The saddest thing to me about this - is the cut of pensions.
My parents view pensions as gold standard. That it cannot be messed with and clearly this article shows that it can. The promise for your years of service can't be paid out.
Now something you thought you allow you to not worry until your passing, you begin to worry about how you'll survive in a few years with all the rising prices.
roenxi · 5h ago
The "5. The Human Wreckage" section is probably the most interesting - on paper, everyone came out much worse (losers identified are workers, pension holders, shareholders, investors and executives which seems superficially comprehensive).
However it is important to recall that the people who actually made all the money extracting the wealth got out years before, retiring and/or selling stock. They're bystanders now and probably happy to run the whole operation again.
Although as an aside who these people are who think corporate pensions are a good idea is beyond me. People really should be in charge of their own savings in preference to their employer, expecting some random corporation to cover the cost was always a bit crazy even when it seemed sort-of possible that the system was stable. It is easy to have some sympathy but, as a practical matter, it was never going to work and it isn't a surprise that it didn't.
zdw · 5h ago
Note that GE is one of the example companies in the Collins/Porras book "Built to Last".
I'd love to see an explanation of what went wrong from those guys.
twoodfin · 5h ago
Personally, I want capital markets that are dynamic enough that some fraction of $n00 billion businesses become $(n-k)00 billion businesses (check out the aggregate market cap today of GE’s progeny).
I’m not even sure there’s a counterfactual world where GE is a $m trillion business: The global economy has largely evolved beyond these massive, diverse conglomerates, and likely all to the good.
What does a “wow, GE really has been managed wonderfully since 1980” story even look like? I imagine they split up much earlier, each spinoff establishes their own brand, and there’s no “GE” to talk about.
gwintrob · 3h ago
There's an alternative world where they didn't focus so much on financing and GE Capital. You make a good point that they still would have a diverse set of businesses that would be hard/awkward to build in parallel.
squeedles · 6h ago
Recently read The Man Who Broke Capitalism by David Gelles which is an excellent review of the Welch years, how he worked, and how he sent his minions out across the corporate world to wreak havoc. Wonderful read and really provides perspective on why modern corporate America is what it is.
Light Out by Gryta and Mann follow up by focusing on the Immelt years and how he tried to keep the ball rolling despite the hole that Jack left him in. Also an excellent read.
Sounds like Power Failure covers a lot of the same material as these two earlier books perhaps with some historical material.
tonyarkles · 5h ago
> Recently read The Man Who Broke Capitalism by David Gelles which is an excellent review of the Welch years, how he worked, and how he sent his minions out across the corporate world to wreak havoc.
The parts about Boeing in that book are... rough. Not rough as in "poorly-written" but rough as in "holy hell is that ever a brutal way to ruin a good company". Excellent book but lol it's not a feel-good read :)
Barbing · 3h ago
Maybe a decade ago I read from critics concerned a shift to an aggressively globalized supply chain was certain to wreak havoc on Boeing’s quality control.
e.g. safety-critical nuts and bolts used to be produced down the street, now you get a few nuts from say Thailand and a few bolts from Malaysia… the critics complained it was certain to lead to problems.
Was that a part of what you read about in that book?
tonyarkles · 2h ago
Not significantly no, it was much more focused on the McDonnell-Douglas reverse acquisition. To summarize: McDonnell-Douglas was failing and bought Boeing with Boeing’s own stock (technically Boeing bought McDonnell-Douglas with Boeing stock but in practice McDonnell management assumed control). MD’s executives were Jack Welch protégés and did the same thing to Boeing that happened to GE.
delibes · 5h ago
GE "created the jet engine"? British would disagree
"Jeff has the unfortunate task of following a legend. It's like being a baseball player and following Babe Ruth." - Jack Welch, 2001
God that’s insufferable, even by Jack Welch’s standards.
rtpg · 5h ago
Recently read "Lights Out", which was a fun book covering the past couple decades in good amount of details. Basically a hit piece on one of the CEOs, but hey if you're flying around with a "backup" private jet you probably deserve a couple hit pieces.
actionfromafar · 8h ago
”The company ran on quasi-religious faith that the right leader could bend markets and reality itself.”
I said that religion does not thrive under capitalism, and of course this was the fate met by the Bell system. The breakup of the Bell system in 1982 occurred primarily in response to their very high rates, which were (accurately) seen as symptomatic of the monopoly they enjoyed.
Nobody is wearing masks, but there is a lot of name-dropping by the field reporter, Robert Frank, and a full obituary in the dooblydoo; don't miss them
SoftTalker · 3h ago
Widespread mask mandates were still a few weeks away on March 5.
rkagerer · 4h ago
"financialization and imperial CEOs destroyed a 130-year industrial icon"
ivraatiems · 7h ago
I don't think this article was written by AI - at least, I am not sure it is - but the way it is divided up, the bullet lists and "key quotes" and breaking a relatively short article into even shorter sections, makes it feel AI generated.
