This is a Jack Welch legacy. Nobody destroyed companies like Jack. I do see the financial press laying the blame at Jeff immelmann’s feet. But Jeff was just Jack’s proxy. Jack Welch destroyer of worlds.
I'm not so sure. Welch was ruled by numbers. If you are #1 or #2 in your industry you are kept. If you are #3 or lower, see ya, plants closed. Foolish. But there was at least some logic to it.
Immelt seemed to not care if he was #1, he just shuttered and sold everything except services. Initially that made some sense (not really, but to him it did) because profit margins were immense for services and less so for capital intense businesses. So GE became a glorified bank under Immelt. And he kissed govt ass heavily, he wanted to be James Taggart (Atlas Shrugged reference). But 2008 happened and overly leveraged financial services businesses without a strong base of other sources of revenue were exposed. GE the banking firm never recovered. And that was Immelt.
Um, ... AKA “Neutron” Jack.