What Boeing, Disney and others can learn from General Electric

Only rarely are chief executives appointed with a mandate for dismemberment. Yet when Larry Culp assumed the top job at General Electric (GE) in October 2018, he was expected to sell parts of the 130-year-old conglomerate at a pace even faster than his empire-building predecessors had assembled them. In November 2021 he announced a radical finale: splitting the firm in three. GE’s health-care business became a separate company last year. On April 2nd its power division went the same way, leaving behind GE Aerospace, the firm’s engine-making operation.