Sounds like an interesting book but the article says remarkably little.
gwintrob · 6h ago
Thanks for the feedback. I try to keep track of quotes I like when I'm reading. This was an attempt to bundle them up into some useful themes. I'll try to expand into something more opinionated for the next one :)
Cogito · 6h ago
Just reiterating what cogogo stated in a sibling, but the thing that threw me was the 'review' in the title. I was expecting some critique or comparison but instead saw summary and highlights.
I enjoyed the summary and highlights, and learnt about some details I would likely have never otherwise seen, so I think it's just the framing that seemed 'off'.
Depending on your intent consider reframing or adding critique, but I think the content is good and I appreciate you making it.
[edit] There is some critique and comparison in the opening: "Shakespearean tragedy" and "The result is equal parts invention history, boardroom knife-fight, and forensic accounting thriller." but I think these are the only ones. I would love to know why you think this, and what you like about your "favorite ideas" (and any things you didn't like!)
peterldowns · 5h ago
Did you use AI to write this review, or was it entirely by hand? The structure, emphases, and conclusion directly match the way ChatGPT tends to answer my requests to summarize/analyze/compare.
gwintrob · 3h ago
I came up with the organization and the quotes but I definitely used AI to help improve it. For example, a friend pointed out that a word was overly flowery so I asked Claude for some alternatives (https://imgur.com/a/k3sQ7lR). I believe not using AI is going to be like not using a word processor soon. AI will help people communicate more, sharpen their thoughts, and learn faster.
This does have me thinking more about what causes things to look AI-generated. The uncanny valley effect. It seems like some people don't like the header image but I thought that was a nice touch to have a visual element.
What's ironic is I normally use ChatGPT but they have a bug that caused my account to be downgraded so I didn't have my "normal" AI tool today.
avhception · 8m ago
While I'm certainly no stranger to letting an LLM help me streamline some technical documentation, I also think it will eventually grind down everything to a sea of "lowest common denominator" speech.
A friend of mine recently used an LLM to help write a condolence card, and I found that appalling.
Who I am as a person is the sum of my experiences, and I'm not even talking about the great cornerstones but random stuff.
Like that one time I accidentally still had our cordless house phone in my pocket as a kid when I went to play in the woods and lost it there.
There are thousands of these little things, and it's what makes you unique and influences how you talk and think.
I am saddened by the thought of "not using AI will be like not using a word processor soon". It will grind away all the little weirdness, all the little unique aspects.
I would have loved to read "apotheosis". I didn't even know that word!
jrowen · 4h ago
That's interesting. I didn't consider that it was AI at any point while reading it, and I don't use it very much. Going back I see what people are saying but I think it's more cohesive and compelling than what AI would write.
I agree that it's more of a "key takeaways" than a critical review but I appreciated that the author didn't make it about themself.
Barbing · 3h ago
Great reception here.
Based on your attitude I know I’m safe to note something, something potentially all but irrelevant in the coming years: as soon as I saw the artwork I did a reverse image search and concluded it was likely generated.
I am unable to articulate exactly why, but it seemed to take away from the piece. Weird huh? (non sarcastic)
cr125rider · 5h ago
I liked how it was laid out. I consume information like that well. Thanks for the write up.
That style had become popular in news stories even before AI. I call it “writing for 8th graders”
staticshock · 4h ago
Ignoring for the moment the fact that this particular article is a book summary, a task LLMs excel at, it's interesting that the (warranted) comparison to LLM outputs casts doubt on the credibility of the writing, and in some ways maybe even caps its implied utility.
Just like how human beings choose different ways of presenting themselves to the world (e.g. masculine/feminine, gay/straight, goth/punk/preppy) as a form of social signaling, today's LLMs emit a certain "I'm AI" signal that humans pick up on, and human writers will likely have to continue evolving the counter-position(s) to that signal.
If the results of relatively simple, unsophisticated prompts get better at passing for human-written articles/blog posts/forum comments/etc, that'll increase the fraction of human writing that falls into this uncanny valley, and exacerbate the need for stronger counter-positioning over time.
cogogo · 7h ago
Felt like a summary - not sure I even considered AI even if it didn’t read like a critical review. I do really want to read the book. Jack Welch is a case study in hubris. And I worked for a startup that had a relationship with Immelt. We kept trying to use breakfasts and dinners with him as a marketing ploy…
Aurornis · 3h ago
It’s funny how this works. The writing style did not tickle my LLM detectors, but the structure certainly looks like common LLM formatting with the sections and key quotes at the end.
My parents view pensions as gold standard. That it cannot be messed with and clearly this article shows that it can. The promise for your years of service can't be paid out.
