The Rise and Fall of General Electric

Power Failure

A magisterial history of the astounding rise - and unimaginable fall - of America's most iconic corporation 
 
Perhaps no company reflects American ingenuity, innovation, and industrial fortunes as well as the iconic General Electric Company. Producing storied leaders and almost every product imaginable, GE built a cult of success that hid cracks in its foundation. In this masterful history, William D. Cohan, one of America's most pre-eminent financial journalists, argues that GE's legacy is both a paragon and a cautionary tale through which to understand twentieth-century America. 
 
Power Failure limns the eventful 130-year history of GE, bringing fresh analysis drawn from rare interviews with key figures of the company's golden era, including Jack Welch himself. As Cohan recounts, Welch traded on a sterling legacy to make GE the most valuable and respected company in the world, while cloaking its vulnerabilities. What he handed to his successor Jeffrey Immelt was, Cohan argues, both an impossible standard and a more troubled reality. 
 
Tracing the company's leaps and stumbles through the personalities that defined it, Power Failure offers a surprising retelling of the GE story, puncturing the myth we think we know for a fresh look at its legacy - and what it tells us about the state of the financial world.

This hubris-to-nemesis story... must count as one of the greatest dramas in business history... William D Cohan captures that drama exceptionally well... a gripping read.... a tour de force

The rise and fall of GE is explained as the product of individual men and their mercurial decisions, yet its fate has a wider significance. It ought to be a warning: cost-cutting, outsourcing and financial speculation produce a warped model of value that is liable to collapse

A heavyweight cautionary tale about how the reputation of one-time corporate titans such as Jack Welch can be floored by over-reach and ambition

General Electric was once the most important, powerful and influential company on earth - and this is the definitive story of how it got that way, and what happened next. William Cohan takes us inside the company's boardrooms and factories with a rollicking and fascinating tale of corporate brilliance, bitter infighting, business daring and monied folly that illuminates not just General Electric, but the world and economy it helped create

With the sweep and authority of an accomplished historian, the digging of a fearsome investigative reporter, and the storytelling skills of a novelist, Bill Cohan takes us from the 19th Century birth of GE, to its rise as America's most valued company in the 20th, and to its near death in the 21st. With incredible access to Jack Welch and the major actors in this drama, he paints a panoramic view of America and of capitalism, how it has changed and still must

Cohan rides this wild tale like a racehorse to the bitter end. It's all here: the birth of this most American of inventive American companies and the triumphs, flaws and missteps to come. If at 130 years old, GE has indeed fallen, this masterful work remains

For most of our lives GE was one of the familiar, trusted U.S. companies, and in the early 2000s still the biggest company on earth. In one generation this icon of the American corporate imperium has turned into an icon of American corporate failure. We're fortunate that the great business chronicler William Cohan has now applied his extraordinary reporting skills and lucid, knowing prose to tell this story in breathtaking detail from beginning to bitter end. Power Failure is fascinating and definitive

This epic tale of arguably the most dominant corporation in American history has it all: money, power, sex and larger-than-life characters, from Thomas Edison to "Teflon Jack" Welch and beyond. Cohan's fine pacing and narrative flair make for a page-turner that becomes a compelling story of American capitalism itself

Power Failure by William Cohan is a tour de force of reporting, a deeply researched chronicle of the flawed personalities and dysfunctional company politics that led General Electric, once hailed as the great American corporate success, to self-destruct. The story reads like a tragedy

Perhaps no company reflects American ingenuity, innovation, and industrial fortunes as well as the iconic General Electric Company. Producing storied leaders and almost every product imaginable, GE built a cult of success that hid cracks in its foundation. In this masterful history, William D. Cohan, one of America's most pre-eminent financial journalists, argues that GE's legacy is both a paragon and a cautionary tale through which to understand twentieth-century America. 
 
Power Failure limns the eventful 130-year history of GE, bringing fresh analysis drawn from rare interviews with key figures of the company's golden era, including Jack Welch himself. As Cohan recounts, Welch traded on a sterling legacy to make GE the most valuable and respected company in the world, while cloaking its vulnerabilities. What he handed to his successor Jeffrey Immelt was, Cohan argues, both an impossible standard and a more troubled reality. 
 
Tracing the company's leaps and stumbles through the personalities that defined it, Power Failure offers a surprising retelling of the GE story, puncturing the myth we think we know for a fresh look at its legacy - and what it tells us about the state of the financial world.

