I worked for Alstom Power for 30 years as a steam turbine maintenance engineer; GE bought Alstom Power in 2016 and turned the business into a nightmare for employees and customers. The last straw was when they sent me on a turbine outage (which would normally be manned up by four or more experienced engineers) as the outage manager, planning engineer, lifting specialist, permit holder, day-shift supervisor and technical service engineer. I didn't even attempt it, I resigned on the first day of the outage and retired. I heard the 36 day outage took over 3 months to complete and lost GE millions.
So they expected you to leap into a crisis situation solo, instead of being part of a hot shot team of 4 or more people? Sounds to me like that job was allocated by a bean counter who was only looking at the immediate response costs and not the contractual penalties clauses for failure to provide service. You did the right thing! Sticking around on that job would have cost you your reputation and quite possibly your health for being pinned as the scapegoat.
I understand you. It was the same situation done to my ex-company, a offshore equipment manufacturer, a lot of the experienced technical & engineers left due to such situation.
Can you explain why it pissed you off? Were you able to do it by your own? Was it dangerous for you? Or was it just that you thought it was a stupid decision?
I worked at GE for 23 years and this video does a great job of explaining the recent downfall of GE. But I disagree that it was all a unforseen mistake by Jack Welch and the board of directors. I think they knew exactly what they were doing(running the company into the ground)and made a massive boat load of money for themselves.
Immelt made the most fatal mistakes acquiring companies for way more than they were worth and liquidating too soon at a discount like Baker- Hughes and then the GE Capital with all the risky long term insurance liabilities and comprising almost half the company was nearly total meltdown back in 2008. Transportation was the star darling at the 2010 annual shareholders meeting but that had to be a sacrificial lamb in 2019. They had better choices than 2 Jet Jeff to replace Welch- John Rice was top shelf so was Dave Calhoun who went to lead Nielson Ratings but now CEO at Boeing, also Bob Nardelli - yes Bob screwed up at Home Depot but did a good job leading Chrysler. Jeff had so many hopes on the internet of things ( IOT) but forgot the day to day and appreciate or listen to the employees.
The problem with rank-and-yank employee policy is that it turns every employee against each other. Instead of cooperating, everyone is competing in a cutthroat work environment.
The biggest mistake he made was making Jeff Imelt the CEO instead of Ranaldi who was a brick and mortar veteran. The surest way to sink a company is to make a marketing person the CEO who only spews bullshit
Our state manager is like a salesman. The company has MULTIPLE issues but I come into the office to ask a question about a product that has to go out soon and I've got piles of other work to do. Get a big false hype up talk about some customer (car racing team) and we might be able to get free passes off them! Car race is in another state and I'm work 63-65 hours a week, 6 days. I just want to know what part has to go with this product, and get outta there.... Anyone from a marketing or sales BACKGROUND just CAN'T STOP hyping stuff and LYING....
Dave Calhoun was a super guy who went to Nielson Ratings but now CEO of Boeing. Bob Nardelli was a good choice too aside from his blunder at Home Depot but he did ok at Chrysler. I like seeing his commentary on Fox shows like Maria Bartiromo.
It’s good you mentioned the Rank and Yank practice of GE. Microsoft also had a similar practice they called Stack Ranking. Netflix also has its Keeper Test. All these BS labor practices are destructive in nature and any company doing something similar will end up with a workforce that does nothing but focus on surviving for the paycheck. They will not result in a strong innovative company, just a highly toxic and political one.
Agreed. Now, I would caution that I’ve worked in companies (management) where we also had stank ranking. However, firstly, there was a ton of discretion around this. Secondly, the focus was merely to find the people that needed extra help. Yes from there we found that occasional person that after years of efforts from management still never rose out and eventually left the company but it was done as a last resort and with great regret. It was the best I’ve ever seen these ranking systems used.
Many companies are practicing this now. They the good people just enough to do the basic work then release them to have lower people to do the work so we have the data breaches in IT as new people don’t know.
GE was a customer of my business and their procurement was some of the worst I had seen. The contracts they tried to push onto use were insane and in the end their terms were so prohibitive we ended up not selling then the products. Insane business practice.
@@LogicallyAnsweredI wish you do another video on them they are worst than you present them. But you did a better and more truthful job than anybody I have seen. What David is talking about happened frequently with companies like flour Daniel that helped build GE plants and do contractors work and maintenance work etc, Duke Powers. They was also known for many things such as not paying their contracts on time and using the money to occure interest. The list goes on and on . I might know of some other interesting things about them if you wanted to contact me.
I was so saddened when GE sold off its transportation (Rail and Marine) business back in 2019 as my Dad was a retired UP engineer, dad always preferred GE over Electromotive engines, and as a kid I always wondered how the same company could make things as small as a light bulb and as large as a locomotive. Greed always gets you a big 0 in the long run.
I've bought 4 led bulb thinking of these bulb a good cost savings, bulb dead even low hours in used.. quality is no where to be found . Now I've just buy china bulbs.
Sad, especially as they knocked GM out of the number one slot as regards diesel locos. South Africa has large numbers of GE locos; in fact we bought GE before we bought GMs
GE Transportation was a solid business and was the star darling when Immelt hosted the 2010 shareholders meeting in Erie. His ineptness at running the company led to that business being a sacrificial lamb to Wabtec but the business is still basically GE except for the name change. I worked there 40 years and got out before the sad spinoff.
Jack Welch was one of the primary beneficiaries of the cult of the CEO. That somehow, through shear force of personality and character, a single person could turn around a company and make it poop gold. If you see someone like this in charge of your company, who spends so much effort promoting themselves, run away, don't walk.
Really funny, to see this report! For several decades, the top business schools around the world portrayed Jack Welch as an iconic and the greatest business leader. They discussed several case studies on his “success” at GE! Many from these business schools, who modeled their own careers imitating Jack Welch were guaranteed success and showed quick results. Some today lead the biggest business establishments in the world. I wonder what they would have to say when they see the decline of GE and their current status. Everyone was taught that Jack himself demanded high performance and integrity from his subordinates. However, when details of the “sweet deal” Jack had made for himself for GE to pay for post-retirement life were exposed, he brought disgrace to himself! So, this does not surprise me!
Maybe that's why half of the largest American mega corps are doomed for failure nowadays. All their leaders modeled themselves after a short term thinker.
I didn't know GE had this many problems. There's a limit to how much of a "megacorp" you can sustainably try to be. What's rotten needs to be burned and reborn from ashes. It's a shame that it's written in the law that a company HAS to satisfy shareholders, every company that focused on shareholders 100% always, always tumbled. Healthy balance and probably even making a company private would give the next executive leader the power to change up stuff. But honestly, who will take the helm of GE and turn it around? Nice video as always.
There is no limit how mega a mega corp can be. Japan has Zaibatsu. Korea has Chaebol. You know Samsung makes electronics. They also build ships. India has Tata. Tata makes everything and even have IT consultants in every tech company. The capitalistic shareholder system isn’t a bad idea. Its like voters. There are certain assumptions that a president must try to please voters every 4 years. We know that that leads to a weak President. But voters and shareholders aren’t stupid. Just need a good leader who has the balls and talent to follow through on the promises. Voters and shareholders would except visionary, capable leaders. It’s these sniveling wimps we despise.
@@TheBooban Fair point. However, how often do these megacorps abuse their new gained money to take charge of the governments and defacto control them for their benefit and growth? I certainly can say that Chaebols are not doing any favors to SK. They make cool stuff, but when they grow too large for government to control, what happens to the employees? And any power struggle inside these corporations could overthrow a good, visionary leadership with money and power hungry "leaders".
There’s a way around this-the first step of which is “interest” funds, such as ESGs. The presence of such shareholders sends the signal to CEOs that “shareholder value” is more than just stock price.
