As CEO of General Electric for the past twenty years Jack Welch has built its market cap by over $500 billion and established himself as the most admired business leader in the world. His championing of initiatives like Six Sigma quality globalization and e-business have helped define the modern corporation. At the same time hes a gutsy boss who has forged a unique philosophy and an operating system that relies on a boundaryless sharing of ideas an intense focus on people and an informal give-and-take style that makes bureaucracy the enemy. In anecdotal detail and with self-effacing humor Jack Welch gives us the people (most notably his Irish mother) who shaped his life and the big hits and the big misses that characterized his career. Starting at GE in 1960 as an engineer earning $10500 Jack learned the need for getting out of the pile when his first raise was the same as everyone elses. He stayed out of the corporate bureaucracy while running a $2 billion collection of GE businesses--in a sweater and blue jeans--out of a Hilton in Pittsfield Mass. After avoiding GEs Fairfield Connecticut headquarters for years Jack was eventually summoned by then Chairman Reg Jones who was planning his succession. There ensued one of the most painful parts of his career--Jacks dark-horse struggle filled with political tension to make it to the CEOs chair. A hug from Reg confirmed Jack was the new boss--and started the GE transformation. Welch walks us through the Neutron Jack years when GEs employment fell by more than 100000 as part of a strategy to fix sell or close each business . . . and how he used the purchase of RCA to provide a foundation for the companys future earnings. There were mistakes too--and Jack confronts them openly. In Too Full of Myself he describes one of the biggest blunders: the purchase of Kidder Peabody which ran counter to GEs culture. The riveting story of his last year--the elaborate process of selecting a successor and the attempt to buy Honeywell--is also told in compelling detail. This book is laced with refreshing interludes such as A Short Reflection on Golf that capture Jacks competitiveness and the importance of friendship in his life. Jack: Straight from the Gut is both a business classic and a deeply personal journey filled with passion and a sheer lust for life.