You worked at GE Capital in the ’80s. How did a company that started out making light bulbs end up with such a high-powered financing arm?
At that time, GE Capital was important, but not as important as it became during the following 15 years. It was willing to take chances on companies that few others would, but it expected to get paid for its risk-taking, something I admired. Jack [Welch] saw the arbitrage opportunity between the extremely low-cost at which GE could borrow—given its AAA-credit rating—and what it could charge borrowers. Jack just kept pushing that advantage into all sorts of interesting business lines—from financing leveraged buyouts (which I did) to financing auto
