At the Daily Journal Corporation Annual Shareholders’ Meeting 2018 (14-Feb-2018,) Charlie Munger opined about what caused the failure of performance at General Electric:

It is interesting that a company so well regarded for acumen, education, technology, etc. etc. etc. could end up so ill-regarded as a result of a long period of sub-par performance. People didn’t expect it. Of course people are saying what caused the failure of performance at General Electric? My answer would be partly, life is hard and there’s some accident in the world. That’s part of it. And part of it I would say that the system at General Electric where you rotate executives through different assignments as though there are so many army officers building up a resume to see if they can be promoted to be generals. I don’t think that works as well as keeping people in one business for a long time and having them identify with the business the way Berkshire does.

Source: Charlie Munger aficionado Richard Lewis’s thorough transcript at his Lattice Work Investing blog.