not including all the divestitures, but just highlighting some of the major ones. The point being you can't redesign an entire company to create a new one in your own image.

Welch had quite a reputation with GE employees and Members of the Board. He didn't get the not-so-endearing nickname of Neutron Jack for no reason. Neutrons destroy most things they touch, just as Jack Welch was destroying the once mega-giant General Electric. His methodology was to dissuade opposition of his dictates through bullying. He was known for terrible outrages at dissenting views from other GE administrators and employees.

Belittling and verbal abuse of GE employees in front of their peers was his modus operandi. When angered he reportedly reverted back to his childhood stuttering and became beet red in his face, virtually unable to communicate.

If you were the unfortunate object of this emotional tirade, you immediately found yourself, and a box with your desk contents, being escorted by GE security guards to the front door. General Electric employees disappeared almost as fast as the GE divisions Welch was selling off.

To further disassociate GE with electrical products, Welch made sure references to the company went from the name "General Electric" to "The GE Company." He even scrapped the famous, world known GE logo (The cursive GE in a circle) to one of his own design. Simply an italicized, "G.E." He also dictated that the words, "General Electric" be removed from GE devices, so the public would gradually lose the association of GE with electricity. On GE products, only the GE logo would appear.

The Welch designed logo lasted under a year, as the public outcry at the loss of the beloved 100 year old GE, logo forced Welch into a rare reversal of one of his decisions. He angrily returned the historic cursive logo. However, he got his revenge by refusing to remove his personally designed logo from atop the GE building in New York. The electrically lit, gigantic sign atop the building continued to build Welch's already inflamed ego by lighting the New York night skies for decades, and showed the world he was not to be trifled with.

To make a very long story short, you can't totally change the very core essence of a company just to build your ego and show the world, and your peer CEOs that you are a power player. Welch destroyed GE from the inside out. Dissecting and pulling out its core industries and selling them to buy unrelated business, business totally outside the GE's expertise, history and infrastructure. Welch was playing corporate poker and using GE divisions as his chips.

Foolishly, Welch ignored the fact that you must have both short cycle profit industries and long cycle profit industries to weather any financial crises.

GE had many division of both long and short cycle profiting. For example, take GE Housewares, which sold hairdryers, blenders, mixers, fans, toasters, etc. These devices went from assembly line to retail stores to consumer, in time intervals that could be measured in weeks, and sometimes even days. Time from design to profit was short and profits, though small, came quickly. Due to the popularity of GE products, the profits came in abundance.

Long cycle profits came from GE divisions that produced locomotives, nuclear power plants, turbines, etc. Design-to-profit times were often measured in years, although when they came they were large.

GE Appliances, GE Lighting, GE Heating/Cooling and GE Consumer Electronics provided smaller profits but more continual, steady profits. They were relatively inflation proof. No matter what the economy, people have to eat. They need refrigerators and stoves to cook on. They have to wash their clothes. No matter what the economy, there will be weddings and Christmas, and people will buy toasters, blenders, etc. for gifts, and for themselves as well. No matter what the economy, people have to heat their homes. Even in the worst of economies people will scrimp and save and buy a television. They still need to get up in the mornings and will buy a GE clock or a GE clock-radio.

The divisions with long cycle profits may not always fare as well during times of recession or inflation, but the need is always there for generators, transformers, and other power distribution equipment. When the economy allows for larger projects such as power plants, the long cycle profits can be enormous.

So the short cycle businesses and the long cycle business work with each other to level out the curve and give General Electric profits no matter what is happening with the economy. Case in point, during the Great Depression, GE was one of the only companies who was still paying dividends on their stock.

General Electric had a perfect set up. It could weather any storm and it was producing devices the consumer needed, and wanted, and was providing the electricity, through power generation and distribution equipment, to the consumer. That is, GE made the products consumers wanted then created the electricity, and distributed it to these very same consumers, to operate these products. It worked flawlessly for over a 100 years. When a division was not doing as well as hoped, it was tweaked and worked on until it was back to full health.

Welch's philosophy was if a division was doing as well as expected, or he didn't like it, it was gone. Destroyed from the inside out. That is what "Neutron Jack" did with GE. An egotistical man, whom many say suffers from "short-man's syndrome,� was out to show the world, and his business peers, he was something to be contended with.

