, Columnist
Jack Welch Inflicted Great Damage on Corporate America
His singular focus on GE’s stock price warped business culture.
Leader of the cult of the shareholder.
Photographer: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg
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There are well-known people who are vilified during their careers only to seem heroic in retrospect. And then there are others who are lionized in their prime, and only later do we realize how harmful their actions truly were.
So it is with Jack Welch, who died on Sunday at the age of 84. I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but his effect on American capitalism was too profound — and too destructive — to go unmentioned.