Jack Welch is very well-deservedly not receiving love.
If you had to say something positive about him, it would be something like "well if he hadn't done it, someone else would have". That is not a high bar.
You can give him credit for showing us that the foundations of our approach is rotten.
He's a bit like Trump in that :-/
Jack Welch is very well-deservedly not receiving love.
He may have eventually have 'found religion':
Regarding shareholder value, Welch said in a Financial Times interview on the 2008 financial crisis, "On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy...your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products."[69]
However this was probably much later and when his image was less influential; his earlier career and fame probably really helped accelerate financialisation, and was probably never reset by his later opinions (partly because they may not have been as widely publicized).
Though on climate change:
Welch identified politically as a Republican.[66] He stated that global warming is "the attack on capitalism that socialism couldn't bring", and that it is a form of "mass neurosis".[67] Yet he said that every business must embrace green products and green ways of doing business, "whether you believe in global warming or not ... because the world wants these products".[68]
Regarding shareholder value, Welch said in a Financial Times interview on the 2008 financial crisis, "On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy...your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products."[69]
Rather odd to see this quote coming from Welch, the man who almost single-handedly destroyed the notion that corporations had a duty to employees, and society at large first, and shareholder value coming as a result of those.
His actions, and management style completely defined the era of corporate behaviour we live since the 1980s: the layoffs, the carelessness on axing whole departments of companies which underperformed for a couple of quarters, only looking through short-term financials, all the focus on quarterly reports and financialisation of the economy come from his "teachings".
It was very hard for me to believe he uttered these words, rot in hell, Jack.
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Jack Welch is very well-deservedly not receiving love. If you had to say something positive about him, it would be something like "well if he hadn't done it, someone else would have". That is not a high bar. You can give him credit for showing us that the foundations of our approach is rotten. He's a bit like Trump in that :-/
And what can you say positive about Cheney?
"Yeah his fingerprints are all over every bad policy decision of the era but at least he shot an old lawyer in the face"
Yes it's that type of comment I'm talking about.
Pretty much sums up his HN death post, while you'll find mostly praise for Castro.
You'd think Welch executed and tortured people and Castro was a saint.
He may have eventually have 'found religion':
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch#Politics
However this was probably much later and when his image was less influential; his earlier career and fame probably really helped accelerate financialisation, and was probably never reset by his later opinions (partly because they may not have been as widely publicized).
Though on climate change:
* Ibid
Rather odd to see this quote coming from Welch, the man who almost single-handedly destroyed the notion that corporations had a duty to employees, and society at large first, and shareholder value coming as a result of those.
His actions, and management style completely defined the era of corporate behaviour we live since the 1980s: the layoffs, the carelessness on axing whole departments of companies which underperformed for a couple of quarters, only looking through short-term financials, all the focus on quarterly reports and financialisation of the economy come from his "teachings".
It was very hard for me to believe he uttered these words, rot in hell, Jack.