Every action, has an opposite and equal reaction. Westinghouse found this out. Westinghouse was GE's main competitor, and at one time in history was even larger than GE. Just as GE is now doing, Westinghouse began divesting itself of its divisions, slowly, one by one. Until the very heart of the company was gone. Westinghouse died in the early 90's, and now is nothing but a name and logo. �Westinghouse Nuclear� is now owned by Toshiba of Japan, and �Westinghouse Licensing� owns the rights to the name. For a fee, any company can buy a license from Westinghouse Licensing to stick the name �Westinghouse� and the famous logo onto their product to benefit from the recognition factor of the name. You see the name Westinghouse on TV's and air conditioning today, but they have never seen a Westinghouse employee for the Westinghouse corporation is dead.

Similarly, GE has already begun licensing out their logo. The GE logo is being placed on Haier-Qingdao built appliances, China's Haier owns the former GE Appliance manufacturing complex "Appliance Park" in Louisville, KY, lock stock and barrel. Haier made an agreement to pay GE a licensing fee to give them the right to use their logo and the right to continue to use to the name, "GE Appliances." Haier sought to do this reasoning that U.S. consumers would balk at communist built appliances. The use of the GE logo, would help to hide the true Chinese ownership of the appliance manufacturer from the general public.

GE is weaving the same pattern as Westinghouse, as the core industries are dissected and thrown off. Everyone said Westinghouse was too big to fail. Some are saying the same with General Electric. Will history repeat itself and will we see GE succumb to be nothing more than a name and a logo to be bought and sold? The unstoppable process seems to have started.

GE's death spiral is out of control. It is hemorrhaging money and selling its logo, and name, to other companies to try to get any available cash that it can.

Soon, just as with Westinghouse, the logo may be the only thing left of the once mighty GE... .the American icon, the king of the electrical, world, the "everything to everyone" company. From mainframe computers to TV's to blenders to nuclear power plants, if it could be plugged in or had flowing electrons, GE probably made it.

General Electric is in its final death throes. Death from one man, Jack Welch, an egotistical man who tried to remake GE into a company in his own image. A man who sought profit at all costs. A man who forgot that a company answers to the consumers who keep it alive, not to the stockholder.

No General Electric didn�t �fail.� Jack Welch failed, on all counts.

Who would believe the emotional immaturity of one man, and the crazed drive of his ego, could destroy an icon and monolith of electrical manufacturing.

A sad demise for a company that didn't deserve it.

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Post# 1030943 4/27/2019 at 06:49 (1,823 days old) by imperial70 (MA USA)
Checkrate/Likes Very interesting article about Haier and GEappliances and how they are #1 in the world. Whirlpool isn't even #2. I noticed something very intersting on the GEappliances website. The front load washer choices are shrinking. The Right Height units are not listed. Also there is not any "Made in America" choices for front load machines. So I looked around the website some more and it seems like the "Made in America" isn't being put next to dishwashers, etc.... I tried searching for layoffs but did not find that. You have to wonder though.... CLICK HERE TO GO TO imperial70's LINK

Post# 1030944 , Reply# 1 4/27/2019 at 07:54 (1,823 days old) by Magic_Clean (Florida)
Checkrate/Likes 5 *#1?* The chart references 'retail' sales. A lot of appliances are sold to home builders and others, where a retail transaction is not involved. It would be more accurate to see total volume. >LP

Post# 1030950 , Reply# 2 4/27/2019 at 08:56 (1,823 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes 3 I was kinda jolted when I saw a box last week that said GE A Haier Company. This nation is selling off all of the industrial might that made it great.

Post# 1030953 , Reply# 3 4/27/2019 at 09:21 (1,823 days old) by firedome (Binghamton NY & Lake Champlain VT)
Checkrate/Likes 3 *no more GE* for us! Will continue to buy WP made is US models wherever possible, a choice that is shrinking.

Post# 1030967 , Reply# 4 4/27/2019 at 12:39 (1,823 days old) by RP2813 (Sannazay)
Checkrate/Likes 2 Where is "**" ???

