Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share 312. “Power Failure” and What We Learned From Jack Welch, Jeff Immelt and GE’s Fall From Being America’s Greatest Corporation: An Interview with William D. Cohan
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
312. “Power Failure” and What We Learned From Jack Welch, Jeff Immelt and GE’s Fall From Being America’s Greatest Corporation: An Interview with William D. Cohan
In today's episode, The Mentors Host Tom Loarie talks with William D. Cohan, a business writer, former investor banker, and best-selling author of “Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon," which chronicles the strengths and weaknesses of influentical General Electric CEOs Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt, and the the rise and fall of General Electric (GE) over 36 years. The lessons learned are legendary in their impact on anyone's business—large, mid-sized or small—and legendary in understanding what to really look for when evaluating whether (or not) your or another business is one in which it could be worth investing. Ethics play a role for sure.
At its peak, GE was an industrial empire worth nearly $600 billion. For almost a century its logo branded "just about everything, from wind turbines to submarine detectors, fridges, televisions, toasters and lightbulbs," as a Nov 2022 article in The Guardian described.
In 2001, GE was considered to be one of the most valuable companies in the world, boasting a rare, triple-A credit score. A mere 20 years later, GE announced it would be broken up into smaller fragments. Its employees numbered less than half those of 20 years earlier. In the 2000s, the company had begun sourcing its lightbulbs from Chinese contractors and branding them as GE products. In 2020, GE sold off it's lighting business for good. What went so wrong? Find out in this episode of THE Mentors RADIO.
Listen below (podcast posted after Saturday's radio airing), or listen on ANY podcast device or platform here.
SHOW NOTES:
William D. Cohan ("Bill"):
* BIO: https://williamcohan.com/about/
* WEBSITE: WilliamCohan.com
* BOOKS:
* Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of An American Icon, by William D. Cohan
* Four Friends: Promising Lives Cut Short, by William D. Cohan
* Why Wall Street Matters, by William D. Cohan
* The Price of Silence: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, Wall Street Journal and the Power of the Elite, by William D. Cohen
* Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World, by William D. Cohan
* House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, by William D. Cohan
* The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Fréres & Company, by William D. Cohan
* ARTICLES:
* Power Failure by William D Cohan review – pulling the plug - by Hettie O'Brien, The Guardian
*
View all episodes
By Tom Loarie and Dan Hesse
4.9
2525 ratings
In today's episode, The Mentors Host Tom Loarie talks with William D. Cohan, a business writer, former investor banker, and best-selling author of “Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon," which chronicles the strengths and weaknesses of influentical General Electric CEOs Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt, and the the rise and fall of General Electric (GE) over 36 years. The lessons learned are legendary in their impact on anyone's business—large, mid-sized or small—and legendary in understanding what to really look for when evaluating whether (or not) your or another business is one in which it could be worth investing. Ethics play a role for sure.
At its peak, GE was an industrial empire worth nearly $600 billion. For almost a century its logo branded "just about everything, from wind turbines to submarine detectors, fridges, televisions, toasters and lightbulbs," as a Nov 2022 article in The Guardian described.
In 2001, GE was considered to be one of the most valuable companies in the world, boasting a rare, triple-A credit score. A mere 20 years later, GE announced it would be broken up into smaller fragments. Its employees numbered less than half those of 20 years earlier. In the 2000s, the company had begun sourcing its lightbulbs from Chinese contractors and branding them as GE products. In 2020, GE sold off it's lighting business for good. What went so wrong? Find out in this episode of THE Mentors RADIO.
Listen below (podcast posted after Saturday's radio airing), or listen on ANY podcast device or platform here.
SHOW NOTES:
William D. Cohan ("Bill"):
* BIO: https://williamcohan.com/about/
* WEBSITE: WilliamCohan.com
* BOOKS:
* Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of An American Icon, by William D. Cohan
* Four Friends: Promising Lives Cut Short, by William D. Cohan
* Why Wall Street Matters, by William D. Cohan
* The Price of Silence: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, Wall Street Journal and the Power of the Elite, by William D. Cohen
* Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World, by William D. Cohan
* House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, by William D. Cohan
* The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Fréres & Company, by William D. Cohan
* ARTICLES:
* Power Failure by William D Cohan review – pulling the plug - by Hettie O'Brien, The Guardian
*
More shows like The Mentors Radio Show
View all
Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney
4,125 Listeners
WSJ What’s News
4,330 Listeners
The Ben Shapiro Show
153,364 Listeners
Pivot
9,289 Listeners
How I Built This with Guy Raz
30,247 Listeners
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
33,946 Listeners
The Daily
110,626 Listeners
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
26,920 Listeners
Shawn Ryan Show
42,604 Listeners
Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques
772 Listeners
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
9,248 Listeners
SmartLess
57,458 Listeners
Coaching Real Leaders
647 Listeners
The Victor Davis Hanson Show
8,948 Listeners