Ex-GE CEO Jeff Immelt more candid at Stanford

Jeff Immelt has started writing in public again, this time without the earnings-call format that defined much of his career at General Electric. In late May 2026, the former GE chief executive launched a Substack newsletter called “The Long View,” adding a new outlet to his post-corporate roles as a Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer and venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. On the newsletter’s landing page, Immelt describes leaving GE after 16 years as chief executive as harder than he had let on at the time. In one early post, he wrote that “there were dark days,” offering a more personal account than the public defenses and management lessons that followed his 2017 exit. ### What exactly did Immelt launch? Substack listed Immelt’s publication as “The Long View” and identified him as a venture partner at NEA and GE’s chairman and chief executive from 2001 to 2017. The page showed three posts and more than 1,300 subscribers when it was indexed this week. The newsletter’s about page described it simply as his personal Substack. Immelt’s first visible note framed the project as a reflection on reinvention after corporate life. (substack.com) He wrote that after spending three decades defining himself by a job, he had to “figure out who you actually are” once it was gone. He added that, nine years later, he was “in a different place.” ### Why is he writing this now, nine years after GE? Fortune reported on June 1 that Immelt said he wanted to think about life “in longhand, not bullet points,” and said a new book felt like “too heavy a lift” given his other commitments. (substack.com) In the same interview, he said many of the conversations he has now are with chief executive friends asking how he found his way after leaving the top job. The timing also follows a long stretch in which Immelt has already revisited his GE years in other formats. Fortune noted that he has written a book and spoken publicly about the period, but the Substack post stood out for its more direct account of the emotional aftermath of stepping down. Bloomberg similarly described the essay as unusually raw in its depiction of the loss of status and routine after leading one of corporate America’s biggest companies. (finance.yahoo.com) ### What is he saying about failure and legacy? Immelt’s early writing centers on the period after his departure from GE rather than on a point-by-point defense of his record. In the Fortune interview, he said he was “completely past it” when asked what he wanted people to see as his GE legacy, though he added that getting there “did not come easily.” He also said he still owns GE stock and cheers for chief executive Larry Culp. (finance.yahoo.com) Fortune reported that Immelt said he would rather let others judge the record over time. He said that if “a couple hundred CEOs and thousands of people” felt he had helped them, that would make him happy. ### How does Stanford fit into this new chapter? Stanford’s official profile lists Immelt as a lecturer at the Graduate School of Business. (finance.yahoo.com) NEA’s biography says he joined the venture capital firm in 2018 and works with growth companies in healthcare, industrial automation, clean tech and the internet of things. Dartmouth said in a May 11 write-up of an April 29 campus appearance that Immelt has recently been speaking about leadership, adaptability, failure and decision-making. (finance.yahoo.com) Those themes line up with the subjects highlighted in coverage of the newsletter and suggest that the Substack is an extension of the teaching and advising work he has taken on since leaving GE. (profiles.stanford.edu) ### What comes next for the newsletter? Substack’s archive shows “The Long View” as an active publication with posts already appearing in 2026. Fortune’s June 1 interview presented the project as an ongoing outlet rather than a one-off essay, and the newsletter page invites readers to subscribe for future posts. As of June 2, 2026, Immelt remained listed by Stanford as a lecturer and by NEA as a venture partner, the two roles he is pairing with the new newsletter. (home.dartmouth.edu) Readers looking for the next installment can find it on Substack under “The Long View,” where the publication page is already live. (profiles.stanford.edu) (thelongviewjeffimmelt.substack.com)