Why Wall Street Matters

If you like your smartphone or your widescreen TV, your car or your pension, then, whether you know it or not, you are a fan of Wall Street. 
 
William D. Cohan, bestselling author of House of Cards, has long been critical of the bad behaviour that plagued much of Wall Street in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and, as an ex-banker, he is an expert on its inner workings as well. But in recent years he has become alarmed by the vitriol directed at the bankers, traders and executives who keep the wheels of our economy turning. Why Wall Street Matters is a timely and trenchant reminder of the dire consequences for us all if the essential role these institutions play in making our lives better is carelessly curtailed.

How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World

Money and Power

William D. Cohan's Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World is a chronicle of the most successful, iconic bank on Wall Street, from the firm's founding in 1869 to the present day. 
 
 Goldman Sachs are the investment bank all other banks - and most businesses - want to emulate; the firm with the best talent, the best clients, the best strategy. But is their success just down to the gilded magic of the 'Goldman way'? 
 
 William D. Cohan has gained unprecedented access to Goldman's inner circle - both on and off the record. In an astonishing story of clashing egos, backstabbing, sex scandals, private investigators, court cases and government cabals, he reveals what really lies beneath their gold-plated image. 
 
 'The best analysis yet of Goldman's increasingly tangled web of conflicts' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Economist 
 
 'Startling ... lifts the lid on Goldman's pivotal role in the meltdown' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Mail on Sunday 
 
 'Cohan portrays a firm that has grown so large and hungry that it's no longer long-term greedy but short-term vicious. And that's the wonder - and horror - of Goldman Sachs' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Businessweek 
 
 'Cohan's book tells of bitter power struggles and business cock-ups' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Guardian 
 
 'A definitive account of the most profitable and influential investment bank of the modern era' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The New York Times Book Review 
 
 William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. His first book, The Last Tycoons, about Lazard, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, House of Cards, also a bestseller, is an account of the last days of Bear Stearns &amp; Co.

Revelatory, engrossing, penetrating ... Cohan revels in a good bust-up

The best analysis yet of Goldman's increasingly tangled web of conflicts

Startling ... lifts the lid on Goldman's pivotal role in the meltdown

Cohan portrays a firm that has grown so large and hungry that it's no longer long-term greedy but short-term vicious. And that's the wonder - and horror - of Goldman Sachs

Cohan's book tells of bitter power struggles and business cock-ups

A definitive account of the most profitable and influential investment bank of the modern era

William Cohan is an award-winning journalist and Wall Street veteran. His first book, The Last Tycoons, about Lazard, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, House of Cards, also a bestseller, is an account of the last days of Bear Stearns &amp; Co, described as "gripping...high drama" by Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times. He is a regular on the pages of the Financial Times, is a contributing editor at both Vanity Fair and Fortune, and is an online columnist for The New York Times.

'If they could screw you over, they totally would ...' 
 
Goldman Sachs are the investment bank all other banks - and most businesses -want to emulate; the firm with the best talent, the best clients, the best strategy. But is their success just down to the gilded magic of the 'Goldman way'? 
 
William D. Cohan has gained unprecedented access to Goldman's inner circle - both on and off the record. In an astonishing story of clashing egos, backstabbing, sex scandals, private investigators, court cases and government cabals, he reveals what really lies beneath their gold-plated image.

How Wall Street's Gamblers Broke Capitalism

House of Cards

The international bestseller from the winner of the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, House of Cards dissects the collapse of Bear Stearns and the beginning of the financial crisis 
 
It was Wall Street's toughest investment bank, taking risks where others feared to tread, run by testosterone-fuelled gamblers who hung a sign saying 'let's make nothing but money' over the trading floor. 
 
Yet in March 2008 the 85-year-old firm Bear Stearns was brought to its knees - and global economic meltdown began. With unprecedented access to the people at the eye of the financial storm, William Cohan tells the outrageous story of how Wall Street's entire house of cards came crashing down. 
 
