Lights Out

Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric

By: Thomas Gryta, Ted Mann

Narrated by: James Edward Thomas

Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

How could General Electric—perhaps America's most iconic corporation—suffer such 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.

GE electrified America, powering everything from lightbulbs to turbines, 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 21st 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.

©2020 Thomas Gryta (P)2020 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Great book, though harsh

The books is a stellar investigation of the workings of GE and ultimately the fall of the company. Jeff Immelt gets much blame, but also so much blame that one cannot help wonder if the book is needlessly harsh on him. Great work of journalism, but perhaps slightly unbalanced.

Come one come all...

Come one come all to hear a story that must be told. How hubris can be the greatest downfall, and the destroyer of innocent peoples lives. No more locker room BS as a determination of someone's ability to lead a business. Accountability and transparency are all that is needed moving forward, in business, in politics, in life.

JP Morgan's progeny

Lights Out is an interesting and timely book. What in the world happened to GE? Its fall from industrial stardom has been astonishing. Since the fall of GE coincides with a decline in American fortunes generally, one feels that there ought to be a lesson here. Although I am grateful for the story the authors are able to tell, I cannot help but feel that there is a much longer and more interesting book under the surface. The authors largely tell a story about Jeffrey Immelt, the successor to the famed manager Jack Welch, who took GE into the financialized capitalism of the late 20th century, which worked while it worked. Immelt took with him enormous riches from GE, and yet left it floundering. Immelt was a positive thinker and a salesman. One of his lieutenants, Beth Comstock, apparently knew next to nothing about the production side of GE, but thought that the important thing was that GE tell a good story, whether tethered to reality or not, to its employees and to the public. The financial books were, to some extent, cooked. Both Welch and Immelt have spent time in their post-GE careers telling everyone who will listen that it was not their fault.
It appears that the authors may not have had as much access to GE insiders as one would like. Since the fall of GE did not result in extensive legal investigations, the major figures do not have to talk, and when they do, it is likely to be self-serving. I did notice one article in Fortune (July 21, 2020) reacting to the book. There, the former communications director at GE lays out what the book “gets wrong about GE.” It turns out that what it “gets wrong” are two minor issues regarding dates. If this is all GE has to say for itself, it is indeed a sad commentary on the actions of GE and its officers.
One suspects that there is a deeply meaningful history here, beginning earlier than these authors do, at least as far back as the beginning of Jack Welch’s ambitious leadership beginning in 1981. I have to admit that I harbor a somewhat disreputable hope that that history would be something of a melodrama, like the fall of Enron, full of idiocy and bad guys. But perhaps it is also a history of an aging industry that even without all the creative accounting, stories, absurd acquisitions, corporate jets, advertising, inflated salaries, financialization, and flim-flam, would have declined anyway.
Maybe the truth is a bit of both. While industrialists used to act as though moving atoms and electrons around efficiently and usefully was absorbing enough (e.g., Thomas Edison), now many of them (supported by the business culture in which they work) appear to care more about stock price, stock options, fame, advertising stories, financial engineering, and drinking their own kool-aid (mixed by chief marketing officers like Comstock). Such a history can’t end well.
By the way, those GE washing machines and refrigerators? That business is still headquartered in Kentucky, but it is mostly owned by a Chinese company. It can use the GE brand until 2056. And those GE light bulbs? They are now a part of Savant Systems, as of 2020. It too will continue to use the GE brand. In a way, the company is going back to its roots, since it was started not by Thomas Edison, the inventor, but by JP Morgan, the financier.

Peeling back the layers of mistakes by GE's CEOs

good listen, very interesting, definitely makes you understand how billions got lost by a conglomerate

The Sad Fall of an Icon

This was an account of the fall of General Electric. The title of pride and delusion is aptly applied here. Despite a long and storied history, founded by Thomas Edision, "incorporated" by J.P. Morgan, the company was a shining example of what an American company could do, create and become. How far the mighty have fallen. The book starts with a brief history then begins with the most dynamic CEO, Jack Welch. A bio and his approach brought GE billions despite the old boys club atmosphere, GE had a commitment to its customers, employees and shareholders. It took care of them despite some questionable business and accounting practices. When Welsh retired, Jeff Immelt was chosen to lead the company. Unfortunately for him, his tenure was marked by two of the worst disasters to hit modern business and our country, the 911 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. It began the slippery slope of the fall of GE. It's all here in detail. Overextending themselves, forays into new fields, questionable acquisitions, flowery accounting practices and more. It is a straight forward account of what happened. I read this book using immersion reading, while listening to the audio book. The narration was rote, dull and monotone. The book would've been better with a more emotive narrator. A lesson in hubris this is a warning to many companies of what not to do. A good read.

Unexpectedly very good

After hearing the authors interviewed on Marketplace and reading a few reviews I was t expecting much but turns out this book was great and brought back a lot of memories handling Immelt and the GE aircraft in an old FBO job.

It’s a story that even the mighty can fall. GE is as American as Apple Pie and I hope to see them emerge on top. I think this story proves Immelt was on the job longer than he should have been.

Interesting but missing an important part

This book is interesting and it’s obvious that they have spoken to a lot of former GE executives. The language and lingo is heavily “GE speak”. There isn’t a lot that is new, seems like a summation of many WSJ articles I’ve read, but I did enjoy some of the insights into the conversations and discussions between the top leaders. My biggest complaint is that there is very little mention of the employees and what all of this turmoil has meant for them. The authors go on and on about shareholders and GE executives and retirees with pensions, but fail mention the workers that have been deeply impacted and, to some extent,
traumatized by all that has happened with GE over the last two decades. Thousands of people lost their jobs, lost benefits, or had their pay frozen while executives, company officers, and board members got wealthier. The perks and pay that these “failed” execs and even Jack Welch took on their way out of the company is disturbing and upsetting, especially in light of the sacrifices made by workers. The employees who were daily in the trenches making sure GE made sales, built and shipped products, and innovated new technology knew very little of what was going on at the top levels and found out often when the public did. I would have liked to see the authors give a little bit more consideration and air time that. Overall, I gave it 4 stars. This book is worth a listen if you don’t know much about GE and it’s fall from grace over the last 20 years. If you already know the stories, there isn’t much that’s new.

Pretty harsh critique

When you look at the history of many great companies, it's hard not to walk away with the idea that most managers are idiots. Although this book focuses mainly on the tenure of Jeff Immelt, the famous Jack Welch doesn't come out unscathed. I mean, seriously why on earth should a company like GE own a television network like NBC? What a stupid purchase.

GE has long represented the ideal that good managers could manage anything, but this close examination shows that's just not true. Companies should stick to markets where they have expertise.

The author also paints the GE Board of Directors an unflattering light, since they allowed ineffective CEOs to run the companies without constraint.

The narrator is good, if a tad over-dramatic on occasion.

Brilliant

Amazingly well researched resulting in great depth A bit unfair to Jeff Immelt though. if any of his visions materialized, he would have been hailed as a visionary :) . the hardest thing to digest is the lack of integrity at one of the greatest organizations.

Engaging Listen!

Fascinating story and really kept up the pace/tempo throughout the audio book. Good narration too, 5 ⭐️ w/in the business reporting genre.