Jack Welch quotes

“The Internet is the Viagra of big business.”

— Jack Welch

“CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.”

— Jack Welch

“Give me a highly successful unionized industry.”

— Jack Welch

“Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.”

— Jack Welch

“Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business.”

— Jack Welch

“The story about GE that hasn't been told is the value of an informal place. I think it's a big thought. I don't think people have ever figured out that being informal is a big deal.”

— Jack Welch

“I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It's got the market. It's got consumer confidence and it's got banks throwing - I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world.”

— Jack Welch

“What's important at the grocery store is just as important in engines or medical systems. If the customer isn't satisfied, if the stuff is getting stale, if the shelf isn't right, or if the offerings aren't right, it's the same thing. You manage it like a small organization. You don't get hung up on zeros.”

— Jack Welch

“If you don't have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don't take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It's crazy.”

— Jack Welch

“The team with the best players wins.”

— Jack Welch

“Don't manage - lead change before you have to.”

— Jack Welch

“You measure your people and you take action on those that don't measure up.”

— Jack Welch

“The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.”

— Jack Welch

“Out-innovating them is the way to beat China. And to do everything that we do in this country to support innovative policy, that drives innovation and new products and more jobs and creates jobs. You can't - you can't put a wall up around here. We tried that in the '30s. It didn't work.”

— Jack Welch

“I was afraid of the internet... because I couldn't type.”

— Jack Welch

“We've only been wealthy in this country for 70 years. Who said we ought to have all this? Is it ordained?”

— Jack Welch

“In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I've ever seen run for the presidency of the United States.”

— Jack Welch

“I don't feel under-taxed in any way at all.”

— Jack Welch

“If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.”

— Jack Welch