Post# 1030973 , Reply# 5 4/27/2019 at 14:21 (1,823 days old) by MattL (Flushing, MI)
Checkrate/Likes 3 I have VERY mixed feelings about WP, not sure I'll buy anything from them going forward - though I do love my newish KA DW. In case you didn't know they are the sole reason all washers and dryers now cost $100-$200 more. At this point WP is near the bottom of my list of manufactures I'd buy a product from.

Post# 1030976 , Reply# 6 4/27/2019 at 14:47 (1,823 days old) by Frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie)
Checkrate/Likes 3 Higher prices for washers: This didn't help, either. CLICK HERE TO GO TO Frigilux's LINK

Post# 1031050 , Reply# 7 4/27/2019 at 23:19 (1,822 days old) by Supersuds (Knoxville, Tenn.)
Checkrate/Likes 1 An article from October says: LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) � A Kentucky-based home appliances business says it will add 400 jobs as part of a $200 million investment at its sprawling Louisville operation. GE Appliances on Monday announced plans to expand its laundry and dishwasher production at Appliance Park, its largest manufacturing facility and headquarters. The GE Appliances business is owned by Haier, a Chinese appliances giant. Kevin Nolan is CEO at GE Appliances. He says the investment in Louisville will accelerate the company�s ability to introduce new products. GE Appliances has manufacturing plants in Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. It employees about 6,000 people in Louisville and about 12,000 in the U.S. Since May, GE Appliances has announced more $475 million in investments in products, manufacturing and distribution, creating more than 1,000 new jobs. CLICK HERE TO GO TO Supersuds's LINK

Post# 1031058 , Reply# 8 4/28/2019 at 05:41 (1,822 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There�s a Lady on Stage)
Checkrate/Likes 1 *Recall first time GE wanted to sell their appliance division* Whirlpool (IIRC) was the only American company interested besides the Chinese. Federal government and others weren't keen on Chinese getting GE appliances, nor where they going to allow Whirlpool to gobble up yet another major appliance brand. In the end nothing happened and the sale went on back burner IIRC. Next time around no one wanted GE appliances but the Chinese, and there really wasn't anything anyone could do to stop it from happening this time around. Otherwise GE likely simply would have shut the division down. General Electric has been on a tear past few years divesting itself of "non-essential" or core businesses. GE Financial was sold off. Recently GE locomotive/train division got the push as well. Those two join a list of things being spun off from GE as it tries to right itself and boost share prices. Truth to tell General Electric appliances really have no where to go but up with Haier ownership. Quite frankly GE hasn't been on top of their appliance game since the 1970's or so. Quality wasn't there, and they seem to have been more known for "builders specials" appliances than anything else. Still get misty eyed over some of these older GE commercials. How the mighty did fall.

Post# 1031171 , Reply# 14 4/28/2019 at 23:55 (1,821 days old) by tolivac (greenville nc)
Checkrate/Likes 1 Jack Welch DESTROYED GE!!!

Post# 1031209 , Reply# 15 4/29/2019 at 11:30 (1,821 days old) by jamiel (Detroit, Michigan and Palm Springs, CA)
Checkrate/Likes Worked for GE Capital in the 1989-1992 time frame...heyday for the management training center in Crotonville. I never went, but some of my peers did as we were testing a self-directed workforce at our center. At that point, we got discounts on appliances (differing amounts per model number). Don't recall how process worked but wasn't difficult. No benefits for lighting; they did offer a good money market fund which I kept money in for a long time.

Post# 1031567 , Reply# 16 5/2/2019 at 11:23 (1,818 days old) by imperial70 (MA USA)
Checkrate/Likes *GENICOM printers* I remember GENICOM printers. I had to evaluate one when I was a co-op student while in college for a small company that resold a computer from a company in New Hampshire (Infotecs, purchased by Computone Systems). That printer was kind of buggy. It was a new model using a hall effect generator for the "out of paper" switch. But it was very fast for a dot-matrix printer and it didn't use a shuttle bar like older oki-data printers (those were a real nightmare to align). :-)

Post# 1031681 , Reply# 19 5/3/2019 at 11:29 (1,817 days old) by reactor (Oak Ridge, Tennessee-- )
Checkrate/Likes *"neutron" Jack* In General Electric's case all the blame is on Welch (and his sycophant Immelt) as he divested GE of its core foundation industries. A house cannot stand when its foundation is removed. And sure enough, and quite sadly, GE is toppling. Welch was the instigator of GE's transition out of electrical products and manufacturing. Could the Board Members have stopped Welch? Possibly, but they didn't. That doesn't acquit Welch of his actions.

