Publications
About the Book
Broken Bonds: My Immoderate Life of Love, Passion, War on Affirmative Action and Jack Welch's GE describes the sordid fall from grace of once celebrated General Electric CEO Jack Welch. Welch, widely held to be the most influential CEO of the 20th Century, certainly influenced the era of "I know nothing!" CEOs like Ken Lay of Enron and Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom. In Broken Bonds we see the foundation laid for the corporate scandals that eviscerated Wall Street in the early 21st Century.
Broken Bonds lays bare the federal government's responsiblity [sic] for the financial scandals as the do-nothing SEC rapidly descends from respected regulatory body to handmaiden of the very industries it was intended to regulate. The culture of corporate scandal, shareholder abuse, and CEO self-dealing is seen as the end result of a regulatory body on the take.
Broken Bonds is also the story of America's broken promise to those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps to compete in the mythical colorblind society. [Orlando Joseph] Jett, a Harvard MBA and two time MIT graduate says, "I tried to do what was noble. I never identified my race on any college or job application. I refused any opportunity that seemed affirmative action related. I was determined to set a standard that proved that Blacks needed no intellectual crutch. I believe that I succeeded in that endeavor but must now face the last bastion of racism, the American legal system."
About the Author
Orlando Joseph Jett '80, 'SM 84 earned Bachelors (1980) and Masters (1984) degrees in chemical engineering from MIT, and an MBA from Harvard University. A Wall Street securities trader, Jett won a 1993 "Man of the Year Award" as Kidder, Peabody, & Co.'s top producer. He was released from the firm a year later for allegedly orchestrating a $350 million fraud, the largest in history at the time. Jett was subsequently tried and acquitted on fraud charges.
Jett, O. Joseph. Broken Bonds: My Immoderate Life of Love, Passion, War on Affirmative Action and Jack Welch's GE. Cambridge Matrix Inc., 2004.