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Darling of the Funds. G.E. can well afford such gambles, thanks to its wide diversification, crack management and pioneering spirit. From a manufacturer of electric bulbs and dynamos only 66 years ago, it has burgeoned into a power giant that turns out more than 200,000 separate products in more than 170 plants in 31 states and several countries. Along the way, G.E.'s scientists and engineers did the work that led from Edison's lamp to the modern incandescent bulb and the science of electronics, developed the X-ray tube, became the first to seed clouds for weather control, created the world's first man-made diamonds. Today, its laboratories employ 20,000 scientists and engineers, busy delving into the fundamental aspects of matter and mechanics.
On Wall Street G.E. is the darling of the investment funds because in good times and bad, its diversification has enabled it to turn a profit every year in its history. This year, despite the recession and the expenses of pioneering nuclear power, G.E.'s earnings turned up 6% in the third quarter to $58,589,000, for a nine-month total of $161,970,000 on sales of $3 billion. A boom in the generating-equipment segment helped level out a slump in appliances; the recovery of appliances, now under way, is expected to cut losses when heavy apparatus orders drop off. G.E. stock, selling at 78¾ at week's end, has been setting new highs week by week.
G.E. spreads its influence far beyond industry and finance. It employs more people (about 260,000) than the population of all but 40 U.S. cities, is the economic and often the social center of dozens of "company towns" where "the G.E." is more important than city hall; it maintains company schools with more students (32,000) than most U.S. universities. Cordiner headed the committee that produced the "Cordiner Report" recommending an Atomic Age army that would be small, highly paid and highly mobile. He has also brought his weight to bear on local and national politics, recently visited several states to support right-to-work laws. He has set up one of the biggest and most aggressive lobbying offices in Washington, encourages G.E.'s executives to push company causes by entering politics and community life. When it comes to comparing businessmen with politicians, Cordiner will "take my chance on a businessman every time." Says he: "I'd say that only 20% of politicians are really dedicated."
Organization Man. Keeping this computer-complex corporation humming is a job for a human powerhouse—and Cordiner fits the bill. From his three-room suite at Manhattan's Carlton House he arrives in his modest. 45th-floor office in Manhattan's gilt and gaudy G.E. Building between 7:45 and 8 each morning, the day's newspapers already read. Working on a schedule as accurate as an electronic timer, he tackles a pile of selected correspondence immediately, begins dictating letters and memos almost as soon as his secretary steps in the door at 9,