1935-
Chairman and CEO of the General Electric Corporation

Shaken, Not Stirred.

At forty-five, John Francis "Jack" Welch was the youngest chief executive officer that the General Electric Corporation (GE) had ever had. When Welch took control of the company in December 1980, GE was the model American corporation. It was a juggernaut: conservative, staid, cautious, prudent, unexciting, and reliable. Its net income in 1980 was $1.7 billion, with a steady and healthy growth rate of 9 percent a year. Like most GE executives and CEOs, Welch was a company insider who had risen through the corporate ranks. No other corporation has been as successful at recruiting and nurturing talent from within or has managed to sustain such a consistent performance over such an extended period of time. Everyone anticipated that GE would continue to chart its smooth course once Welch took the helm. They could not have been more...