Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon

by William D. Cohan

Longtime GE executives were beginning to notice that Jeff’s approach to dealmaking was different from what they had witnessed with Jack. Quite different, in fact. One longtime GE executive told me that Jeff was the “antithesis” of Jack when it came to doing deals. “He doesn’t want to talk substance,” he continued. “He hasn’t really read the material.” Like many other GE executives who worked for both Jack and Jeff, he couldn’t stop himself from drawing a comparison between the two men. “You had a team that built credibility by working for maybe the greatest leader of our generation, who respected your work,” he said of Jack. Jack read everything sent to him. He knew more than you. “When you went up there, you had a discussion that exhilarated you, and you learned something, or he told you something you didn’t know,” he continued. “And you had to go back and figure out the answer to his question, and it lifted all of us.” But it was different working with Jeff. “It was like walking into a cold shower when you walked into your first meeting with Immelt, because he didn’t read the deck,” he said. That seeming