Bailout

Actual candor from Jack Welch

By Felix Salmon

Jack Welch likes to cultivate an image as a straight-talking kinda guy who would never say something to an enclave of CEOs that he wouldn’t be happy putting his name to in one of his books or columns.

Except, according to the Economist (a/k/a Matthew Bishop):

This columnist once heard Mr Welch tell a chief executives? boot-camp that the key was to have the compensation committee chaired by someone older and richer than you, who would not be threatened by the idea of your getting rich too. Under no circumstances, he said (the very thought clearly evoking feelings of disgust), should the committee be chaired by ?anyone from the public sector or a professor?.

Maybe that’s the reason he finally retired from GE: there was no one left who was richer than he was.

Update: Bishop went into more detail on this here.

Full post as published by Macroprudential on June 23, 2009 (boomark / email).