Jack Welch

John Francis Welch Jr. (November 19, 1935 – March 1, 2020) was an American business executive, chemical engineer, and writer. He was Chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE) between 1981 and 2001. When Welch retired from GE, he received a severance payment of $417 million, the largest such payment in business history up to that point.[1] In 2006, Welch's net worth was estimated at $720 million... During the early 1980s he was dubbed "Neutron Jack" (in reference to the neutron bomb) for eliminating employees while leaving buildings intact.[17] In Jack: Straight from the Gut, Welch stated GE had 411,000 employees at the end of 1980, and 299,000 at the end of 1985. Of the 112,000 who left the payroll, 37,000 were in businesses which GE sold off, and 81,000 were reduced in continuing businesses. In return, GE had tremendously increased its market capitalization. Welch reduced basic research, and closed or sold off under-performing businesses... Upon his retirement from GE, Welch had stated that his effectiveness as its CEO for two decades would be measured by the company's performance for a comparable period under his successors. Welch had grown GE to over $450 billion in market capitalization, of which about 40% was in financial services. Twenty years later, the company's market capitalization was only $200 billion, and Welch refused to discuss its decline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch