Lights Out

Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric

Thomas Gryta,Ted Mann

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780358243571
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Infrastructure
• Index: Business

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
"If you're in any kind of leadership role—whether at a company, a non-profit, or somewhere else—there's a lot you can learn here."—Bill Gates, Gates Notes How could General Electric—perhaps America's most iconic corporation—suffersuch a swift and sudden fall from grace? This is the definitive history of General Electric's epic decline, as told by the two Wall Street Journal reporters who covered its fall. Since its founding in 1892, GE has been more than just a corporation. For generations, it was job security, a solidly safe investment, and an elite business education for top managers. GEelectrified America, powering everythingfrom lightbulbstoturbines, and became fully integrated into the American societal mindset as few companies ever had. And after two decades of leadership under legendary CEO Jack Welch, GE entered the twenty-first century as America's most valuable corporation. Yet, fewer than two decades later, the GE of old was gone. ? Lights Out examines how Welch's handpicked successor, Jeff Immelt, tried to fix flaws in Welch's profit machine, while stumbling headlong into mistakes of his own. In the end, GE's traditional win-at-all-costs driven culture seemed to lose its direction, which ultimately caused the company's decline on both a personal and organizational scale. Lights Out details how one of America's all-time great companies has been reduced to a cautionary tale for our times.

Index

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

accounting. See KPMG; management training center

accounting rules, 50, 56, 63–64, 92, 94, 138, 247

See also Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; financial reports; Sarbanes-Oxley Act; US Securities and Exchange Commission

acquisitions and divestitures

Abbott Laboratories diagnostics, 104

Amersham, 66–67, 161

Antares Capital, 86, 183

Arden Realty, 104

commercial real estate, 104, 128

consumer-facing brand, 145

Crow Holding’s third fund, 104

Dundee Reit, 104

Employers Reinsurance Corporation (ERC), 69

failed acquisitions, 67–68

Flannery’s sales, 288–89

Immelt division sales, 88–89

ING’s US online banking business, 139

Instrumentarium, 66

insurance businesses, 70

ivillage.com, 107

Lake consumer finance business, 107

Lufkin Industries, 210, 212

NBC Universal, 131–35

“organic growth,” 71–72, 81

Poland’s Bank BPH, 103

RCA Corporation, 17

Smiths Group aerospace business, 104

startup partnerships, 153

televisions and toasters, 17

Transamerica Finance Corporation., 67

Vetco Gray, 104, 209

Vivendi, 66

See also Alstom SA; GE Capital; Honeywell acquisition; spin-offs

Allen, Andrea, 26

Alstom SA

concession issues, 225–26, 228, 230

deal closing, 231

deal possibility, 193–95, 199–208

enterprise value, 194–96

French government objections, 201–5, 207

Immelt’s role, 192–95, 199, 202, 205, 231–32

Justice department criminal investigati...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Off a Cliff
• The Meatball
• Neutron Jack
• Big Jeff
• The Race
• Make Some Noise
• The Edison Conduit
• Senioritis
• Last Call
• Buying and Selling
• Imagination at Work
• Time to Go Big
• Higher Returns
• Applied Mathematics
• Size Doesn’t Matter
• The Screwup
• Enter the Bear
• Paper Jam
• Suspenders on Suspenders
• Circle the Wagons
• Kabletown
• No Other Way
• Green Is Green
• Palate Cleanser
• The Quarry
• New Lieutenant
• Playing Startup
• Cowboys into Farmers
• Project Hubble
• The Chop Shop
• Big Bets
• Dinner in Paris
• One Day in Chicago
• A Modest Proposal
• “We Know What We’re Doing”
• Buy High
• The Problem with Owen’s Hammer
• “I Don’t Even Know What We’re Selling”
• Jeff’s Deal
• Closing Costs
• An Unexpected Guest
• The Candy Factory
• Your People Don’t Want It Bad Enough
• Making Adjustments
• Back Bay Deal
• Managing Power
• Unmovable Target
• The New Guy
• Behind the Curtain
• Triage
• Cleaning House
• Conservatively Calculated
• A Reset Year
• A Bill Comes Due
• Asleep at the Switch
• “Managing in a Broader Sense”
• A Midstream Change
• Epilogue: “Jeff Is a Friend”
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Authors
• Connect on Social Media