I could unpack this for hours. While initially I was set to discuss the all time highs on Bitcoin and the implications to markets, at the last minute the topic was shifted to the breaking news of GE's breakup into three easy pieces. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to let it bleed.
GE has destroyed shareholder capital - including the thousands of loyal GE employees of whom many own significant amount of GE shares in their retirement plans - over the last 21 years. Don't tell me Jeff Immelt was alone in wrecking the firm. Jack Welsh made GE at one point the most valuable company in the world - yet it was build on financial engineering and not the industrial roots of GE. And it wasn't sustainable. While Immelt clearly didn't get the job done, the reliance on financial earnings for over half the earnings didn't translate to a cash printing machine that anyone could run.
So in that sense, no legacy was created, no legacy was undone. The larger concept here is that corporations are made of people. Like people they have a life span - around 25 years. Just ask Jeff Bezos. One day Amazon will look like Sears, even if that day is many years into the future. While you get rich by concentrating wealth, you preserve it by diversification.
When a magic CEO has a solid 20 year track record of hitting it out of the park, maybe leave with them. You can always go back to the well, as the resurgence in Microsoft post dot.com crash to Cloud dominator has taught me over the last 20 years. But it was a painful drawdown between Gates and Nadella.