Rating: 
Summary: Typical liberal reviews and book
Review: Anti-corporate Cassandras grind axes to sparse audiences these days. In O'Boyle's piddling attempt to make us outraged at GE, he destroys his own credibility. By attempting to pin every social ill of the late 20th century on Jack Welch-- a good, if ruthless CEO-- his ideological ship spins wildly out of control. Downsizing is his fault. (Hello, organizations are becoming streamlined all over the developed world) Media sensationalism is his fault. (Welch personally delights in the bottom dwelling content of Dateline NBC) Anybody who has ever worked for a corporation, especially one as big as GE, knows a few things that should make readers way of O'Boyle's hokey cause and effect analysis: 1. The CEO does not micromanage his or her company-- thousands of important decisions are made under a CEOs jurisdiction every day. 2. Corporations are not social utopias, and shouldn't be. People get fired sometimes. But people are also given opportunities to do interesting work. And competition is good. 3. If there is a ubitiquitous problem in society, e.g. families are no longer as stable, a corporation, which is sample unit of social organization, will usually reflect, or possibly be linked more directly to that problem. However, small minds confuse this with causality, not understanding the methodological pitfall of ad hoc ergo propter hoc. For example- families break up more, partially because people don't balance work and family very well. Lots of people work for corporations. Corporations caused the decline of the American family. Read the book-- O'Boyle is guilty of not understanding these truths and more.
Rating:
Summary: Whining Muckraker wants attention badly, misplaces causality
Review: Anti-corporate Cassandras grind axes to sparse audiences these days. In O'Boyle's piddling attempt to make us outraged at GE, he destroys his own credibility. By attempting to pin every social ill of the late 20th century on Jack Welch-- a good, if ruthless CEO-- his ideological ship spins wildly out of control. Downsizing is his fault. (Hello, organizations are becoming streamlined all over the developed world) Media sensationalism is his fault. (Welch personally delights in the bottom dwelling content of Dateline NBC) Anybody who has ever worked for a corporation, especially one as big as GE, knows a few things that should make readers way of O'Boyle's hokey cause and effect analysis: 1. The CEO does not micromanage his or her company-- thousands of important decisions are made under a CEOs jurisdiction every day. 2. Corporations are not social utopias, and shouldn't be. People get fired sometimes. But people are also given opportunities to do interesting work. And competition is good. 3. If there is a ubitiquitous problem in society, e.g. families are no longer as stable, a corporation, which is sample unit of social organization, will usually reflect, or possibly be linked more directly to that problem. However, small minds confuse this with causality, not understanding the methodological pitfall of ad hoc ergo propter hoc. For example- families break up more, partially because people don't balance work and family very well. Lots of people work for corporations. Corporations caused the decline of the American family. Read the book-- O'Boyle is guilty of not understanding these truths and more.
Rating:
Summary: Typical liberal reviews and book
Review: Business is designed to make profit. If people don't like that they can go live in the People Republic of China and see how it is to live in a society without our form of capitalizm. Everyday I get amazed at peoples stupidity and reading this just futhers my opinion. Stupid liberals who just don't understand the business way.
Rating: 
Summary: Antidote to "Jack"
Review: GE has a dark side that doesn't always make it onto the pages of Fortune or Jack Welch's self-serving autobiography. This book covers it.
Rating: 
Summary: tedious and repetative
Review: How many times can an author complain about layoffs? While this book had a large amount of good information, and while I'd tend to agree with much of it, it became far to preachy by the end of the book.
Rating:
Summary: This book does a lot to reassess the spin given to J. Welch
Review: I can not speak to the "accuracy" of the events described in this book but I will say the stories told seem very compelling. J. Welch is held as "the model" for CEO's and by default for potential executives. This book instructs us that the role model the "street" would have us follow is not always the best. No one can argue with the profitability that GE has enjoyed over the years but if the accounts told in this book are accurate then the question has to be asked "profitability at what price?"