Only in america this is law. This is why american companies struggle to make products like a car. That is expensive, and people want it to last and be reliable. US cars are so bad they cannot even dominate domestic marked. Even with goverment protection of 25% tariff on any import car. If you look at Germany, Germany cars dominate. In Japan, Japanese cars dominate. Cause they both make quality, so there is little reason for the citizens to buy something else than their own brand.. In US its very different. People want to buy US made, cause of patrotism.. But they end up with a shit product. So many opt out of it. US still makes airplanes, but seing how Boeing is falling into this profit trap aswell (Look at the MAX disaster, killed hundreds of people for the sake of saving a few bucks) I suspect Boeing to slowly fall aswell, due to them prioritizing profits over quality. Then Europe/China will dominate marked. The corporate nature in US is toxic and needs to change if they are to stay competetive with the world. If not they only end up as B-team manufacturers who cannot make quality products that demand a premium price.
Further explanation for Jack's nickname: Neutron Jack's name is a reference to the Neutron Bomb, a cold war era innovation on the nuclear bomb, which would kill every living thing in an area while leaving all the infrastructure unharmed. Jack was said to do something similar in that he would enter a building, disappear all the people, but keep the non-living asset
My company has rank and yank policy and I cant even list all the damage it causes. From low self esteem in employees, destructive competition, promoting favoritism in managers and ass kissing in employees, to serious mental health issues - it single handedly achieves all of the above.
Before I retired I worked with a contractor who used to be part of a company overhauling steam turbine valve actuators...a highly skilled job on a critical turbine component. GE bought the company, immediately cutting the workforce, implementing procedures to speed up the overhaul process and increasing the price charged to customers. Result: overworked Engineers cutting corners to meet targets and angry customers paying more for a substandard product which failed in service. I believe this course of events is common when GE acquires a profitable, successful business and "restructures it".
GE made a rookie error. They lost sight of their core business. They were brilliant engineering folks - and they got into the financial services sector!! Hello!!
When you give b-school people free reign, they analyze every business into “financial services.” Nothing is so profitable as lending money-as long as leverage is working for you.
Yep. What's really funny is they're still doing it. I'd love to see the emails of the c suite following the MAX crash and right now. I'm certain it would be truly ghoulish. They are completely psychotic. Of course they only fly corporate so what do they care?
I was wondering if anyone else was going to mention Boeing. The worst aspect of this company is the ludicrous amount of debt they've concealed in off balance sheet transactions. The billions they spent developing the 787 and other projects are not directly reflected the the company's financials because, like Enron, they isolated the costs and only book them when they sell a plane. This is all done so that management can cook the books so that they can reap unearned bonuses. It's just a matter of time into this house of cards also collapses.
Classic example of the consequences of antitrust laws being removed. Those laws were put in place to protect the economy from corporate greed, but also to protect the companies themselves. Since the neoliberal turn in the 80s, there have been much more bankruptcies and economic crisises than during the previous period of 30s through 70s, just because companies' boards are allowed to do stuff that would have been illegal before
I had a short-lived contract as a technical author at one of GE's major sites in the UK. The project had screwed up by not delivering engineering documentation to the customer during the development phase, and when the sh*t hit the pan because project managers were complaining about missing deliverables, the management decided to rectify the situation by bringing in five contract authors from outside the company to sort it out. With a cohesive management team and motivated engineering cadre there would be no reason for this problem to have developed, and once the five of us arrived it was far too late. A few years later another company I work for bid for work on the same site. Their bid was rejected in the early stages before they had invested too much work into it and I told the management about my experiences there. In short I told them that most likely they had dodged a bullet by not getting the work.
I work for GE now, and there's definitely a change in culture now. Splitting of the business into 3 is going to help a lot, and hopefully take us back to where we belong
I work for GE Aviation, it's awsome, and I don't see any of these issues that are being talked about here, we are continuing to grow, and I love the workplace. We certainly aren't firing 10% of our employees every year.
@@Internet_Shenanigans I work for GE Additive. Its all great actually except we canceled the Chances to hold customer like space x , NASA and Co. Just for aviation. I think this wasnt a good choice
I have only seen a few companies do reverse stock splits for the last 30 years. Every one of them filed for bankruptcy soon after. I have bought and sold GE a few times. When they did their reverse split, I was out.
I went to a career center and GE came in trying to recruit people. The lady who helps us get jobs asked the guy how will the students know that they won't be laid off after a few years like many other employees are constantly. He did not like that question at all. Working in that industry I found out how many people are laid off at GE cause they just struggle so much.
I work at GE and everyone here measures their time with the company in decades. It is almost unheard of that anyone is ever fired, and many people who leave for greener pastures end up coming back because places like Amazon don't have the great work/life balance that GE offers. When there are "layoffs" usually it just ends up with some of the old guys taking an early retirement, and when the business environment recovers they end up coming back as "rehired pensioners". With the new spinoff of the companies I have never felt better about my prospects as a GE Aerospace employee!
I started my career with GE at JFWTC center in India. Went through all the good times of India startup, great learnings at world class facility. There were good analysts who share their views on the progress of GE and that was in Y2001/2. As an youngster was not able catch those analysis and discussions. But you said it all right, it was heading towards a collapse and now I can travel back in time and relate a few events..
The honest truth was , that Jeff Immelt and to some Jack Welch destroyed GE. Bad decisions and acquisitions by Immelt has made him rich while a once Great Company and workers suffered!
Bottom 10% or even bottom 5% mandated turnover is destructive if you have nowhere near that many underperformers, but it is bad even if you do. My Fortune 100 corp has more than 10% serious underperformers. Some people take longer, often through no fault of their own, to hit their stride and do well. Those are precisely the ones you want to keep. Additionally, why replace underperformers if you can't replace them with anyone better, and in many cases end up replacing them with worse people? An HR exec's office is near mine, and being from different divisions, we talk shop to maintain our sanity. She hates to sign off on terminating an underperformer because the replacement is almost always worse. And it's expensive.
I guess it's a smaller world than the management in companies like GE think it is, and information about a company being bad to work for soon gets around. When HR go to agencies to replace fired staff I would think that they get fobbed off with the less experienced and less capable candidates.
I'm proud to work at GE. Our technologies are the ones making me feel living in an advanced civilization. Honestly as a blue collar never had to worry about my position. I know that management does but this is not in my understanding the main driver. The worse brake we have to struggle with is process, standard. We have to comply with so much rules that: 1- two lifes would not be enough 2- you can avoid working justified by the rules 100% time 3- No self decision making resulting in poorly effective teams.
I work at a non-union GE Aviation plant and every day I see firsthand why this company is in bad shape. They incentivize bad behavior. Here is just one example. Bob and Tom both set up and operate the same CNC cell but on different shifts. Bob always does at least 80% of the set ups and has excellent quality while Tom has just as much time on the set ups but doesn't know what he's doing and is screwing off most of the time. He also has terrible quality. At review time Tom will get a bigger pay increase because he's been with the company longer and he can make junk on more types of machines. The company doesn't care about quality and efficiency, it's not even in their performance matrix, probably because they don't know who does what. Bob soon learns that there is no incentive for performance and will either leave the company to work for someone who cares, or he will stop caring himself and adopt Tom's work ethics. Every company has some issues, but GE is rotten from top to bottom, at least at the plant I work at.
This is what happens when you let accountants and MBA's take charge of a business. NEVER allow a bank or an accountant to give you business advice. They will destroy your business.
My father worked at the GE Base Works plant in Providence, RI, for two decades. Soon after NAFTA, GE closed the plant and moved the operation to Mexico. I have no sympathy at all for GE. In fact, I'll glad to see it crash and burn! There's a lesson for us to learn: Allowing Fortune 500 Corporations to relocate their factories to foreign countries where workers get slave wages, giving these companies massive tax breaks, and bailing them out whenever they face bankruptcy does not save them. We must stop privitizing the profits whilst whilst socializing the loses!