Now something you thought you allow you to not worry until your passing, you begin to worry about how you'll survive in a few years with all the rising prices.
However it is important to recall that the people who actually made all the money extracting the wealth got out years before, retiring and/or selling stock. They're bystanders now and probably happy to run the whole operation again.
Although as an aside who these people are who think corporate pensions are a good idea is beyond me. People really should be in charge of their own savings in preference to their employer, expecting some random corporation to cover the cost was always a bit crazy even when it seemed sort-of possible that the system was stable. It is easy to have some sympathy but, as a practical matter, it was never going to work and it isn't a surprise that it didn't.
I'd love to see an explanation of what went wrong from those guys.
I’m not even sure there’s a counterfactual world where GE is a $m trillion business: The global economy has largely evolved beyond these massive, diverse conglomerates, and likely all to the good.
What does a “wow, GE really has been managed wonderfully since 1980” story even look like? I imagine they split up much earlier, each spinoff establishes their own brand, and there’s no “GE” to talk about.
Light Out by Gryta and Mann follow up by focusing on the Immelt years and how he tried to keep the ball rolling despite the hole that Jack left him in. Also an excellent read.
Sounds like Power Failure covers a lot of the same material as these two earlier books perhaps with some historical material.
The parts about Boeing in that book are... rough. Not rough as in "poorly-written" but rough as in "holy hell is that ever a brutal way to ruin a good company". Excellent book but lol it's not a feel-good read :)
e.g. safety-critical nuts and bolts used to be produced down the street, now you get a few nuts from say Thailand and a few bolts from Malaysia… the critics complained it was certain to lead to problems.
Was that a part of what you read about in that book?
God that’s insufferable, even by Jack Welch’s standards.
Hm, doesn’t ring a Bell.
https://computer.rip/2020-06-14-manifest-telephone.html
I said that religion does not thrive under capitalism, and of course this was the fate met by the Bell system. The breakup of the Bell system in 1982 occurred primarily in response to their very high rates, which were (accurately) seen as symptomatic of the monopoly they enjoyed.
CNBC Reporting Live from Jack Welch's funeral, March 5, 2020: https://youtu.be/6opKFgvRzjE?si=ynbAEYEZBCzfuTqE
Nobody is wearing masks, but there is a lot of name-dropping by the field reporter, Robert Frank, and a full obituary in the dooblydoo; don't miss them
Sounds like an interesting book but the article says remarkably little.
I enjoyed the summary and highlights, and learnt about some details I would likely have never otherwise seen, so I think it's just the framing that seemed 'off'.
Depending on your intent consider reframing or adding critique, but I think the content is good and I appreciate you making it.
[edit] There is some critique and comparison in the opening: "Shakespearean tragedy" and "The result is equal parts invention history, boardroom knife-fight, and forensic accounting thriller." but I think these are the only ones. I would love to know why you think this, and what you like about your "favorite ideas" (and any things you didn't like!)
This does have me thinking more about what causes things to look AI-generated. The uncanny valley effect. It seems like some people don't like the header image but I thought that was a nice touch to have a visual element.
What's ironic is I normally use ChatGPT but they have a bug that caused my account to be downgraded so I didn't have my "normal" AI tool today.
A friend of mine recently used an LLM to help write a condolence card, and I found that appalling.
Who I am as a person is the sum of my experiences, and I'm not even talking about the great cornerstones but random stuff. Like that one time I accidentally still had our cordless house phone in my pocket as a kid when I went to play in the woods and lost it there. There are thousands of these little things, and it's what makes you unique and influences how you talk and think. I am saddened by the thought of "not using AI will be like not using a word processor soon". It will grind away all the little weirdness, all the little unique aspects. I would have loved to read "apotheosis". I didn't even know that word!
I agree that it's more of a "key takeaways" than a critical review but I appreciated that the author didn't make it about themself.
Based on your attitude I know I’m safe to note something, something potentially all but irrelevant in the coming years: as soon as I saw the artwork I did a reverse image search and concluded it was likely generated.
I am unable to articulate exactly why, but it seemed to take away from the piece. Weird huh? (non sarcastic)
The apparently-AI artwork doesn't help. From some googling it appears to be a direct rip-off of this: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-great-amer...
Just like how human beings choose different ways of presenting themselves to the world (e.g. masculine/feminine, gay/straight, goth/punk/preppy) as a form of social signaling, today's LLMs emit a certain "I'm AI" signal that humans pick up on, and human writers will likely have to continue evolving the counter-position(s) to that signal.
If the results of relatively simple, unsophisticated prompts get better at passing for human-written articles/blog posts/forum comments/etc, that'll increase the fraction of human writing that falls into this uncanny valley, and exacerbate the need for stronger counter-positioning over time.