Post# 1031059 , Reply# 9 4/28/2019 at 05:49 (1,822 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There�s a Lady on Stage)
Checkrate/Likes To be fair General Electric was all over the place by the 1980's. Locomotives, jet engines, healthcare equipment, HVAC, home appliances.....

Post# 1031063 , Reply# 10 4/28/2019 at 07:01 (1,822 days old) by superocd (PNW)
Checkrate/Likes *I'm surprised that GE didn't get into the IT busines* ...making enterprise IT hardware and possibly software. I suppose they did (in a way) in the 50s/60s as they were in the mainframe business for a brief amount of time but they sold that off to Honeywell IIRC. They could have reentered the enterprise computing market in the 80s when the demand for client-server networks started to become a thing and could have been among Cisco, IBM, HP, and Sun/Oracle.

Post# 1031068 , Reply# 11 4/28/2019 at 07:58 (1,822 days old) by fan-of-fans (Florida)
Checkrate/Likes Remember GE quoted as saying if they couldn't be #1 or #2 in a division, then they didn't want to be in it. Notice how many things GE got out of over the years. Selling small appliances to Black and Decker in 1984 (while discontinuing several of them prior to that), leaving the electronics industry, appliances of course and now even their consumer and industrial lighting division has been sold off. I think Haier purchasing them was probably the best thing, given today's world. I hope that Haier continues to use GE's designs where they are better than others, while improving other things.

Post# 1031071 , Reply# 12 4/28/2019 at 08:25 (1,822 days old) by kenwashesmonday (Carlstadt, NJ)
Checkrate/Likes 1 Jack Welch destroyed GE's appliance division.

Post# 1031079 , Reply# 13 4/28/2019 at 10:12 (1,822 days old) by appnut (TX)
Checkrate/Likes *The GE Printer Division* I remember when they were a competitor of ours. And lo & behold, they purchased our printer division in 1996. CLICK HERE TO GO TO appnut's LINK