GE’s failure was because they doubled down on oil when oil was reaching its peak. This resulted in them suffer when oil prices collapsed. The spin off would also result in more value by each part of the business. The conglomerate discount weights downs GEs valuation.
As a former GE employee in the power sector they made the big miss when they did the Alstom acquisition instead of reading the tea leaves and going all in on renewables. Its not all bad as they did buy the wind turbine business from Enron and grew that but their heart was not into it until recently once other OEMs had developed tech and was out competing on price.
@@chomot11 Also a former employee and I think Logically Answered hit the nail on the head. GE became the giant it was by making and selling things. Then Welch decided to turn it into a bank and insurance company. Anyone who worked for them also understands their obsession with "excess" inventory. Even before the current financial mess they had pared inventory and supply chains so much that the slightest hiccup in supply caused nightmares. At least that's how it was working for Aircraft Engines.
Any business that prioritizes profits through layoffs over providing for the people that have committed their lives to that business deserves to fail. A business has only one purpose, to serve people. It serves customers through great products and services, and it serves those within the company with a livelihood. Anything beyond this is destructive to the purpose of a business.
i don't think that companies going bankrupt is always a bad think i just believe that companies who are not significantly contributing to human society as a whole should go bankrupt as these companies are just wasting the resources and manpower ,these resources need to get back into the market so they can be used more efficiently.
GE still makes decent engines for airplanes and their healthcare department also keeps people alive. I think that contributes to the society positively at least on some level. Definitely more so than tiktok.
My dad worked for GE in Fort Wayne for about 10 years before he died, but back then if you got into GE, you had it made. They had benefits like crazy, they had huge Christmas parties with shows and gifts for the kids, and a decent pension program. Then it all started going downhill. They closed the Winter St. plant, then later on the Taylor St. plant. Finally they shut down the Broadway plant, and left Fort Wayne altogether. The last act was to dismantle their sign. The old buildings are finding new life, though. BAE took over some of the buildings on Taylor St., and the Broadway plant is becoming a condo and specialty shop complex called Electric Works, and the city is dumping billions into it.
I've not been able to track the article down, but it was maybe 10+ years ago. What was written at the time was that GE Financial Services was the biggest component of GE and out of that, the bulk of their revenue was from collecting child support from "deadbeat dads". Not the best image to show for what is meant to be an engineering firm.
I think it happened because the company was managed by "financiers" instead of "engineers"... Therefore, they did not make a modern railway locomotive in time...
HP and Trimble also did the "lose X pct per year of your employees" schtick. It's like their senior leadership are all members of the same country club: Club Moron. I mean, if it's good to fire a percent of direct contributors, why not double that for managers, and double THAT for senior leadership?
It’s a real rise and fall of a company that was at one time one of the largest in the country! And crazy that it was broken up into 3 separate companies now since April 2024
Im an appliance tech and currently ge dishwashers from 2014-2021 all suffer from the same problems controlboard issues and anything with rubber leaks. Newer ge ranges have alot of controlboard issues as well. One range i only needed 1 board but could only order it as an assembly with the touchpad console and four boards in total. A $1000 part that we charge ge $680 for an in warranty product. Ge doesnt have many techs where i work but 100% of the time if ge was there b4 me it doesn’t surprise me that they werent able to fix their own product. I work on multiple brands and its not that hard to read a schematic if u need to. Im not really shocked theyre having trouble when there own people cant fix 1 brand. My son had to get xrays done n even the tech at the hospital said the portable xray machine sucked n was always breaking down
Now I understand why a she monster from GE came to work for the USAF back in "83 or 84" where I was just getting started as a young Engineer. She was a living nightmare! An yes, I think GE earned the trouble they got. Thanks for the historical insights.
For anyone outside the US, or in the US but unaware of history, GE (General Electric) was the company founded by Thomas Edison in 1892. Edison was a legitimate superstar in his day but his most famous invention was the electric lightbulb. Edison's arch enemy was a man named Nikola Tesla and their most famous battle was over which electrification standard should be mass produced, Edison's Direct Current (DC) or Tesla's Alternating Current (AC). e.g. AC/DC.
and judging by history, now we know that T.A. Edison is also a money hunger prick and doesnt like to lose in a healthy competition. so, nowadays, GE falls, and Tesla(motors) is on top and truly making changes (if not one of the contributors) to the world in a positive manners. i'd say... serves the a*hole(Edison) right seeing his legacy tumbles through his own legacy that is greed.
Edison is quite the showman, to scare people of AC power he arrange to have somebody executed with electricity. Maybe he arrange it to go badly and the person did not die right away. DC power that Edison sells cant be transmitted from far away, every block must have their own big generator that supply nearby buildings
I used to work for GE right out of highschool and can even see the now closed plant I worked at from my home. A lot of people here won't touch anything from GE.
I worked in GE healthcare for almost 6 years. It was my wrong choice to join GE. Whimsical decisions by the higher management spoil my career in mid age. I was the product manager of the patient monitoring segment. They diluted the entire department all of a sudden,shifted us to a different profile without judging experience,respect and honour. They thought I should be obliged that I can continue my job. It happened to many of my peers. They don't respect anyone ,they know how to do business.The culture is pathetic
it's worse than that. the engineering 'leaders' became the bean counters! the boeing accountants told the mcdonnel engineering leaders not to make the bad decisions!
@@archingelus This wasn't common knowledge to the public .Every corporation has a marketing and propaganda machine inside the company and outside the company.
@@kellyowens4728 well then why don't they quit when they know those propaganda? t he fact that i see so many comments talking about this AND this articles, that means this is NOT a common knowledge that is unknown or we are not talking this at all
GE was founded by Thomas Edison and JP Morgen, needless to say, it's been a pretty staple company in the US for over 100 years. Funny how its now known as the Dryer and Washing Machine company.
Over $100 billion for GE. But watch how little the government will care when people start losing their homes by the millions because of rapidly increasing interest rates.
There's a company here in Australia JUST LIKE sears that pays A BIG dividend. And I give it 10 years and it'll be dead. Too expensive for everything they sell. ALL the competition sells similar stuff FAR cheaper.
If you look at this carefully, you’ll understand it was GE Capital that led to the downfall than anything else. The ravenous and ruthless practices followed by Welch , led to GE losing employee loyalty. That is a tremendous blow, more so when you consider the fact that your employees are your biggest asset. Non related acquisitions can drag you down in a big way. But when you look at the whole tragedy objectively it is the Subprime lending that sank the whole ship than all other sins together.
Sometimes it's not easy to let them fail because there are many other companies dependent on them for example AIG defaulted in 2008 economic crisis but got a massive bail out because many national and international banks were involved with AIG, trillions of dollars was at stake that could have taken the whole world economy down and that's why federal government had to bail it out.
@@oynion that's not how economy works if big companies will fail the whole financial system will go down and the money that you are talking about to giving it to the people will be worthless over the time because there will be no jobs the value of money will depreciate as much as much we hate bail out sometimes there are no other ways
@@aakashsingh1368 yadda yadda yadda. Just repeating the propaganda. Bankruptcy is completely normal and done in an organized manner under chapter 11. The only people it hurts are the ones that loaned the entity money. They don’t get that money back while the company then re emerges running operations as normal. Just a bit smaller. Bail outs on the other hand, mostly pay off the folks who had loaned this company money. Why should they get that? Bad loan, too bad, suck it up.
I work at GE now let me tell you their management is extremely poor they really need help in that department they could get trillions but with stupid people in charge nothing will change
Great video. Technical correct: the name Neuton Jack, came from the reputation he earned. He would fly to a plant, and make visit. Later all the employees would be gone, as though a neutron bomb had gone off. He personally laid off 150,000 workers. But other than that, he was a really nice guy. Not.
