Jack - Straight From the Gut [antikvár]

Author's Note his may seem a strange way to begin an autobiography. A confession: I hate having to use the first person. Nearly everything I've done in my life has been accomplished with other people. Yet when you write a book like this, you're forced to use the narrative "I" when it's really the "we" that counts. I wanted to mention the names of all the people who took this journey with me. My editors kept beating me up, trying to get the names out. We finally struck a compromise. That's why the acknowledgments in the back of the book are somewhat long. Please remember that every time you see the word / in these pages, it refers to all those colleagues and friends and some I might have missed. Prologue spent most of the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving 2000 waiting for the "New Guy." That was the secret code for my successor, the future chairman and CEO of General Electric. On Friday night, the board had unanimously approved Jeff Immelt to succeed me. I called him right away. "I have some good news. Can you and your family come to Florida tomorrow and spend the weekend.^" Obviously, he knew what was going on. But we left it at that and went quickly to the arrangements to get him to Florida. On Saturday morning, I could hardly wait to see him. The long CEO succession process was over. I was already outside when Jeff pulled into my driveway. He had a big smile on his face and was barely out of the car before I had my arms around him, saying exacdy what Reg Jones said to me 20 years earlier: "Congratulations, Mr. Chairman!" As we hugged, I felt we were closing the loop. In that moment, my memories took me straight back to the day when Reg walked into my Fairfield, Connecdcut, office and embraced me, in just the same way. Bear hugs, or any hugs, were not natural gestures for Reg. Yet here he was with a smile on his face and his arms wrapped tighdy around me. On that December day in 1980,1 was the happiest man