Post# 1031621 , Reply# 17 5/2/2019 at 22:28 (1,817 days old) by reactor (Oak Ridge, Tennessee-- )
Checkrate/Likes 2 *agree with tolivac* Welch destroyed General Electric from the inside out. Below is one of my several articles published on Quora about GE and/or Welch. Not the best article I've written. but the most viewed and upvoted with 212,000 views and almost 3000 upvotes. Here is the cut and past of it off Quora: Brad Woods, former Asst. Chair, Department of Electrical Engineering at Wright State University (1999-2009) Updated Apr 19 � Upvoted by Kerwin Kerr, Retired GE Tool & Diemaker at General Electric and Reddy Ganta, former Technology Manager at General Electric Brad Woods Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, began the current death spiral of GE. His goal, by his own admission, was to get General Electric largely out the electric industry (despite the name of the company) and transform it into a service company. General Electric was created as an electrical supply and research/development company. A fact attested to by one of the founding fathers being Thomas Edison. It had nearly 100 years of infrastructure and experience, and was known to the world as "everything to everybody when it comes to electricity." At least that was its function until "neutron" Jack Welch came along. "Neutron Jack" began dissecting GE early in his career, with the sale of GE Heating and Cooling Products Division in Tyler Texas, to Trane in 1982. In his own words he stated, he "did not like HVAC." Soon following were GE Housewares sold to Black and Decker in April 1984 and GE Consumer Electronics and Audio, sold to Thomson in France in 1987. Jack's primarily goal was to get into capital, specifically banking and insurance. Money from the sell of General Electric's historic divisions was used to purchase banking, finance, and insurance companies. Something GE was not designed nor adequately equipped to handle. GE also purchased NBC, and consequently Universal Theme Park, in Florida. A giant of electrical manufacturing with world wide markets was reduce to being a bank, and insurance company, running a TV studio and operating roller coasters at a theme park. Sell off, that is divestiture of GE divisions, continued with the loss of GE Plastics, sold to SABIC of Saudi Arabia and the sale of General Electric�s 100 year old historic electric motor division. More recently, Welch's sycophant, the former CEO, Jeff Immelt sold the mega giant, "GE Appliances" to Haier-Qingdao of Communist China, in June of 2016. I am not including all the divestitures, but just highlighting some of the major ones. The point being you can't redesign an entire company to create a new one in your own image. Welch had quite a reputation with GE employees and Members of the Board. He didn't get the not-so-endearing nickname of Neutron Jack for no reason. Neutrons destroy most things they touch, just as Jack Welch was destroying the once mega-giant General Electric. His methodology was to dissuade opposition of his dictates through bullying. He was known for terrible outrages at dissenting views from other GE administrators and employees. Belittling and verbal abuse of GE employees in front of their peers was his modus operandi. When angered he reportedly reverted back to his childhood stuttering and became beet red in his face, virtually unable to communicate. If you were the unfortunate object of this emotional tirade, you immediately found yourself, and a box with your desk contents, being escorted by GE security guards to the front door. General Electric employees disappeared almost as fast as the GE divisions Welch was selling off. To further disassociate GE with electrical products, Welch made sure references to the company went from the name "General Electric" to "The GE Company." He even scrapped the famous, world known GE logo (The cursive GE in a circle) to one of his own design. Simply an italicized, "G.E." He also dictated that the words, "General Electric" be removed from GE devices, so the public would gradually lose the association of GE with electricity. On GE products, only the GE logo would appear. The Welch designed logo lasted under a year, as the public outcry at the loss of the beloved 100 year old GE, logo forced Welch into a rare reversal of one of his decisions. He angrily returned the historic cursive logo. However, he got his revenge by refusing to remove his personally designed logo from atop the GE building in New York. The electrically lit, gigantic sign atop the building continued to build Welch's already inflamed ego by lighting the New York night skies for decades, and showed the world he was not to be trifled with. To make a very long story short, you can't totally change the very core essence of a company just to build your ego and show the world, and your peer CEOs that you are a power player. Welch destroyed GE from the inside out. Dissecting and pulling out its core industries and selling them to buy unrelated business, business totally outside the GE's expertise, history and infrastructure. Welch was playing corporate poker and using GE divisions as his chips. Foolishly, Welch ignored the fact that you must have both short cycle profit industries and long cycle profit industries to weather any financial crises. GE had many division of both long and short cycle profiting. For example, take GE Housewares, which sold hairdryers, blenders, mixers, fans, toasters, etc. These devices went from assembly line to retail stores to consumer, in time intervals that could be measured in weeks, and sometimes even days. Time from design to profit was short and profits, though small, came quickly. Due to the popularity of GE products, the profits came in abundance. Long cycle profits came from GE divisions that produced locomotives, nuclear power plants, turbines, etc. Design-to-profit times were often measured in years, although when they came they were large. GE Appliances, GE Lighting, GE Heating/Cooling and GE Consumer Electronics provided smaller profits but more continual, steady profits. They were relatively inflation proof. No