GE continues to be top heavy. Too many financial managers and other leaders that create endless initiatives that only create "busy" non-value added work. GE has lost focus of offering quality products for a profit. As long as GE's focus is making investors happy instead of customers, bankruptcy is a strong possibility. There are many good employees at GE. The problem is out of touch financial leadership.
If GE goes on build under ocean airport for B1 or Boeing and space station are greatest move including nontraditional farm...if use 1% to do concept proof of each of those then look for pentagon and airline contract then no laid-off needed
Before 2007, Jack Welch was treated as the industrial guru whose presense was equivalent to Elon Musk then. The books he wrote was the must-read for intellectual. Now GE? Most of youths never heard of, and no willing to.
They were notorious for even looking back at resumes when trying to trim to see if people listed wrong employment dates. So if for some reason if your someone who lists dates xx/xx/xxxx instead of xx/xxxx better hope those days are spot on or they will term you for lying on your resume. That's why I only do month/year and if possible just year and make sure when questioned "it's to the best extent of my knowledge" which is really the general standard. Imagine getting capped because you were off 3 days...
@@OffGridInvestor yeah and if they weren't doing shit like that they would yo-yo ppl with firing and rehirings and like not typical contract work style. They were terrible though apparently they paid well, if you were one of the lucky ones.
The more I think about this, the more I feel that GE basically pulled a Daewoo its weird that despite all this GE makes the world's biggest aircraft engines and is a literal market leader in that segment...crazy
This video is way off target in blaming Jack Welch for everything. Welch retired from GE in 2001, when its stock price was still sky high (its stock price has never since approached the highs of 2000-2001 when Welch was the CEO) and the company was dominant in numerous sectors. Jeffrey Immelt is really the Chief Culprit in the massive decline of GE, taking over as CEO in 2001. Immelt further pushed GE into a culture of bean counting and maximizing profitablity over technological excellence and quality, while also further expanding GE Capital, and it was this latter huge expansion under Immelt that almost killed GE during the 2008 Great Financial Crisis. Under Immelt's watch, GE Healthcare, which used to dominate the US market for CT and MRI scanners with an overwhelming market share, has shrunk to almost nothing, which they accomplished by putting out poor quality machines at excessive prices. GE appliance quality also dropped, which is why nobody wanted to buy GE appliances anymore and why they ended up selling off the division to a Chinese company.
Rank and yank is bad for business, long-term. Scalp and promote is better for business, long-term. Not having to do either is best for business, but the hardest to achieve.
American corporates become greedy outrageously once reputation in stock market lifts them up..India was dumped with loss making Alsthom & many more..Jack Welch & cronies were letout unhurt.. GE is dead & Dollar is dying becoz of unscrupulous lavish ways of Pentagon & American politics.. hegemony of US is evaporating fast
True, ge capital and the long term care insurance business did in ge, but jack welsh’s aggressive focus on shedding un profitable businesses for profitable ones is what saved the company from being broken up by stock holders in the 80s (like what happened to Westinghouse).
I thought GE was still a great company until i see this video. I still remember a lot of corporate consultants used to cite GE as an example of how a great company should be run. Now i guess with the hindsight the consultants will cite how not to emulate GE way of management. Both ways the coprporate consultants make money by simply BS.
Our union hall helped build a brand new GE machine manufacturing facility in Welland Ontario Canada around 2018. GE used the building for about 6 months and moved out, and its still vacant to this day. What a waste of money.
I work at GE and there is poor management they have us mandated to work 7 days a week and I have worked that schedule for 3-4 months. They brought in a third shift to “increase productivity “ but it did nothing but drag it down cause they don’t do work and don’t really have management that makes sure they do it. So a possible solution to increasing productivity has done nothing but cause problems
many would agree that companies should be built so that they don't have any expectation of getting a bailout if things go south, but when a disaster hits, it's pretty hard for the current policy makers to stick to that
After the medical spinoff but before the energy spinoff GE will be very similar to Rolls-Royce. Both primarily turbo jet and aviation manafacturing companies with side business in nuclear energy.
I worked for Alstom Power for 30 years as a steam turbine maintenance engineer; GE bought Alstom Power in 2016 and turned the business into a nightmare for employees and customers. The last straw was when they sent me on a turbine outage (which would normally be manned up by four or more experienced engineers) as the outage manager, planning engineer, lifting specialist, permit holder, day-shift supervisor and technical service engineer. I didn't even attempt it, I resigned on the first day of the outage and retired. I heard the 36 day outage took over 3 months to complete and lost GE millions.
So they expected you to leap into a crisis situation solo, instead of being part of a hot shot team of 4 or more people? Sounds to me like that job was allocated by a bean counter who was only looking at the immediate response costs and not the contractual penalties clauses for failure to provide service. You did the right thing! Sticking around on that job would have cost you your reputation and quite possibly your health for being pinned as the scapegoat.
2016? GE still had capacity to buy after the financial crisis?
@@triadwarfare bad old habits stay huh
I understand you. It was the same situation done to my ex-company, a offshore equipment manufacturer, a lot of the experienced technical & engineers left due to such situation.
Can you explain why it pissed you off?
Were you able to do it by your own? Was it dangerous for you? Or was it just that you thought it was a stupid decision?
I worked at GE for 23 years and this video does a great job of explaining the recent downfall of GE. But I disagree that it was all a unforseen mistake by Jack Welch and the board of directors. I think they knew exactly what they were doing(running the company into the ground)and made a massive boat load of money for themselves.
slash and burn method.
They walked away with a mountain of money - funny how managers makes money while the company died.
Immelt made the most fatal mistakes acquiring companies for way more than they were worth and liquidating too soon at a discount like Baker- Hughes and then the GE Capital with all the risky long term insurance liabilities and comprising almost half the company was nearly total meltdown back in 2008. Transportation was the star darling at the 2010 annual shareholders meeting but that had to be a sacrificial lamb in 2019. They had better choices than 2 Jet Jeff to replace Welch- John Rice was top shelf so was Dave Calhoun who went to lead Nielson Ratings but now CEO at Boeing, also Bob Nardelli - yes Bob screwed up at Home Depot but did a good job leading Chrysler. Jeff had so many hopes on the internet of things ( IOT) but forgot the day to day and appreciate or listen to the employees.
Agreed. They knew exactly what they were doing.
People like you are literally giving us vital information for free while media focuses on stupid things. Thanks a lot.
I reiterate this sentiment
Thanks Harsh!
Seriously. I get more info on TH-cam than any media outlet combined
Well the media focuses on what sells
You do realize he's just distilling info from the media you just whined about, right?
The problem with rank-and-yank employee policy is that it turns every employee against each other. Instead of cooperating, everyone is competing in a cutthroat work environment.
Yep. Jack Welch had a lot to answer for
And managers still played favorites.
Ya, exactly
Yes it becomes very toxic very quick.
The biggest mistake he made was making Jeff Imelt the CEO instead of Ranaldi who was a brick and mortar veteran. The surest way to sink a company is to make a marketing person the CEO who only spews bullshit
Our state manager is like a salesman. The company has MULTIPLE issues but I come into the office to ask a question about a product that has to go out soon and I've got piles of other work to do. Get a big false hype up talk about some customer (car racing team) and we might be able to get free passes off them! Car race is in another state and I'm work 63-65 hours a week, 6 days. I just want to know what part has to go with this product, and get outta there.... Anyone from a marketing or sales BACKGROUND just CAN'T STOP hyping stuff and LYING....
Dave Calhoun was a super guy who went to Nielson Ratings but now CEO of Boeing. Bob Nardelli was a good choice too aside from his blunder at Home Depot but he did ok at Chrysler. I like seeing his commentary on Fox shows like Maria Bartiromo.
It’s good you mentioned the Rank and Yank practice of GE. Microsoft also had a similar practice they called Stack Ranking. Netflix also has its Keeper Test. All these BS labor practices are destructive in nature and any company doing something similar will end up with a workforce that does nothing but focus on surviving for the paycheck. They will not result in a strong innovative company, just a highly toxic and political one.