'A fly-on-the-wall record ... Cohan is a master of this genre. He perfectly captures the raw voice of Wall Street ... like Damon Runyon updated by Martin Scorsese' Martin Vander Weyer, Spectator Business 
 
'Action-packed ... gripping' David Smith, Sunday Times 
 
'A page-turner ... hard to put down, especially thanks to its dishy, often profane, quotes from insiders ... Read it, learn - and weep' Roben Farzad, Business Week

It is too early to say who will emerge as the definitive chroniclers of this crisis, but this book by William Cohan ... seems likely to end up as one of the key texts

First drafts of history don't get much better than this

A fly-on-the-wall record ... Cohan is a master of this genre. He perfectly captures the raw voice of Wall Street ... like Damon Runyon updated by Martin Scorsese

William Cohan is an award-winning journalist and veteran of Wall Street. His previous book, The Last Tycoons, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. A regular on the pages of the Financial Times and Fortune, the deal for this book was big news in the Wall Street Journal.

It was Wall Street's toughest investment bank, taking risks where others feared to tread, run by testosterone-fuelled gamblers who hung a sign saying 'let's make nothing but money' over the trading floor. 
 
Yet in March 2008 the 85-year-old firm Bear Stearns was brought to its knees - and global economic meltdown began. With unprecedented access to the people at the eye of the financial storm, William Cohan tells the outrageous story of how Wall Street's entire house of cards came crashing down. 
 
'Gripping ... high drama ... riveting, edge-of-the-seat reading' Michio Kakutani, The New York Times

The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.

The Last Tycoons

Winner of the 2007 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award

William D. Cohan's The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères &amp; Co. is the astonishing story of the world's most elite and legendary investment bank - and the men who reigned over it all. 
 
 For over 150 years Lazard Frères had stood apart from other Wall Street firms by offering ultra-wealthy clients the wisdom of its 'Great Men': from Felix Rohatyn, the escapee from Nazi-occupied France turned financial genius, to Michel David-Weill, the inscrutable French billionaire 'Sun King'; from Steve Rattner, the boy wonder from Long Island who clashed violently with the old guard, to larger-than-life CEO Bruce Wasserstein, 'Bid-Em-Up-Bruce', who broke with the bank's traditions and made himself billions in the process. They amassed unimaginable fortunes and would stop at nothing to make a deal, until their titanic egos started to jeopardize everything. 
 
 In The Last Tycoons William Cohan, himself a former high-level Wall Street banker, takes us into their mysterious and secretive world, telling a story of ruthless ambition, whispered advice, explosive feuds, glamorous mistresses, decadent excesses and unimaginable wealth. 
 
 'Spellbinding' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Financial Times 
 
 'A definitive account ... it lives up to the billing' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The Times 
 
 'Has sent a jolt through Lazard and the rest of Wall Street' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Wall Street Journal 
 
 William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. His first book, The Last Tycoons, about Lazard, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, House of Cards, also a bestseller, is an account of the last days of Bear Stearns &amp; Co. He is also the author of Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World.

A definitive account &hellip; it lives up to the billing

Has sent a jolt through Lazard and the rest of Wall Street

William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. He spent six years at Lazard Frères in New York and later became a Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. He is a graduate of Duke University and received both an MS from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and an MBA from its Graduate School of Business. He lives in New York City and Columbia County, New York.

William D. Cohan

A remarkable work about financial genius and human failure

Leon Black, Apollo and the Remaking of Wall Street

Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s most formidable investment firms, has thrived in private equity and private credit, delivering staggering returns through aggressive takeovers and bold, contrarian bets. Blending gripping narrative with meticulous reporting, Money to Burn offers a spectacular investigation into this controversial and powerful financial empire, where the billionaires at the top have brought the same appetite for risk at work to their chaotic personal lives. 
 
Rising from the ashes of Drexel Burnham Lambert after the junk bond crisis in the 1980s, Apollo – under the leadership of Leon Black, its brilliant and fearsome billionaire founder – has come to epitomize the new Wall Street for more than three decades. But, in 2021, Black resigned. His dramatic downfall, due in part to his close personal and business relationship with the disgraced paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, is a riveting saga of extreme wealth, jealous rivalries and public scandal. 
 
Drawing on exclusive access to Apollo’s executives, William D. Cohan exposes the power struggles, betrayals and courtroom battles behind the company’s meteoric rise – and offers a first-hand account of how one man’s ambition, hubris and excess altered the course of an international financial powerhouse. Both an origin story and a cautionary tale, Money to Burn also asks a critical question: have firms such as Apollo created an ingenious new model for global finance – or planted the seeds of our next great financial crisis?

William D. Cohan

Praise for Money to Burn

A remarkable work about financial genius and human failure

Books by William D. Cohan

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