HN needs a obituaries section. Seriously. Until then, stop upvoting these constant "... has died" links! It's morbid and unenlightening. There is a large demographic that is reaching mortality age. HN is going to be filled with nothing but daily "has died" items for the next several years.
Jack Welch has died
201–210 of 239 posts
Re: Jack Welch has died
#202He will be remembered as one of the greatest banksters of all time. He converted Thomas Edison's company of genius inventors into a factory of paper-pushing lending trolls.
Basically a very successful management crank.
The tragedy wasn't Jack Welch, the tragedy was a financial and economic system that actively rewarded his bizarre beliefs and actions.
Re: Jack Welch has died
#203Here's a reprint of an old WSJ article from the "Neutron Jack" era: > EVERYONE FIRED > Wall Street Reacts Favorably http://www.angelfire.com/hi3/ideology/fired.html Michael Moore used it as the introduction to his '90s-era book "Downsize This!". Welch is quoted in the article: > Jack Welch, chairman of General Electric, had more concrete advice for the downsized workers. > "We've got 40 openings at our Tijuana facili…
I was posting because I remembered reading it decades ago and seemed factual, but after re-reading it in detail this article is obviously fictionalized and satirical, and isn't a literal WSJ article.
Re: Jack Welch has died
#204My father worked his way up from the foundry to "Business Leader" (management) at GE, starting in the mid 1970s. GE was a mess internally, all the way down to the shop floor, before Welch took over. His impact cannot be understated. We were big Jack Welch fans - if he hadn't grown GE the way he did, my hometown - where it was the largest employer for decades - would have been a lot poorer.
I had the amazing opportunity to sit through a training where Jack Welch came to our company and taught a dozen of us his simple time management system. This was back in 1996 and I’ve been using some of the idea’s he gave us ever since. His philosophy about focusing on creating leaders seemed solid. His philosophy on rank-and-yank cost him a lot of fans.
any link to or summary of his ideas?
Re: Jack Welch has died
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public figures are still human, with families...
This is a popular excuse when horrible people are called out for what they are. "Won't someone please think of the children". Well, it's they themselves that should have thought of their families. It's not our fault when we say exactly what they were.
Calling out, in my book, requires an intelligent, thoughtful treatment of the behavior and subject.
GP took a cheap quip at a dead man, for laughs and karma.
And just because he was (by all accounts) an asshole, that flies? And doesn't just fly, but inspires righteous indignation that anyone would feel it's disrespectful?
Be the change you want in the world.
Re: Jack Welch has died
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
A majority of people are significantly above the poverty line. If they're living hand-to-mouth, they are mismanaging their finances. For example, I know a fellow who told me he could not handle the slightest disruption in his paycheck. He was driving a new car, living in new house, wore expensive clothes, and was starting a family. A friend of mine living in an apartment told me he was unable to pay his bills. I aske…
> A majority of people are significantly above the poverty line. If they're living hand-to-mouth, they are mismanaging their finances. Or, another scenario, the 'poverty line' is arbitrary and hardly an indicator of universal financial power. In other words : the poverty salary 'line' tells you nothing of burden, it's just a magic number. If an individual has multiple unknown burdens, their 'poverty line' is at a muc…
> exists for every individual
I said "a majority of people". Not every individual.
Re: Jack Welch has died
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because you'll miss your mortgage or education payments and loose your health care. This is why the sensible thing to do is to save up a cushion of 6 months. You can continue with your employer health care with COBRA for 6 months or a year.
You‘re saying this as if it were realistic for the majority of people to save up a cushion of 6 months in a reasonable time frame (or ever).
If they can't, then they shouldn't be homeowners. It's not a choice for everyone. Home ownership is a liability.
Signed, a homeowner who sees a lot of his less well off neighbors making much more extrvagant purchases than he does.
Braces for downvoting
Re: Jack Welch has died
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
You‘re saying this as if it were realistic for the majority of people to save up a cushion of 6 months in a reasonable time frame (or ever).
If they can't, then they shouldn't be homeowners. It's not a choice for everyone. Home ownership is a liability. Signed, a homeowner who sees a lot of his less well off neighbors making much more extrvagant purchases than he does. Braces for downvoting
But the dream!
Re: Jack Welch has died
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Much of those gains came from GE Capital >GE’s profit has plunged in recent years, dragged down by hidden costs in the company’s Capital unit >he gave himself an A for his execution of its operations, and an F for his choice of successor Am I reading it right that the reason GE Capital was so successful during his time was because there were hidden costs, making it appear more profitable than it was, that didn't com…
Correct. GE recognized fees up front, and pushed costs to the future. The Wall Street Journal published a massive article on GE's problems back in 2018.[0] Well worth your time, if you want to understand how big companies game their earnings. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-powered-the-american-century...
For anyone who can't break WSJ paywall
Re: Jack Welch has died
#210Steve Ballmer revered Jack Welch's rank-and-yank management style. During the 2000s and early 2010s Microsoft's stack-rank reviews were infamous for the internal politics created. Didn't matter if you had a full team of top-tier engineers, the bottom 15% WAS going to get managed out. Savvy managers would hire low-tier performers to protect the productive ones. That's the only lens through which I have to view Mr. Wel…
> Steve Ballmer revered Jack Welch's rank-and-yank management style.
So does Jeff Bezos. 10% forced "least effective" is still implemented here at Amazon and is truly destructive. The quota often gets passed down to small teams. The worst part is that performance evaluations have almost nothing to do with performance.