Rating:
Summary: This book does a lot to reassess the spin given to J. Welch
Review: I can not speak to the "accuracy" of the events described in this book but I will say the stories told seem very compelling. J. Welch is held as "the model" for CEO's and by default for potential executives. This book instructs us that the role model the "street" would have us follow is not always the best. No one can argue with the profitability that GE has enjoyed over the years but if the accounts told in this book are accurate then the question has to be asked "profitability at what price?"
Rating: 
Summary: Guidance from On High?
Review: Is the most profitable and valuable US company spiritually dead? That seems to be Thomas O'Boyle's thesis in "At Any Cost." His riveting book is the first that I have read which chronicles the dark side of Jack Welch's restructuring of the General Electric Company. In an introductory note, O'Boyle expresses regret that Welch and other executives "were unwilling to be interviewed" or to respond to his serious efforts to solicit their comments to issues and concerns raised in his book. His note is to explain the extremely negative views of Welch and GE that O'Boyle gleaned from mountains of court and government records and from interviews with restructuring and down-sizing loosers. Predictably, corporate and business reviews dismiss the book as "muckraking." It is also predictable, however, that this book will have an impact on the eventual replacement of Welch and re-restructuring of GE.Although O'Boyle closes his book speaking of Welch and GE in the past tense, I believe that his objective is to help. If O'Boyle and Welch haven't, I urge these Irish-Catholic gentlemen to read "The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism" by Michael Novak, a leading Catholic theologian. I am not a student of such matters, but Novak's and O'Boyle's books arrived on my bedstand almost simultaneously as result of absolutely unrelated activities. The possibility that this confluence of books was ordained prompts me to share my observations.
Rating:
Summary: Baby With the Bathwater
Review: Mine will be the dissenting review. "At Any Cost" is an appalling narrative, devoid of business sense, and nothing short of a one-man hatchet job on GE and Jack Welch. I worked at GE in the early 1980s, fresh from college. I could not have imagined an operation more inefficient. People gabbed in offices instead of worked. Older folks spoke of the good old days and nervously mentioned Jack Welch, the new guy in town. Money was spent as if it had no meaning. I went on a business trip and charged $76, filed an expense report, and was told to change the figure to $150 so future budgets wouldn't be cut. Amazing. This company was ripe for pruning. I say good for Jack. And so what, he exits a bunch of low-margin manufacturing jobs to emphasize financial services. Hasn't anybody grasped the importance of capital creation? Who cares about run-of-the-mill electrical equipment? Ever hear of something called the law of competitive advantage? It's why we let Japan make DRAM chips; we'll focus on the proprietary, value-added technology. The author is so out of touch I wondered if he writes human interest stories for a local paper--maybe something about the latest zoo exhibit. His tendency is toward the socialist; no kidding. Corporations SHOULD be about making money. They are not warm and fuzzy families--anybody who thinks so should hug their spouse and see a mental doctor. Good companies, like GE has become, will treat bright and energetic people well--they understand the resource. But if you're a lazy paycheck collector, you're in trouble. Yes--some innocents will be hurt (that's the Baby with the Bathwater). Acknowledged. But they would be hurt if no action were taken, as foreign competition eventually overwhelmed them. Indecisive companies do go bankrupt! Employees who aren't "in it for themselves" are not managing their careers. That is simply reality in the modern international economy. I got impatient with GE and left. I was interested to learn that Jack Welch says one of his mistakes was moving too slowly. Quite right. I am afraid the author is locked into a Norman Rockwell painting, an image of a feel-good company picnic for Buggy Whips Inc. Simpletons and those who feel unjustly wronged will slobber over this book. Here, they can have my copy. Pathetic. (Oh, by the way, thank you Mr. Welch for the 100 times return you have given my stock the last 15 years. It will pay for my children's education.)
Rating:
Summary: Some people will sell their soul for profit
Review: O"Boyle exposes an excellent example of what is wrong with the American business climate today. Corporate profiteers concerned with short term gain at the expense of everything else. Well written, easy to read, very enlightening, this book strikes out at the venerable institutions which though held in high esteem, should be looked on with contempt. Extremely well researched, the only thing missing from this book is a response from Jack Welch. Boy, I'm glad I don't work for General Electric.
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