Power Failure

Reviews / Votes

This hubris-to-nemesis story... must count as one of the greatest dramas in business history... William D Cohan captures that drama exceptionally well... a gripping read.... a tour de force -- John Plender * Financial Times * The rise and fall of GE is explained as the product of individual men and their mercurial decisions, yet its fate has a wider significance. It ought to be a warning: cost-cutting, outsourcing and financial speculation produce a warped model of value that is liable to collapse -- Hettie O'Brien * Guardian * A heavyweight cautionary tale about how the reputation of one-time corporate titans such as Jack Welch can be floored by over-reach and ambition -- Andrew Hill * Financial Times * General Electric was once the most important, powerful and influential company on earth - and this is the definitive story of how it got that way, and what happened next. William Cohan takes us inside the company's boardrooms and factories with a rollicking and fascinating tale of corporate brilliance, bitter infighting, business daring and monied folly that illuminates not just General Electric, but the world and economy it helped create -- Charles Duhigg With the sweep and authority of an accomplished historian, the digging of a fearsome investigative reporter, and the storytelling skills of a novelist, Bill Cohan takes us from the 19th Century birth of GE, to its rise as America's most valued company in the 20th, and to its near death in the 21st. With incredible access to Jack Welch and the major actors in this drama, he paints a panoramic view of America and of capitalism, how it has changed and still must -- Ken Auletta Cohan rides this wild tale like a racehorse to the bitter end. It's all here: the birth of this most American of inventive American companies and the triumphs, flaws and missteps to come. If at 130 years old, GE has indeed fallen, this masterful work remains -- Mark Seal For most of our lives GE was one of the familiar, trusted U.S. companies, and in the early 2000s still the biggest company on earth. In one generation this icon of the American corporate imperium has turned into an icon of American corporate failure. We're fortunate that the great business chronicler William Cohan has now applied his extraordinary reporting skills and lucid, knowing prose to tell this story in breathtaking detail from beginning to bitter end. Power Failure is fascinating and definitive -- Kurt Anderson This epic tale of arguably the most dominant corporation in American history has it all: money, power, sex and larger-than-life characters, from Thomas Edison to "Teflon Jack" Welch and beyond. Cohan's fine pacing and narrative flair make for a page-turner that becomes a compelling story of American capitalism itself -- Jonathan Alter Power Failure by William Cohan is a tour de force of reporting, a deeply researched chronicle of the flawed personalities and dysfunctional company politics that led General Electric, once hailed as the great American corporate success, to self-destruct. The story reads like a tragedy -- Liaquat Ahamed