# Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon - Hardcover

by **William D. Cohan** (Author)

**_NEW YORK TIMES_ BESTSELLER**

_The New Yorker_ Best Books of 2022 - _Financial Times_ Best Books of 2022 - _The Economist_ Best Books of 2022

The dramatic rise--and unimaginable fall--of America's most iconic corporation by _New York Times_ bestselling author and pre-eminent financial journalist William D. Cohan

No company embodied American ingenuity, innovation, and industrial power more spectacularly and more consistently than the General Electric Company. GE once developed and manufactured many of the inventions we take for granted today, nearly everything from the lightbulb to the jet engine. GE also built a cult of financial and leadership success envied across the globe and became the world's most valuable and most admired company. But even at the height of its prestige and influence, cracks were forming in its formidable foundation.

In a masterful re-appraisal of a company that once claimed to "bring good things to life," pre-eminent financial journalist William D. Cohan argues that the incredible story of GE's rise and fall is not only a paragon, but also a prism through which we can better understand American capitalism. Beginning with its founding, innovations, and exponential growth through acquisitions and mergers, Cohan plumbs the depths of GE's storied management culture, its pioneering doctrine of shareholder value, and its seemingly hidden blind spots, to reveal that GE wasn't immune from the hubris and avoidable mistakes suffered by many other corporations.

In _Power Failure_, Cohan punctures the myth of GE, exploring in a rich narrative how a once-great company wound up broken and in tatters--a cautionary tale for the ages.

### Author Biography

A former Wall Street investment banker for seventeen years, **William D. Cohan** is the _New York Times_ bestselling author of _The Price of Silence, Money and Power, House of Cards,_ and _The Last Tycoons,_ which won the 2007 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. He also wrote _Four Friends: Promising Lives Cut Short_ and _Why Wall Street Matters_. He was a longtime special correspondent at _Vanity Fair_ and is a founding partner of _Puck_, a new digital media venture. He writes often for the opinion pages of _The New York Times and The Financial Times_ and he is a writer at large for _AirMail._ Over the years, he has also written fo_r Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, The Atlantic, Institutional Investor, The New York Times, The Nation,_ and _The Washington Post_, among other publications. Cohan is a graduate of Duke University, the Columbia University School of Journalism, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

**Number of Pages:** 816

**Dimensions:** 2.2 x 9.1 x 6.1 IN

**Publication Date:** November 15, 2022

## Details

- **Price:** 40.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 40.00 USD | In stock |

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- Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon - Hardcover

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