Yeah, super toxic for sure
Agreed. Now, I would caution that I’ve worked in companies (management) where we also had stank ranking. However, firstly, there was a ton of discretion around this.
Secondly, the focus was merely to find the people that needed extra help. Yes from there we found that occasional person that after years of efforts from management still never rose out and eventually left the company but it was done as a last resort and with great regret. It was the best I’ve ever seen these ranking systems used.
@@OopsFailedArt Thats always how/why it starts. Given enough time, bean counter intervention will always morph this practice into it’s evil twin.
When employment becomes a popularity contest, a company will produce nothing but anxiety and conformity.
Many companies are practicing this now. They the good people just enough to do the basic work then release them to have lower people to do the work so we have the data breaches in IT as new people don’t know.
As someone who used to work for GE, for sure they did nothing but make bad choices.
It's part of their niche. Bad company for bad customers lol
Hahaha, thanks for the inside scoop
who decided to stay in aviation but get out of health and energy... looking forward to a future video on that decision!
@@bruce-le-smith lol they got out of the better industries
@@bobdaniels3692 right? if i was looking for innovation and exponential returns it would be in health
GE was a customer of my business and their procurement was some of the worst I had seen. The contracts they tried to push onto use were insane and in the end their terms were so prohibitive we ended up not selling then the products. Insane business practice.
Sorry to hear that David
@@LogicallyAnsweredI wish you do another video on them they are worst than you present them. But you did a better and more truthful job than anybody I have seen. What David is talking about happened frequently with companies like flour Daniel that helped build GE plants and do contractors work and maintenance work etc, Duke Powers. They was also known for many things such as not paying their contracts on time and using the money to occure interest. The list goes on and on . I might know of some other interesting things about them if you wanted to contact me.
You mean net 180 isn’t the industry standard!
Hardly the first company to try and use their leverage of scale. Good you guys refused.
I was so saddened when GE sold off its transportation (Rail and Marine) business back in 2019 as my Dad was a retired UP engineer, dad always preferred GE over Electromotive engines, and as a kid I always wondered how the same company could make things as small as a light bulb and as large as a locomotive. Greed always gets you a big 0 in the long run.
These decisions are made by executives. Do you think they ended up with big 0?
I've bought 4 led bulb thinking of these bulb a good cost savings, bulb dead even low hours in used.. quality is no where to be found . Now I've just buy china bulbs.
Where did your dad work? I have been conductor for UP for almost 20 years
Sad, especially as they knocked GM out of the number one slot as regards diesel locos. South Africa has large numbers of GE locos; in fact we bought GE before we bought GMs
GE Transportation was a solid business and was the star darling when Immelt hosted the 2010 shareholders meeting in Erie. His ineptness at running the company led to that business being a sacrificial lamb to Wabtec but the business is still basically GE except for the name change. I worked there 40 years and got out before the sad spinoff.
Jack Welch was one of the primary beneficiaries of the cult of the CEO. That somehow, through shear force of personality and character, a single person could turn around a company and make it poop gold. If you see someone like this in charge of your company, who spends so much effort promoting themselves, run away, don't walk.
Elon
@@vivekp4854 The difference is Elon cares about his company. Welch just saw GE as a giant piggy bank.
Jeff Imelt tanked GE after he took over from Welch !
@@vivekp4854 No. Musk creates businesses. Guys like Welch take existing businesses, built by others, and destroy them
@@jeffrybassett7374 Elon cares about pushing his stock prices up, not profitability
Really funny, to see this report! For several decades, the top business schools around the world portrayed Jack Welch as an iconic and the greatest business leader. They discussed several case studies on his “success” at GE! Many from these business schools, who modeled their own careers imitating Jack Welch were guaranteed success and showed quick results. Some today lead the biggest business establishments in the world. I wonder what they would have to say when they see the decline of GE and their current status.
Everyone was taught that Jack himself demanded high performance and integrity from his subordinates. However, when details of the “sweet deal” Jack had made for himself for GE to pay for post-retirement life were exposed, he brought disgrace to himself! So, this does not surprise me!
Maybe that's why half of the largest American mega corps are doomed for failure nowadays. All their leaders modeled themselves after a short term thinker.
I didn't know GE had this many problems. There's a limit to how much of a "megacorp" you can sustainably try to be. What's rotten needs to be burned and reborn from ashes. It's a shame that it's written in the law that a company HAS to satisfy shareholders, every company that focused on shareholders 100% always, always tumbled. Healthy balance and probably even making a company private would give the next executive leader the power to change up stuff. But honestly, who will take the helm of GE and turn it around? Nice video as always.
Thanks man!
There is no limit how mega a mega corp can be. Japan has Zaibatsu. Korea has Chaebol. You know Samsung makes electronics. They also build ships. India has Tata. Tata makes everything and even have IT consultants in every tech company.
The capitalistic shareholder system isn’t a bad idea. Its like voters. There are certain assumptions that a president must try to please voters every 4 years. We know that that leads to a weak President. But voters and shareholders aren’t stupid. Just need a good leader who has the balls and talent to follow through on the promises. Voters and shareholders would except visionary, capable leaders. It’s these sniveling wimps we despise.
@@TheBooban Fair point. However, how often do these megacorps abuse their new gained money to take charge of the governments and defacto control them for their benefit and growth? I certainly can say that Chaebols are not doing any favors to SK. They make cool stuff, but when they grow too large for government to control, what happens to the employees? And any power struggle inside these corporations could overthrow a good, visionary leadership with money and power hungry "leaders".
There’s a way around this-the first step of which is “interest” funds, such as ESGs. The presence of such shareholders sends the signal to CEOs that “shareholder value” is more than just stock price.
Only in america this is law. This is why american companies struggle to make products like a car. That is expensive, and people want it to last and be reliable. US cars are so bad they cannot even dominate domestic marked. Even with goverment protection of 25% tariff on any import car.
If you look at Germany, Germany cars dominate. In Japan, Japanese cars dominate. Cause they both make quality, so there is little reason for the citizens to buy something else than their own brand.. In US its very different. People want to buy US made, cause of patrotism.. But they end up with a shit product. So many opt out of it.
US still makes airplanes, but seing how Boeing is falling into this profit trap aswell (Look at the MAX disaster, killed hundreds of people for the sake of saving a few bucks)
I suspect Boeing to slowly fall aswell, due to them prioritizing profits over quality. Then Europe/China will dominate marked.
The corporate nature in US is toxic and needs to change if they are to stay competetive with the world. If not they only end up as B-team manufacturers who cannot make quality products that demand a premium price.
Further explanation for Jack's nickname: Neutron Jack's name is a reference to the Neutron Bomb, a cold war era innovation on the nuclear bomb, which would kill every living thing in an area while leaving all the infrastructure unharmed. Jack was said to do something similar in that he would enter a building, disappear all the people, but keep the non-living asset
Ah, thanks for the insight man!
Well stated.
My company has rank and yank policy and I cant even list all the damage it causes. From low self esteem in employees, destructive competition, promoting favoritism in managers and ass kissing in employees, to serious mental health issues - it single handedly achieves all of the above.
I hope you rise from these adversities. Do great brother.
Hope you get a better workplace, those companies should die
Unionize and vote for pro-unionization (and pro-tariff) politicians.
Before I retired I worked with a contractor who used to be part of a company overhauling steam turbine valve actuators...a highly skilled job on a critical turbine component. GE bought the company, immediately cutting the workforce, implementing procedures to speed up the overhaul process and increasing the price charged to customers. Result: overworked Engineers cutting corners to meet targets and angry customers paying more for a substandard product which failed in service. I believe this course of events is common when GE acquires a profitable, successful business and "restructures it".
GE made a rookie error. They lost sight of their core business. They were brilliant engineering folks - and they got into the financial services sector!! Hello!!
