Jack Welch

"Jack Welch, widely seen as the father of the shareholder value movement, but now one of its harshest critics. “Shareholder value is an outcome — it’s not a strategy.” Or as Eddie Izzard remarks: “I’m not a capitalist, I am a creativist. I want to make money so that I can create things. Suddenly all these people have come along who want to create things so they can make money.”"

"The company found that Lean manufacturing, and productivity in general, worked best in companies with steady growth, neither high nor low. As Jack Welch at GE realized in his early days with Six Sigma, the ideal unit volume growth cadence for rising productivity is somewhere between 4 and 6 percent. A higher rate can work but requires putting a lot more capital in place, often at a lower return. At its best, Lean and other productivity tools allow a company to add 2 to 3 percent of manufacturing capacity without adding equipment, people, or footprint—it’s “free” capacity. With intensive, but not usually that expensive, up-front training to implement Lean, a growing manufacturer can therefore supply 2 to 3 percent more revenue with limited extra cost. The result is a higher ROI on the factory assets."

"As that feeling swelled, I went to have lunch with Jack Welch, the chairman of GE, which owned NBC. He was deeply unhappy with the network’s performance. It was a disaster, and I thought it would be fun, even exciting, to try to turn it around. And Jack was encouraging, as he was toying with the idea of selling it. I wondered if I could raise the necessary money, but quickly realized I couldn’t pursue that while being an employee of one of its competitors. The truth was I couldn’t pursue anything without quitting Fox, without being independent. But that prospect frightened me into inaction. How could I turn from my exalted position to standing out in the cold without the protection of a big company behind me? The very thought froze me."