The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy
by David Gelles
View on GoodreadsNYT business reporter David Gelles's polemic-and-history of Jack Welch's reshaping of GE and, through its alumni and imitators, American corporate management — arguing that the "shareholder maximization, ruthless cost-cutting, financial engineering" model Welch institutionalized destroyed the productive economy he was credited with running.
Core ideas
- "Neutron Jack" — the executive who liquidated workforce and physical capital while keeping the buildings — is the book's central character; Gelles documents the specific practices (stack ranking, GE Capital's financial-engineering dependency, serial divestiture) that produced the legend and the wreckage.
- The alumni network is the load-bearing mechanism: Welch's lieutenants ran Home Depot, Boeing, 3M, Honeywell, and dozens of other major corporations into similar patterns, exporting the model far past GE itself.
- GE's eventual collapse (the 2018 dividend cut, the 2021 breakup) is treated as the framework's own indictment — the company built to embody Welchism couldn't survive Welchism.
Published2022
Pages272
ISBN9781982176440
ReadJun 2025
