For decades, General Electric was seen as the ultimate American company.

It made everything from toasters to jet engines.

And GE believed the reason it could succeed at so many different businesses was because

it knew how to run companies better than anyone else.

GE had this view that they could do things better that their managers understood how

to run companies.

Any company.

Our colleague Tom Grida says this notion that GE had something special was widely held

in corporate America.

But last week, an American icon splits up.

General Electric is splitting into three separate companies.

The end of an era for the 129-year-old industrial powerhouse.

Over the next few years, GE will turn into three separate public companies, one in healthcare,

one in aviation, and one in power and renewables.

The move marks the end of an iconic American company that had once been the standard for

how US businesses should be run.

To me, this is like, you know, the mythology of GE that for decades people looked at GE

as the example of corporate excellence.

And of course, its decline was moved along through this management.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Kate Limbaugh, it's Monday, November 15th.

Coming up on the show, how the company seen as the gold standard for management mismanaged

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