matter what the economy, people have to eat. They need refrigerators and stoves to cook on. They have to wash their clothes. No matter what the economy, there will be weddings and Christmas, and people will buy toasters, blenders, etc. for gifts, and for themselves as well. No matter what the economy, people have to heat their homes. Even in the worst of economies people will scrimp and save and buy a television. They still need to get up in the mornings and will buy a GE clock or a GE clock-radio. The divisions with long cycle profits may not always fare as well during times of recession or inflation, but the need is always there for generators, transformers, and other power distribution equipment. When the economy allows for larger projects such as power plants, the long cycle profits can be enormous. So the short cycle businesses and the long cycle business work with each other to level out the curve and give General Electric profits no matter what is happening with the economy. Case in point, during the Great Depression, GE was one of the only companies who was still paying dividends on their stock. General Electric had a perfect set up. It could weather any storm and it was producing devices the consumer needed, and wanted, and was providing the electricity, through power generation and distribution equipment, to the consumer. That is, GE made the products consumers wanted then created the electricity, and distributed it to these very same consumers, to operate these products. It worked flawlessly for over a 100 years. When a division was not doing as well as hoped, it was tweaked and worked on until it was back to full health. Welch's philosophy was if a division was doing as well as expected, or he didn't like it, it was gone. Destroyed from the inside out. That is what "Neutron Jack" did with GE. An egotistical man, whom many say suffers from "short-man's syndrome,� was out to show the world, and his business peers, he was something to be contended with. Every action, has an opposite and equal reaction. Westinghouse found this out. Westinghouse was GE's main competitor, and at one time in history was even larger than GE. Just as GE is now doing, Westinghouse began divesting itself of its divisions, slowly, one by one. Until the very heart of the company was gone. Westinghouse died in the early 90's, and now is nothing but a name and logo. �Westinghouse Nuclear� is now owned by Toshiba of Japan, and �Westinghouse Licensing� owns the rights to the name. For a fee, any company can buy a license from Westinghouse Licensing to stick the name �Westinghouse� and the famous logo onto their product to benefit from the recognition factor of the name. You see the name Westinghouse on TV's and air conditioning today, but they have never seen a Westinghouse employee for the Westinghouse corporation is dead. Similarly, GE has already begun licensing out their logo. The GE logo is being placed on Haier-Qingdao built appliances, China's Haier owns the former GE Appliance manufacturing complex "Appliance Park" in Louisville, KY, lock stock and barrel. Haier made an agreement to pay GE a licensing fee to give them the right to use their logo and the right to continue to use to the name, "GE Appliances." Haier sought to do this reasoning that U.S. consumers would balk at communist built appliances. The use of the GE logo, would help to hide the true Chinese ownership of the appliance manufacturer from the general public. GE is weaving the same pattern as Westinghouse, as the core industries are dissected and thrown off. Everyone said Westinghouse was too big to fail. Some are saying the same with General Electric. Will history repeat itself and will we see GE succumb to be nothing more than a name and a logo to be bought and sold? The unstoppable process seems to have started. GE's death spiral is out of control. It is hemorrhaging money and selling its logo, and name, to other companies to try to get any available cash that it can. Soon, just as with Westinghouse, the logo may be the only thing left of the once mighty GE... .the American icon, the king of the electrical, world, the "everything to everyone" company. From mainframe computers to TV's to blenders to nuclear power plants, if it could be plugged in or had flowing electrons, GE probably made it. General Electric is in its final death throes. Death from one man, Jack Welch, an egotistical man who tried to remake GE into a company in his own image. A man who sought profit at all costs. A man who forgot that a company answers to the consumers who keep it alive, not to the stockholder. No General Electric didn�t �fail.� Jack Welch failed, on all counts. Who would believe the emotional immaturity of one man, and the crazed drive of his ego, could destroy an icon and monolith of electrical manufacturing. A sad demise for a company that didn't deserve it. 212.2k views � View Upvoters � View Sharers � Answer requested by Jake Gerbracht Rob Lion, Ed Davis, Michael Guin, and 2 more upvoted this 2.9k Upvotes

Post# 1031674 , Reply# 18 5/3/2019 at 10:00 (1,817 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan)
Checkrate/Likes 1 *Is all the blame on* the ceo's? Top shareholders also vote with the boards of directors on decisions. I recall that GE's Profile line got better in the 90's when they sort of mimicked the Dacor slide in range style, and sales also improved for GE. I realize there are more factors in play that just that though. Did GE champion the Sigma 6 style of corporate directing and managing? I knew of a few of those people who went to other companies and couldn't direct nor manage their way out of a box when they should have been able to. They passed the buck along to lower rung employees, or didn't even do that. One was in sales, and over sold a hospital on equipment and lied about it, in lue of their commission. Got away with it too, because by the time it was discovered as fraud, they had moved on and out of the state, or country with at least a million dollars. Statue of limitation for prosecution had also expired, or the company just wrote it of for tax purposes.