Jeff Immelt
Venture Partner, NEA. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executiveinvestorauthoracademic@JeffImmelt ↗nea.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Jeff Immelt served as the Chairman and CEO of General Electric from 2001 to 2017, succeeding Jack Welch and leading the conglomerate through major crises and restructuring. At NEA, he advises and invests in healthcare, industrial automation, and enterprise technology startups, and authored the leadership memoir Hot Seat.
2shows
2appearances
47statements
4resolved
1supported
1contradicted
25%fully supported
3said about them ↓ Everything Jeff Immelt said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
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.”
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.”
Immelt: Not shrinking GE Capital before 2008 was a mistake
“By the time the financial crisis hit, not having GE Capital be smaller, you know, clearly was a mistake, right?”
Immelt: Washington Mutual's collapse was worse for 2008 than Lehman's
“Most people think about the day Lehman Brothers went bankrupt as the worst day in the financial crisis, but it actually was the day Washington Mutual went bankrupt, which was like two weeks later on a Friday because all the bondholders got wiped out.”
Immelt: GE suffered in 2008 from aggregate size, not toxic assets
“Think about the financial crisis, what did we get wrong? We were too big in aggregate size. It wasn't that we were, we had a lot of toxic assets. It wasn't that we're redlining risk and things like that. We were too big.”
Immelt: US and Canadian manufacturing costs now equal Mexico and China
“My hunch is you could go through product after product and making it in Canada or the U S is probably just about the same as making it in Mexico or China today.”
Immelt: Next-generation leaders must maintain manufacturing jobs where they sell
“If I sell in the US, I better have a certain amount of jobs in the US. If I sell in Germany, same thing. If I sell in China, same thing. And my generation didn't have to think that way, but the next generation is going to have to think that way.”
Immelt: GE's classic management toolkit was best suited for private equity
“You know, if you look at the basic GE toolkit that I grew up with, it was almost the perfect match for private equity where
You took a company, you had five years to turn it around. You didn't have to make big bets on products and technology. And so I think to…”
Immelt admits he helped cause GE's rock bottom during the 2008 crisis
“During the financial crisis, We were at rock bottom, and I helped cause that, and my board knew that, but my team was always with me.”
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…”
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…”
Immelt: Jack Welch was great for his era, but GE's environment changed
“Following a very successful leader, but tripping into a completely different time. So it wasn't that he was bad or good. He was great in the time that he lived in. But the time that I was leading the company was so dramatically different. It was more global. I…”
Immelt: Jack Welch managed large institutions better than anyone else
“What Jack did as a masterclass was how to lead at scale. He created an aura. He had a voice for 300,000 people. He had a voice for 500 people. He had a voice for 20 people. He had a voice for one person. He could change octaves in how he spoke. He knew how to …”
Immelt: GE struggled to survive 2008 without Paulson, Geithner, and Bernanke
“You know, everybody likes to dump on government, but, you know, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, they did a great job. You know, I'd say without that kind of sure-handed leadership we would have had a real challenge to kind of making it through.”
Immelt: GE recruited Warren Buffett in 2008 for credibility, not cash
“I called Warren because he had done a similar deal with Goldman Sachs. Not so much that we needed his money, but we needed his seal of approval. And we added him to the raise and we were able to go out on Wednesday of that week and raise I think it was sixteen…”
Immelt: Listing 45 risk factors means a company effectively has none
“If you pick up a, an annual report for any company or a 10 K or 10 Q, they'll have 45 risk factors, right? If you have 45 risk factors, you really have none. I would much rather see a company list. Here are the three biggest risk factors and make the CEO, not …”
Immelt: CEOs who dismiss investors inevitably face activists and play defense
“Every time you say that, look, I don't care what the investors think, and then you don't own the company and an activist investor shows up, you end up backpedaling on all the things you said, like, I don't care what investors think. And you end up spending, yo…”
Immelt: Trump did not invent protectionism; it built over 15 years
“President Trump didn't invent protectionism. He kind of Americanized it, but anybody that didn't see that train coming for like 10 or 15 years was crazy.”
Immelt: Generalist managers struggle to succeed today without deep technical expertise
“And I think that there is a role for generalists, but it's harder to be successful in the world today, unless you're kind of deep domain, particularly technically”
Immelt: In 2000, General Electric felt a lot like Amazon
“Back in the year, 2000, GE felt a lot like Amazon.”
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.”
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…”
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…”
The other half of the tape: Jeff Immelt's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Byron Deeter 3
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 3
2021 3 mentions in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Jeff's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Venture Partner, NEA | 1 | 25 | 0% 0/1 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |
| 20VCLEDGER | Venture Partner, NEA | 1 | 22 | 33% 1/3 | full record on 20VC → |