From near-collapse to $689 billion: Inside Larry Culp’s turnaround of GE

Good morning. Shawn Tully writing from New York today. “I was sure GE was going to file for Chapter 11,” Nelson Peltz told me recently. “Then Larry arrived and performed the most amazing rescue I’ve ever read about or borne witness to.” He’s talking, of course, about Larry Culp, who has performed one of the greatest rescues in modern business history. On Culp’s first day as CEO in 2018, GE’s market cap measured just $96 billion, down over 80% from its peak in September 2000. Today, the valuations of the three enterprises he created (GE Aerospace which he runs, GE Healthcare, and GE Vernova) total $689 billion. Combined, they’d rank as one of the top industrial companies in the U.S. by market value, second only to Tesla ($1.5 trillion), and 16th overall, edging the likes of Visa, J&J, and E