jschneem1189's review


Too repetitive and doesn’t provide much value 
informative reflective fast-paced
informative

lcolium's review

5.0

This book was fabulous and extremely infuriating, especially as a former GE employee. It shows how time after time, powerful white men get away with all kinds of shit with seemingly no consequence, and how harmful treating workers without any sense of humanity can be. This should be required reading before any executive tries to do a layoff. Or make any sweeping decision based on money and not treating employees as humans.
storytimed's profile picture

storytimed's review

4.0

This is a Hater Book and I love it
Basically this whole book is about how Jack Welch is a piece of shit
Gelles argues that Welch is the guy who started the fracture and financialization of our current economy: layoffs, mergers, intense focus on stock price and stock buybacks
He turned GE from a manufacturer to........... a money company that scammed their way into a higher stock price, couldn't sustain it long-term, and finally crashed
This book is really interesting because it goes further to talk about how Welch acolytes ruined Boeing, the company which... guess what, is in the news right now for having shitty planes!
I'm not as pro-classic capitalism as Gelles, but it's a good book to give to your Nice Liberal / "Fiscally Conservative" friend to lead them on the path to radicalization
ajott's profile picture

ajott's review

4.5
challenging informative fast-paced

Overall, I'd say it was informative, infuriating, and strangely hopeful in places.
It should also be mandatory reading for any business school grad or new exec. We need to excoriate any business leader who still holds on to these obsolete and provably wrong theories and reinforce that the sacrifice of long-term stability and growth for the sake of short-term returns is the exact crap that's caused every major financial catastrophe of our (millennial) lifetimes, as well as some non-financial ones.
346 people died because a Jack Welch protege took over Boeing and overrode internal concerns about the 737 Max and its MCAS system. Not to mention direct ties to the creation of Fox News, Giuliani's career-making RICO case, the election of Donald Trump, and American corporations' inexcusable response to Covid.

bub_9's review

2.0

It's not bad and definitely an important takedown of a man who continues to be unduly revered as a great manager when all he was skilled at was financial massaging, but I also thought the author's focus was a little narrow - why only consider the one man, and not the general climate of neoliberalism and Reagan that accompanied his rise, too?

mtwillz's review

4.0
informative

johnjohnj's review

4.0

Too subjective
valkyriejmu's profile picture

valkyriejmu's review

3.75
emotional informative medium-paced