Name Game

Instead, [GE] has now become three separate companies — GE Aerospace (worth $148 billion as of the close of trade on Tuesday), GE HealthCare ($40 billion), and something called GE Vernova ($38 billion).
Felix Salmon "With GE’s split, the last chapter of the Jack Welch era is over" Axios.

"Something called GE Vernova?" A veteran financial reporter couldn't be bothered to take 10 seconds to look it up? Granted, I would have simply left it as GE Power had it been up to me, but this new corporate naming trend (which includes 3M Health Care becoming "Solventum" and IBM Global Technology Services becoming "Kyndryl") isn't going anywhere. It may be fun to snark about it, but that's neither newsworthy nor informative. Rather, it feels like virtue signalling, in the sense that Mr. Salmon is relaying to Axios readers that he too finds the name to be vapid and non-descriptive. Which I can completely sympathize with, but it represents a blending of news and commentary that I'm not sure is useful.

I'm going to admit that I don't really understand the reasoning behind the new naming convention, outside of the fact that a lot of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked, boxed and shipped, and that creations like Vernova, Solventum and Kyndryl, being unique, are easier to trademark and create websites for. They may also be seen as less stuffy, especially in these cases. But they don't really resonate with me, as I pointed out before when I likened "Kyndryl" to the name of a prescription medication.

But if the point is to report on goings-on in corporate America, whether or not the name sound good, or even make intuitive sense, is beside the point. GE Vernova is the renamed GE Power. Felix Salmon could simply have pointed that out, and moved on. Arch commentary should be reserved for, well, commentary. And this goes back to one of my common criticisms of advertising supported news outlets; because the people who read them don't rely on them for actionable information, they tend to drift into being entertaining diversions. Mr. Salmon hosts the Slate Money podcast, and before that was a regular on Marketplace, so I'm familiar with his voice. I could positively hear the snark dripping from his English accent when I read that passage from the article. And I'm sure that if he actually says those words on Slate Money, it will be amusing to hear. But that's tuning in for something other than to learn things I don't know about the world around me.