When you give b-school people free reign, they analyze every business into “financial services.” Nothing is so profitable as lending money-as long as leverage is working for you.
This story reminds me of another well-known US company that got rotten due to toxic stakeholders pleasing: Boeing and their insane 737 MAX!
Add IBM to the list.
True that
Yep. What's really funny is they're still doing it. I'd love to see the emails of the c suite following the MAX crash and right now. I'm certain it would be truly ghoulish. They are completely psychotic. Of course they only fly corporate so what do they care?
I was wondering if anyone else was going to mention Boeing. The worst aspect of this company is the ludicrous amount of debt they've concealed in off balance sheet transactions. The billions they spent developing the 787 and other projects are not directly reflected the the company's financials because, like Enron, they isolated the costs and only book them when they sell a plane. This is all done so that management can cook the books so that they can reap unearned bonuses. It's just a matter of time into this house of cards also collapses.
Also the white House
"why don't employees have company loyalty anymore? 😭😭"
Hahaha
Right and I laugh every time the media promotes the lie that people dosen't want to work anymore 😂
WELL, MAYBE THEY JUST DO NOT LIKE TO GET FIRED IN THE NEXT BEST OCCASION...🙄
Classic example of the consequences of antitrust laws being removed. Those laws were put in place to protect the economy from corporate greed, but also to protect the companies themselves. Since the neoliberal turn in the 80s, there have been much more bankruptcies and economic crisises than during the previous period of 30s through 70s, just because companies' boards are allowed to do stuff that would have been illegal before
I had a short-lived contract as a technical author at one of GE's major sites in the UK. The project had screwed up by not delivering engineering documentation to the customer during the development phase, and when the sh*t hit the pan because project managers were complaining about missing deliverables, the management decided to rectify the situation by bringing in five contract authors from outside the company to sort it out. With a cohesive management team and motivated engineering cadre there would be no reason for this problem to have developed, and once the five of us arrived it was far too late. A few years later another company I work for bid for work on the same site. Their bid was rejected in the early stages before they had invested too much work into it and I told the management about my experiences there. In short I told them that most likely they had dodged a bullet by not getting the work.
I was interviewing for a job at GE 2 years ago, thanked God I was rejected.
Brother!! Glad to see another video!! Happy to see you again and hope you have a great weekend!!
Thank you Daniel! I really appreciate you watching my videos!
I work for GE now, and there's definitely a change in culture now. Splitting of the business into 3 is going to help a lot, and hopefully take us back to where we belong
I work for GE Aviation, it's awsome, and I don't see any of these issues that are being talked about here, we are continuing to grow, and I love the workplace. We certainly aren't firing 10% of our employees every year.
@@Internet_Shenanigans I work in GE Renewables. Please help 😂🥲 its falling apart.
@@Internet_Shenanigans I work for GE Additive. Its all great actually except we canceled the Chances to hold customer like space x , NASA and Co. Just for aviation. I think this wasnt a good choice
I have only seen a few companies do reverse stock splits for the last 30 years. Every one of them filed for bankruptcy soon after. I have bought and sold GE a few times. When they did their reverse split, I was out.
You did right getting out.
I went to a career center and GE came in trying to recruit people. The lady who helps us get jobs asked the guy how will the students know that they won't be laid off after a few years like many other employees are constantly.
He did not like that question at all.
Working in that industry I found out how many people are laid off at GE cause they just struggle so much.
Hahaha, his response is hilarious
I work at GE and everyone here measures their time with the company in decades. It is almost unheard of that anyone is ever fired, and many people who leave for greener pastures end up coming back because places like Amazon don't have the great work/life balance that GE offers. When there are "layoffs" usually it just ends up with some of the old guys taking an early retirement, and when the business environment recovers they end up coming back as "rehired pensioners". With the new spinoff of the companies I have never felt better about my prospects as a GE Aerospace employee!
I started my career with GE at JFWTC center in India. Went through all the good times of India startup, great learnings at world class facility. There were good analysts who share their views on the progress of GE and that was in Y2001/2. As an youngster was not able catch those analysis and discussions. But you said it all right, it was heading towards a collapse and now I can travel back in time and relate a few events..
GE should serve as a warning to those who say capitalism should remain the solidly inhuman pursuit of profit.
But, and a big BUT, communism is much much much worse!
The honest truth was , that Jeff Immelt and to some Jack Welch destroyed GE. Bad decisions and acquisitions by Immelt has made him rich while a once Great Company and workers suffered!
Rank and yack seems like a great way to give somebody free training and get rid of them when they start to become profitable.
Bottom 10% or even bottom 5% mandated turnover is destructive if you have nowhere near that many underperformers, but it is bad even if you do. My Fortune 100 corp has more than 10% serious underperformers. Some people take longer, often through no fault of their own, to hit their stride and do well. Those are precisely the ones you want to keep. Additionally, why replace underperformers if you can't replace them with anyone better, and in many cases end up replacing them with worse people? An HR exec's office is near mine, and being from different divisions, we talk shop to maintain our sanity. She hates to sign off on terminating an underperformer because the replacement is almost always worse. And it's expensive.
I guess it's a smaller world than the management in companies like GE think it is, and information about a company being bad to work for soon gets around. When HR go to agencies to replace fired staff I would think that they get fobbed off with the less experienced and less capable candidates.
I'm proud to work at GE. Our technologies are the ones making me feel living in an advanced civilization.
Honestly as a blue collar never had to worry about my position. I know that management does but this is not in my understanding the main driver. The worse brake we have to struggle with is process, standard. We have to comply with so much rules that:
1- two lifes would not be enough
2- you can avoid working justified by the rules 100% time
3- No self decision making resulting in poorly effective teams.
You're the only one here happy about GE....
This isn't a state of mind story. Just my perception from my perspective.
I work at a non-union GE Aviation plant and every day I see firsthand why this company is in bad shape. They incentivize bad behavior. Here is just one example. Bob and Tom both set up and operate the same CNC cell but on different shifts. Bob always does at least 80% of the set ups and has excellent quality while Tom has just as much time on the set ups but doesn't know what he's doing and is screwing off most of the time. He also has terrible quality. At review time Tom will get a bigger pay increase because he's been with the company longer and he can make junk on more types of machines. The company doesn't care about quality and efficiency, it's not even in their performance matrix, probably because they don't know who does what. Bob soon learns that there is no incentive for performance and will either leave the company to work for someone who cares, or he will stop caring himself and adopt Tom's work ethics. Every company has some issues, but GE is rotten from top to bottom, at least at the plant I work at.
Do you live in China?
@@pantera01971 we work in a small team relatively independently, so my perspective is different
and.... here we are 2 years later, the stock is 360% up since august 2022.... Welcome to corporate America
This is what happens when you let accountants and MBA's take charge of a business. NEVER allow a bank or an accountant to give you business advice. They will destroy your business.
My father worked at the GE Base Works plant in Providence, RI, for two decades. Soon after NAFTA, GE closed the plant and moved the operation to Mexico. I have no sympathy at all for GE. In fact, I'll glad to see it crash and burn! There's a lesson for us to learn: Allowing Fortune 500 Corporations to relocate their factories to foreign countries where workers get slave wages, giving these companies massive tax breaks, and bailing them out whenever they face bankruptcy does not save them. We must stop privitizing the profits whilst whilst socializing the loses!
GE’s failure was because they doubled down on oil when oil was reaching its peak. This resulted in them suffer when oil prices collapsed. The spin off would also result in more value by each part of the business. The conglomerate discount weights downs GEs valuation.
As a former GE employee in the power sector they made the big miss when they did the Alstom acquisition instead of reading the tea leaves and going all in on renewables. Its not all bad as they did buy the wind turbine business from Enron and grew that but their heart was not into it until recently once other OEMs had developed tech and was out competing on price.
