The Man Who Broke Capitalism

How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy

De: David Gelles

Narrado por: Kevin R. Free

New York Times Bestseller

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. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.

Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.

©2022 David Gelles. All rights reserved (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

A must-read.

Helps one understand how we to to where we are today. well performed, beautifully written.

Good story but wrong title

Capitalism is not the word here he broke corporate management. Certainly, he messed up proper publicly traded company management. Capitalism is mostly double entry accounting between buying and selling. What he did do was let investors think making a quality product/service too hard to understand so look at the MBAs instead of technology

Great book, highly recommend

I really enjoyed this book! Learning about what had caused such a dramatic change in how corporations treated not only their employees and surrounding communities, but on how focused they became on shareholder primacy and their executive's pay; are both amazing and sickening!

Articulated what working Americans feel

This book articulated the problems with our current version of capitalism that many people feel but do not understand. You can trace most the problems we have today to the “Financialization” of corporate America. Workers have been left behind, and while elected officials deserve some blame, more anger needs to be directed at the corporate class who rigged the game for themselves.

Brilliant Thesis

Just think about one thing; an great American company laying off 100s of thousands. How and why could this happen. This book explains it in a way that most everyone can understand. His thesis is the wave of what has happened to American business since Jack Welch. I was glued to this recording and the narrator was excellent. What you want in a book are facts enveloped by explanations and examples. This book gives the reader all of it. All I can think about is the poor victims of Jack Welch's greed and arrogance. Very sad.

Good story; highly repetitive

I enjoyed hearing about the cult hero, Jack Welch. Was he single-handedly responsible for this narrowly focused corporate culture. I don’t think so. His example served many. It would have been nice to see what other forces were at play. But that’s a different book. I found the major thesis was repeated too often and the book could have been shorter. I particularly enjoyed the story of Boeing and how the new plane was rushed through development. Overall a good listen.

Fantastic!

I wish everyone would read this to get an understanding of why America is where it is today. Jack Welch, along with the whole "Government is not the answer to your problems, government is the problem" crowd ushered in an era rivaled only by the guilded age.
If you want to know why so many Americans are feeling left out and cut off to the American dream they were promised the answer is right here. When people feel like the system is rigged they're not crazy...IT IS! Through a series of lay offs, cost cutting, deregulation, and financial trickery employed by, not only GE but, most behemoth corporations the workers of America have been screwed in every way possible by the these titians. Who, as you'll read, view employees as nothing more than pieces on a chessboard to be moved around in their goal of ever higher stock value. Leaving in their wake once very proud, profitable, and civically minded corpations desimated. That, inturn, ruined communities, the environment, trust and loyalty, and ultimately the employees. Employees who once were seen as the most important asset of a company to the easily expendable means to cut cost and "improve efficiency".
This is required reading for anyone who wants to really understand what is at the heart of why America has lost so much in such a short time.

Solid critical argument

Solid and very critical argument that is well supported by detailing historical and financial facts. A bit light on the concurrent US concerns about competitiveness which was more focused on Japan and to a lesser extent Germany than today's concerns about China. However one of the key points about the dangers of the lionization of the CEO is well depicted and poignant. Well written.

Excellent

I lived through welchism working at Boeing. The book hit on the change from engineering to business. It led to the 737 max and 787 disasters brought on by Welch Disciples

Wonderful Book, Awful Narration

As somebody who worked at General Electric from 1989 to 2009 and interfaced with Jack Welch on a relatively regular basis in my role as an anchor at CNBC, I find that this book nails everything that was right and wrong with the Welch way.

The insane zeal to “beat the street” by a penny, employee be damned, was one of the awful legacies Jack Welch left us. As the author explains, Welch’s successor Jeff Immelt was no better. I will leave the storytelling to Mr. Geddes and simply say that I witnessed a lot of this personally at the time I was too naïve, too starstruck and too dependent on my job at GE/NBC, to speak up or say anything.

As for the narrator of this book, what an awful job. He didn’t even pronounce Jack Welch’s name properly on multiple occasions, he used the French pronunciation when it wasn’t warranted and didn’t when it was. His overall lack of facility with business and corporate information in any detail proved him to be someone way over his head in terms of subject matter. This book would have been much better if it’s audio version had it been read by someone with an understanding and command of the situation at GE and corporate America in general. Simon & Schuster can and should have done better in selecting a narrator!