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In 1976, a man named Gary Zabroski started working for General Electric.

The job paid well and provided a clear path for career development and growth.

Gary told the Wall Street Journal, quote,

You had a job for life if you had gotten in there.

General Electric was formed through the merger of

Thompson-Houston Electric Company and Edison General Electric in 1892. In 1896, just four years

later, GE became one of the original 12 companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial

average, where it remained part of the index for over 100 years.

When Gary joined the company 80 years later in 1976, the stock was trading around $2 per share.

It was a fairly slow and boring stock that didn't really make any big moves until the mid to late 90s.

However, just a small $5,000 investment in 1976 would have grown to

nearly $3 million by the end of 2016, the year that Gary decided to retire after giving 40 years of his

life to the company. Gary, like most employees, accumulated a healthy amount of GE stock throughout their careers,

and given the long-term success of the company, success that these hardworking Americans

directly contributed to, holding on to their sizable allocation to GE stock as they transitioned

into retirement did not seem reckless or careless. It was nearly impossible for any of them to

imagine that around the corner, GE would experience an event twice as bad as Enron and would erase

more wealth than the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and General Motors combined. The rapid

unraveling began around the time of Gary's retirement

at the end of 2016, when GE's stock was hovering around $150 per share. By the end of 2017,

the stock price had been cut nearly in half, and by the end of 2018, the stock was trading at $32 per share.

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