@@chomot11 Also a former employee and I think Logically Answered hit the nail on the head. GE became the giant it was by making and selling things. Then Welch decided to turn it into a bank and insurance company. Anyone who worked for them also understands their obsession with "excess" inventory. Even before the current financial mess they had pared inventory and supply chains so much that the slightest hiccup in supply caused nightmares. At least that's how it was working for Aircraft Engines.
Any business that prioritizes profits through layoffs over providing for the people that have committed their lives to that business deserves to fail. A business has only one purpose, to serve people. It serves customers through great products and services, and it serves those within the company with a livelihood. Anything beyond this is destructive to the purpose of a business.
i don't think that companies going bankrupt is always a bad think i just believe that companies who are not significantly contributing to human society as a whole should go bankrupt as these companies are just wasting the resources and manpower ,these resources need to get back into the market so they can be used more efficiently.
Yeah, it’s pretty natural really
black rock contributes nothing to society and will most likely outlast Ford
GE still makes decent engines for airplanes and their healthcare department also keeps people alive. I think that contributes to the society positively at least on some level. Definitely more so than tiktok.
@@disadadi8958 They also poison rivers, such as the Hudson, which my city drinks from (with significant treatment)
@@notme8232 that's pretty bad not gonna lie.
My dad worked for GE in Fort Wayne for about 10 years before he died, but back then if you got into GE, you had it made. They had benefits like crazy, they had huge Christmas parties with shows and gifts for the kids, and a decent pension program. Then it all started going downhill. They closed the Winter St. plant, then later on the Taylor St. plant. Finally they shut down the Broadway plant, and left Fort Wayne altogether. The last act was to dismantle their sign. The old buildings are finding new life, though. BAE took over some of the buildings on Taylor St., and the Broadway plant is becoming a condo and specialty shop complex called Electric Works, and the city is dumping billions into it.
I've not been able to track the article down, but it was maybe 10+ years ago. What was written at the time was that GE Financial Services was the biggest component of GE and out of that, the bulk of their revenue was from collecting child support from "deadbeat dads".
Not the best image to show for what is meant to be an engineering firm.
Most of their revenue came from factoring, where they would buy invoices from companies and collect the payment from the customers.
I totally forgot that GE even made appliances. The first thing that comes to mind for me when thinking about GE is their aircraft engines.
The appliances are all made in China anyway in the same factory with other brands. The name really doesn’t mean anything it’s just a label.
@@pmscalisi probably why I don't think about them. They aren't even very competitive in the appliance market other than being cheap.
When I think of GE I think of their "corporate handshake"
I think it happened because the company was managed by "financiers" instead of "engineers"...
Therefore, they did not make a modern railway locomotive in time...
GE is doing great. Focusing on it's core business and creating value for it's customers and investors.
Right?! It’s like 2017 in reverse.
I remember when GE was making TVs & VCRs in the '90s. They are very very large conglomerate.
HP and Trimble also did the "lose X pct per year of your employees" schtick. It's like their senior leadership are all members of the same country club: Club Moron. I mean, if it's good to fire a percent of direct contributors, why not double that for managers, and double THAT for senior leadership?
you could do the same title just with gm
Yes sir, but they’re doing way better than GE haha
GE made/makes things as diverse as consumer electronics to fridges, washing machines- and jet engines!
It’s a real rise and fall of a company that was at one time one of the largest in the country! And crazy that it was broken up into 3 separate companies now since April 2024
Why using the citizens money to bailout companies is BS...
Facts
Reminds me similar way in Malaysia which Mahathir using tax payer’s money to bailout Proton twice.
Im an appliance tech and currently ge dishwashers from 2014-2021 all suffer from the same problems controlboard issues and anything with rubber leaks. Newer ge ranges have alot of controlboard issues as well. One range i only needed 1 board but could only order it as an assembly with the touchpad console and four boards in total. A $1000 part that we charge ge $680 for an in warranty product. Ge doesnt have many techs where i work but 100% of the time if ge was there b4 me it doesn’t surprise me that they werent able to fix their own product. I work on multiple brands and its not that hard to read a schematic if u need to. Im not really shocked theyre having trouble when there own people cant fix 1 brand. My son had to get xrays done n even the tech at the hospital said the portable xray machine sucked n was always breaking down
I'd like to know why so many people in charge of large corporations, politics, royalty, etc look like broken malignant humans?
Because if they're not like that they don't get the job. Sad but true.
@@jeffrybassett7374 Agreed, at the company that used to employ me, you moved up the management chain by being the greater a$$hole.
"looking like broken malignant humans" is the top prerequisite requirement for anyone to be in charge of large corporations and in politics. Period.
Now I understand why a she monster from GE came to work for the USAF back in "83 or 84" where I was just getting started as a young Engineer. She was a living nightmare! An yes, I think GE earned the trouble they got. Thanks for the historical insights.
What you described isn't capitalism, it's corporatism.
For anyone outside the US, or in the US but unaware of history, GE (General Electric) was the company founded by Thomas Edison in 1892. Edison was a legitimate superstar in his day but his most famous invention was the electric lightbulb. Edison's arch enemy was a man named Nikola Tesla and their most famous battle was over which electrification standard should be mass produced, Edison's Direct Current (DC) or Tesla's Alternating Current (AC). e.g. AC/DC.
and judging by history, now we know that T.A. Edison is also a money hunger prick and doesnt like to lose in a healthy competition.
so, nowadays, GE falls, and Tesla(motors) is on top and truly making changes (if not one of the contributors) to the world in a positive manners.
i'd say... serves the a*hole(Edison) right seeing his legacy tumbles through his own legacy that is greed.
Edison is quite the showman, to scare people of AC power he arrange to have somebody executed with electricity. Maybe he arrange it to go badly and the person did not die right away. DC power that Edison sells cant be transmitted from far away, every block must have their own big generator that supply nearby buildings
All Jack Welch's fault. He yanked the ladder up behind himself and almost guaranteed no one else at GE could have the same career and life he had.
I used to work for GE right out of highschool and can even see the now closed plant I worked at from my home. A lot of people here won't touch anything from GE.
I worked in GE healthcare for almost 6 years. It was my wrong choice to join GE. Whimsical decisions by the higher management spoil my career in mid age. I was the product manager of the patient monitoring segment. They diluted the entire department all of a sudden,shifted us to a different profile without judging experience,respect and honour. They thought I should be obliged that I can continue my job. It happened to many of my peers. They don't respect anyone ,they know how to do business.The culture is pathetic
Another company comes to my mind:
Boeing
Once great engineering, then run by beam counters killing 300 people
it's worse than that. the engineering 'leaders' became the bean counters! the boeing accountants told the mcdonnel engineering leaders not to make the bad decisions!
Sad part is when companies like this go under the executives are rewarded with millions
Yeah. Who the hell else can BOTCH something and GET MILLIONS in bonuses. All us average guys GET FIRED when we botch something.
@@OffGridInvestor exactly
One of the good things is that those poor workers got Justice. For losing their jobs for no reason
Why they choose to work there in the first place if they know thats how GE treat its employee?
@@archingelus This wasn't common knowledge to the public .Every corporation has a marketing and propaganda machine inside the company and outside the company.
@@kellyowens4728 well then why don't they quit when they know those propaganda? t he fact that i see so many comments talking about this AND this articles, that means this is NOT a common knowledge that is unknown or we are not talking this at all
GE was founded by Thomas Edison and JP Morgen, needless to say, it's been a pretty staple company in the US for over 100 years. Funny how its now known as the Dryer and Washing Machine company.
Actually as someone outside usa i know GE for their aircraft engine....
@@archingelus
I know them for the m61 Vulcan gun.
@@ionpopescu3167 not the nukes?
@@archingelus Once upon a time rich people in Asia has big Fridge with GE Brand. Usually last about 30 years
Over $100 billion for GE. But watch how little the government will care when people start losing their homes by the millions because of rapidly increasing interest rates.
