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“If everybody in America read this book there would be a revolution.” - Bob Leftsetz
“One of the most profound and impactful books that I’ve read in a very, very long time.” - Raj Sisodia
“A vivid portrait of one of the nation’s most controversial corporate titans.” - Ian Bremmer
“Short, sharp, provocative.” - FT
“Full of color and vitriol, this is an incisive,
eye-popping history.”
— Publishers Weekly
“A vigorous argument for a more humane capitalism.”
— Kirkus
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Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/2474etws
Bookshop: https://tinyurl.com/3dzjk33v
Simon & Schuster: https://tinyurl.com/2p98zww7
“The Man Who Broke Capitalism,” reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs.
In 1981, Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess.
Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In time, Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day.
“The Man Who Broke Capitalism” chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe.
In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, it contributed to the collapse of GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.
Eventually, Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, finance, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally.
The book demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And it shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more.
Change is now afoot in corporate America, and the book also highlights companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.
SELECT MEDIA
How Jack Welch’s Reign at G.E. Gave Us Elon Musk’s Twitter Feed - The New York Times
The Jack Welch Effect - The Morning, by the New York Times
How One CEO Improved Results by Investing in His Workers — Time
Like capitalism itself, business journalism is broken. Can it be fixed? - The.Ink
Short-term profits and long-term consequences — did Jack Welch break capitalism? - Fresh Air
Rethinking Jack Welch - New York Times DealBook
New Book: Jack Welch Broke Capitalism, Ushered In an Era of Distrust — Amanpour and Co.
Review: The Man Who Broke Capitalism — did Jack Welch destroy corporate America? - Financial Times
Jack Welch's questionable legacy - Axios
Who Broke Capitalism? — Popular Information
Will Netflix Buy Roku? Are You Ready for Antitrust Summer? And More. — Pivot Podcast
David Gelles on former General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s detrimental legacy — Morning Brew
Gelles Questions Jack Welch's Legacy in New Book — Bloomberg Businessweek Podcast
How CEOs cashed in on 2021 - Popular Information
David Gelles on Jack Welch - Behind the News with Doug Henwood
Booknotes+ - C-SPAN
Is a single man largely responsible for America's wealth gap? - The Week
New Book Examines the Legacy of Business Titan Jack Welch - Yahoo Finance
Jack Welch, The Man Who Broke Capitalism - Forbes
Rethinking Former GE CEO Jack Welch’s Legacy Offers Insight Into the Future of American Capitalism - Just Capital
CEO Daily - Fortune
Revisiting the 'Manager of the Century' - LinkedIn News
The Great Jack Welch Debate - LinkedIn News
Is capitalism in retrograde - Airplane Mode
A Deeply Flawed CEO Pay Analysis — Inequality.org
David Gelles will be enjoying Grey Poupon well after the apocalypse - Non-Technical
Slate Money Podcast - Slate
How Would Jack Welch’s Leadership Style Fare in Today’s World? - Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
The Enablers of Predatory Capitalism — The American Prospect
Undoing the Legacy of the Man Who Broke Capitalism - The Realignment podcast
The man who "broke capitalism" - RTE
Stay Informed - Ian Bremmer
A new book takes a harsh look at the first 'celebrity CEO,' GE's Jack Welch - Insider
The Man Who Broke Capitalism - The Lefsetz Letter
David Gelles — The Bob Lefsetz Podcast
How Former G.E. CEO Jack Welch Altered the Art Market for Better and for Worse - Artnet News
NYT Reporter David Gelles On “The Man Who Broke Capitalism” — Beyond the Mic
The Man Who Broke Capitalism — Ralph Nader Radio Hour
A Conversation with David Gelles: In the Lion’s Den – did Jack Welch Really Break Capitalism? — Stanford GSB
Open Book - Scott Simon
The Man Who Broke Capitalism - The Conscious Capitalists Podcast
Jack Welch As An Avatar For The Worst Of Corporate Capitalism — The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder
Should We Really Be Imitating Superstar CEOs? — The Small Business Radio Show
Working Title = Capitalism - On Management
How One CEO Broke Capitalism—and How We Can Fix It — From Day One
ADVANCE PRAISE
"In vivid prose and reporting that lights up each page, Gelles probes how Jack Welch influenced a generation of business leaders to ignore the feelings of employees and the malign impact of corporate mergers, and how decisions made today might strangle a company’s long-term health. This powerful book shows why GE and so many companies run by Welch’s disciples have badly stumbled, along with Welch's reputation." — Ken Auletta, author of "Hollywood Ending"
"David Gelles gives us a compelling indictment of short-termism and offers us an urgent call for business leaders at all levels to be responsible and care. He clearly makes the case that business is more than for profit and that it is by doing good that you can do well, and provides us a roadmap for the way forward. An indispensable read for our time." — Hubert Joly, former Chairman and CEO Best Buy, author "The Heart of Business"
"Jack Welch is one of the more important political and business leaders in modern American history. His strategies destroyed a once-great company, and more broadly, he helped pave the way for the destruction of the American middle class and the erosion of American democracy. For years, the business press has lauded Welch's visionary spirit, but few reporters have ever asked what that vision was. With The Man Who Broke Capitalism, David Gelles has delivered a book that explains what we can learn from a man like Welch, as we try to restore the shattered society he left behind." — Matt Stoller, author of "Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy"
"A robust and necessary portrait of a complex figure. A lesson in shareholder value vs. stakeholder value that will only become more relevant in the coming years. — Scott Galloway, New York Times bestselling author and serial entrepreneur
"The Man Who Broke Capitalism is a provocative page-turner that exposes the dark truths about Jack Welch, America's first celebrity CEO. After building a sprawling global empire through unmanageable mergers, shady accounting, and heartless downsizing, with undue veneration, and countless imitators, it's good to see Welch finally cut down to size." — Jennifer Taub, author of "Big Dirty Money"
"David Gelles gives us an indispensable history of how we wound up with a business culture that believed employees were owed nothing more than yesterday's paycheck. But Gelles does not just sound the alarm. He contrasts this warped world view with a new emerging reality — accelerated by the pandemic — that puts the employee experience and well-being at the center of business priorities. A must read for anyone who wants to say goodbye forever to a toxic chapter of American capitalism." — Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive