AUDIOBOOK
About
A magisterial history of the dramatic rise--and unimaginable fall-- of America's most iconic corporation by bestselling author and Puck News founding partner William B. Cohan
Perhaps no company reflects American ingenuity, innovation, and industrial fortunes as well as the iconic General Electric Company. Producing storied leaders and almost every product imaginable, GE built a cult of leadership success that hid cracks in its foundation. In a masterful appraisal of the company that claimed to "bring good things to life," William B. Cohan, one of America's most eminent financial journalists, argues that GE's legacy is both a paragon and a cautionary tale through which to understand American business.
POWER FAILURE limns the eventful 125-year history of GE, bringing fresh analysis and new insight drawn from rare interviews with key figures of the company's golden era, including Jack Welch himself. Beginning with its founding, innovations, and massive growth through acquisitions and mergers, Cohan explores the truth beneath GE's storied management culture and its pioneering doctrine of shareholder value--ultimately revealing that GE wasn't immune to the maladies of other corporations.
Drawing from frank and rare interviews, Cohan delivers an insider look at the contributions of its legendary CEOs, and what was really going on behind the myth-making-yielding never-told stories about Welch's twenty-two years at the helm, in which he traded on a sterling legacy of industrial prowess and technological innovation to make GE the most valuable company in the world, while cloaking its vulnerabilities. What he handed to his carefully chosen successor Jeffrey Immelt was, Cohan argues, both an impossible standard and a more troubled reality.
Tracing the company's leaps and stumbles through the personalities that defined it, POWER FAILURE offers a surprising retelling of the GE story, puncturing the myth we know for a fresh look at its legacy--and what it tells us about the state of business in America.
Perhaps no company reflects American ingenuity, innovation, and industrial fortunes as well as the iconic General Electric Company. Producing storied leaders and almost every product imaginable, GE built a cult of leadership success that hid cracks in its foundation. In a masterful appraisal of the company that claimed to "bring good things to life," William B. Cohan, one of America's most eminent financial journalists, argues that GE's legacy is both a paragon and a cautionary tale through which to understand American business.
POWER FAILURE limns the eventful 125-year history of GE, bringing fresh analysis and new insight drawn from rare interviews with key figures of the company's golden era, including Jack Welch himself. Beginning with its founding, innovations, and massive growth through acquisitions and mergers, Cohan explores the truth beneath GE's storied management culture and its pioneering doctrine of shareholder value--ultimately revealing that GE wasn't immune to the maladies of other corporations.
Drawing from frank and rare interviews, Cohan delivers an insider look at the contributions of its legendary CEOs, and what was really going on behind the myth-making-yielding never-told stories about Welch's twenty-two years at the helm, in which he traded on a sterling legacy of industrial prowess and technological innovation to make GE the most valuable company in the world, while cloaking its vulnerabilities. What he handed to his carefully chosen successor Jeffrey Immelt was, Cohan argues, both an impossible standard and a more troubled reality.
Tracing the company's leaps and stumbles through the personalities that defined it, POWER FAILURE offers a surprising retelling of the GE story, puncturing the myth we know for a fresh look at its legacy--and what it tells us about the state of business in America.