Let's hope ge energy does better, for the renewable energy sake.
🤞
Great vid as always! have a nice weekend!
Thanks man, you too!
Boeing better start listening, otherwise they might go down the same path as GE did.
My father worked in senior mgt for 36 years. Jack Welch ruined the company.
"In some ways General Electric reminds me of Sears, Sears had a massive 'empire' that has been winding down."
Ah yes great comparison
There's a company here in Australia JUST LIKE sears that pays A BIG dividend. And I give it 10 years and it'll be dead. Too expensive for everything they sell. ALL the competition sells similar stuff FAR cheaper.
If you look at this carefully, you’ll understand it was GE Capital that led to the downfall than anything else. The ravenous and ruthless practices followed by Welch , led to GE losing employee loyalty. That is a tremendous blow, more so when you consider the fact that your employees are your biggest asset. Non related acquisitions can drag you down in a big way. But when you look at the whole tragedy objectively it is the Subprime lending that sank the whole ship than all other sins together.
I hate bailouts, why don’t they let them fall?
Facts
Sometimes it's not easy to let them fail because there are many other companies dependent on them for example AIG defaulted in 2008 economic crisis but got a massive bail out because many national and international banks were involved with AIG, trillions of dollars was at stake that could have taken the whole world economy down and that's why federal government had to bail it out.
It will cause mass unemployment!
@@oynion that's not how economy works if big companies will fail the whole financial system will go down and the money that you are talking about to giving it to the people will be worthless over the time because there will be no jobs the value of money will depreciate as much as much we hate bail out sometimes there are no other ways
@@aakashsingh1368 yadda yadda yadda. Just repeating the propaganda. Bankruptcy is completely normal and done in an organized manner under chapter 11. The only people it hurts are the ones that loaned the entity money. They don’t get that money back while the company then re emerges running operations as normal. Just a bit smaller. Bail outs on the other hand, mostly pay off the folks who had loaned this company money. Why should they get that? Bad loan, too bad, suck it up.
I work at GE now let me tell you their management is extremely poor they really need help in that department they could get trillions but with stupid people in charge nothing will change
When you fail no one comes to bail you out, but when a company fails then it's a bailout.
Great video. Technical correct: the name Neuton Jack, came from the reputation he earned. He would fly to a plant, and make visit. Later all the employees would be gone, as though a neutron bomb had gone off. He personally laid off 150,000 workers. But other than that, he was a really nice guy. Not.
Excellent reporting!
Just like Kodak, Pan Am, is Boeing next?
We all remember the once great American auto industry.
How sad.
GE continues to be top heavy. Too many financial managers and other leaders that create endless initiatives that only create "busy" non-value added work. GE has lost focus of offering quality products for a profit. As long as GE's focus is making investors happy instead of customers, bankruptcy is a strong possibility. There are many good employees at GE. The problem is out of touch financial leadership.
Aka MBA's
Very insightful video. Keep up the good work.
This is explains so much as to why nobody I know will stay working at the transformer plant in a nearby city, despite the higher than average pay.
If GE goes on build under ocean airport for B1 or Boeing and space station are greatest move including nontraditional farm...if use 1% to do concept proof of each of those then look for pentagon and airline contract then no laid-off needed
GE is basically a good summary of wall St. Short term gains over long-term
Before 2007, Jack Welch was treated as the industrial guru whose presense was equivalent to Elon Musk then. The books he wrote was the must-read for intellectual. Now GE? Most of youths never heard of, and no willing to.
Where did the money go? Big corporations getting insane bailouts from the government 😳
Thanks for yet another excellent video.
love ur content keep it up
Thanks Christian!
They were notorious for even looking back at resumes when trying to trim to see if people listed wrong employment dates. So if for some reason if your someone who lists dates xx/xx/xxxx instead of xx/xxxx better hope those days are spot on or they will term you for lying on your resume.
That's why I only do month/year and if possible just year and make sure when questioned "it's to the best extent of my knowledge" which is really the general standard.
Imagine getting capped because you were off 3 days...
If that's their attitude towards employees, they SHOULD BE bankrupted.
@@OffGridInvestor yeah and if they weren't doing shit like that they would yo-yo ppl with firing and rehirings and like not typical contract work style.
They were terrible though apparently they paid well, if you were one of the lucky ones.
A company older than my grandparents...
Time to rest GE ...
There is a lot of chatter around GE selling it's aerospace business to Boeing, so bye bye GE.
Note to self: Don’t purchase GE products
Hahaha
Especially if they've sold parts of it to China 🇨🇳. As if we don't get enough crap from there already. 😶
The more I think about this, the more I feel that GE basically pulled a Daewoo
its weird that despite all this GE makes the world's biggest aircraft engines and is a literal market leader in that segment...crazy
The mindset of CEO from the 80s are full of shite. Remember when Steve Jobs got booted out from his own company.
This video is way off target in blaming Jack Welch for everything. Welch retired from GE in 2001, when its stock price was still sky high (its stock price has never since approached the highs of 2000-2001 when Welch was the CEO) and the company was dominant in numerous sectors. Jeffrey Immelt is really the Chief Culprit in the massive decline of GE, taking over as CEO in 2001. Immelt further pushed GE into a culture of bean counting and maximizing profitablity over technological excellence and quality, while also further expanding GE Capital, and it was this latter huge expansion under Immelt that almost killed GE during the 2008 Great Financial Crisis. Under Immelt's watch, GE Healthcare, which used to dominate the US market for CT and MRI scanners with an overwhelming market share, has shrunk to almost nothing, which they accomplished by putting out poor quality machines at excessive prices. GE appliance quality also dropped, which is why nobody wanted to buy GE appliances anymore and why they ended up selling off the division to a Chinese company.
Rank and yank is bad for business, long-term. Scalp and promote is better for business, long-term. Not having to do either is best for business, but the hardest to achieve.
American corporates become greedy outrageously once reputation in stock market lifts them up..India was dumped with loss making Alsthom & many more..Jack Welch & cronies were letout unhurt.. GE is dead & Dollar is dying becoz of unscrupulous lavish ways of Pentagon & American politics.. hegemony of US is evaporating fast
True, ge capital and the long term care insurance business did in ge, but jack welsh’s aggressive focus on shedding un profitable businesses for profitable ones is what saved the company from being broken up by stock holders in the 80s (like what happened to Westinghouse).
I thought GE was still a great company until i see this video. I still remember a lot of corporate consultants used to cite GE as an example of how a great company should be run. Now i guess with the hindsight the consultants will cite how not to emulate GE way of management. Both ways the coprporate consultants make money by simply BS.
Our union hall helped build a brand new GE machine manufacturing facility in Welland Ontario Canada around 2018. GE used the building for about 6 months and moved out, and its still vacant to this day.
What a waste of money.
I work at GE and there is poor management they have us mandated to work 7 days a week and I have worked that schedule for 3-4 months. They brought in a third shift to “increase productivity “ but it did nothing but drag it down cause they don’t do work and don’t really have management that makes sure they do it. So a possible solution to increasing productivity has done nothing but cause problems
the company that Jack ruined. Made a ton of money-making bonus levels for himself, but just ruined the long term viability of the company.
Such vicious company should not exist ...
All companies that adopted rank and tank have moved away from it including GE itself. ExxonMobil somehow managed to keep it around.
Bailouts are dumb unless the company has actual benefit to the society, they should let people decide if a company gets a bail out
many would agree that companies should be built so that they don't have any expectation of getting a bailout if things go south, but when a disaster hits, it's pretty hard for the current policy makers to stick to that
After the medical spinoff but before the energy spinoff GE will be very similar to Rolls-Royce.
Both primarily turbo jet and aviation manafacturing companies with side business in nuclear energy.
and the biggest irony of all: GE wanted to buy Haier in the 90s and look what happened now...