Opinion
Immelt: Investor board input is often selfish and harms the company
“Some of the input you're getting is really selfish by the investors from their perspective, but not good for the company.”
What-if
Immelt: No other leadership team on earth could have saved GE in 2008
“We made it to shore, we saved the company, we preserved the businesses, and I would say to people, look, no other team on earth could have done what we did.”
What-if
Immelt: GE should have partnered with Salesforce or Microsoft for software
“Here's what I would have done differently, you know, Harry, in all honesty, I've had four years to think about it, is I would have either bought a part of a startup company or done a joint venture with maybe salesforce.com or Microsoft and created a new co, cr…”
Opinion
Immelt: Musk, Bezos, and Benioff are not good listeners
“I guarantee you that if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Mark Benioff ever did a review, a three 60, the people around them aren't saying they're really good listeners. There's a lot of people say, They didn't listen to it, but they are listening, right? They are li…”
Opinion
Immelt: In 2000, General Electric felt a lot like Amazon
“Back in the year, 2000, GE felt a lot like Amazon.”
Disclosure
Immelt: I failed to change GE's culture fast enough for digital
“Where I failed was I couldn't change the culture fast enough to grab, you know, kind of the next wave of digital technologies.”
Insight
Immelt: Listening to everyone creates as much trouble as not listening
“They teach them, like, listen to everybody. Everybody's right, you know, and if you listen to everybody, things are going to be great. That's not true, right? What's true is you can get as much trouble by listening, also in the same way trouble by listening to…”
Insight
Immelt: Vet potential board members by picturing them on your worst day
“I always say to the CEO when they're bringing in board people, don't picture them today. Picture them on the worst day. Picture them, you've missed a quarter, an activist shows up, the technology doesn't work, your best person left. Picture how your board's go…”
Insight
Immelt: Good board members transfer their credibility to CEOs in crisis
“You want a board that is able to transfer their credibility, whether there is an investor or as an operator, to the leader, to the CEO, in the very worst day. And that's what a good board member should be able to do.”
Insight
Immelt: Everyone lies about having thick skin; nobody actually does
“The other pieces I say is this is something that people, everybody lies about. Everybody lies and says, I've got thick skin. Nobody has thick skin. Sorry, nobody has thick skin.”
Insight
Immelt says most wealthy people are not self-made and had a head start
“There's so many people that think they were self-made, but most rich people started with a big head start. On everybody else, and they need to remember that.”
Insight
Immelt: Legacy companies struggle when innovation requires cultural transformation
“Things that really required not just a new idea, but also a new culture at the same time, are really hard for legacy companies.”
Insight
Immelt: Incumbents hold massive advantages over startups through existing distribution and use cases
“What legacy companies don't realize is they have the keys to the kingdom and that you own the use case really, which is, you know, like I sit with startups and they're saying, you know, I want to add 10 salespeople. And I say, you know, guys, really back in th…”
Insight
Immelt: In a crisis, leaders must be fear absorbers, not accelerators
“Really when you're in the middle of a crisis, I think the first thing is you want people that absorb fear. So you want people that don't become fear accelerators. They become fear absorbers.”
Insight
Immelt: You only see true character at five minutes to midnight
“You never know anything about anybody in a good day. You can only sense them, like, at five minutes to midnight. That's when you see what's the character, the person around you. You never can see it when the sun's up.”
Insight
Jeff Immelt: Leaders should expect corporate loyalty, not personal devotion
“Like to me, trust is not loyalty. People confuse trust and loyalty. I never expected people to be loyal to me. I expected them to be loyal to the company, right? To be loyal, put the company first.”
Assertion Supported
Immelt: GE Capital Was the World's Largest Finance Company in 2008
“But we were the world's biggest finance company when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.”
Insight
Immelt: Startup founders are only allowed to fear losing product-market fit
“In other words, if you're starting a company, you're really only allowed to be afraid of one thing, product market fit. That's it. We can help fill in the people. We can help fill in, you know, the funding. We can help fill in all those other things. But be af…”
Assertion Partly supported
Immelt: GE built a $20 billion wind business
“We built a twenty billion dollar wind business.”
Assertion Contradicted
Immelt: Industrial and financial S&P 500 share fell from 40% to 15%
“In the year 2000, industrials and financial services, let's say between those two, it was 40% of the S&P 500 value. Now it's 15%, you know.”
Opinion
Immelt: Twilio's Jeff Lawson excels at filtering out bad advice and distractions
“I think Jeff is awesome, and that he's a really good listener, but he doesn't listen all the time, and he doesn't listen to everybody, which I, behind the scenes, say to Jeff, I love that about you, really, is that you're discerning, you've got a nose for BS, …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Immelt: I will get a Twilio tattoo when they hit $5B revenue
“That's absolutely true. I got in 2006 and I told Jeff Lawson that when Twilio gets to be five billion dollars in revenue, I'm going to get a tattoo of the owl, which is the kind of the Twilio symbol.”
Jeff Immelt