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Comment by ping_pong | Hacker News Reader

Meh, that's a completely arbitrary measure and flippant at best. He has no control over what his successors do, or their strategy. I, and many many others, prefer to judge him by how he handled the company when he actually had control over it.

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When you read his book he portrays himself as a teacher and mentor to the next generation of managers. GE was supposed to crank out high quality managers. He maybe did a good job himself (or was lucky with this timing) but he totally failed at preparing the company for a time after him.

I didn't come up with it. It is the yardstick that he suggested we use to measure his performance :)

And it's a well-known issue with executive compensation that CEOs will juice numbers in the short-term to get their payouts which is likely why he proposed this as a measure of his performance.

Yes, I know. But it's a nonsensical way to measure it. Is sounds like something he said flippantly without thinking about what that meant, because it's meaningless.

An interesting comment because it's a good example of what you see more and more of from people with a positive emotional disposition toward someone who won't let them fail or look bad even if its quite obvious that they failed, and it looks bad (and even if they themselves would admit it).

As a factual matter, the measurement isn't meaningless at all. Give Jack some credit.

So are you saying that the new successors to GE have no agency at all, and they are just following a script? That's ridiculous. The CEOs of GE have not been great or successful but that's on them, not Welch.

Presumably Welch believed in the hiring system he put in place. It was also an audacious claim, which comes with its own rewards. But folks like you let Welch have his cake and eat it too: he gets the praise for making an audacious claim, and then when it turns out false, folks like you make excuses for him.

It's good to be the king, I guess.

lol I never praised him for making an audacious claim, I've said it's nonsensical several times.

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