-edit- I realized that part of it is that you are conflating "the big PE firms" and "all of PE". I guess the TL:DR of my comment is: don't' do that. The big firms are not all of PE and you should probably avoid ascribing what they do to all of PE as a category. Ok, the rest is my original comment.
You just can't generalize like that. My step dad was brought on as the CEO of a small Ag manufacturing company when it was acquired by a PE firm. He is an engineer. He's been in charge now for close to 10 years. He has developed new products, invested in procedures and protocols, and in general focused on an increase in quality and repeatability of procedures while bringing new products into development. He cares deeply about the company (and has in fact tried at least once to buy it from the PE firm)
This might very well be a non-central example (I certainly don't have industry wide stats to argue either way), but the point is that there is nothing inherent to PE that means companies have to be cut to the bone and stripped for parts. Yes, it absolutely can and does happen, but it's not because it's PE that's doing it.
I'm fully willing to believe that the big PE firms that everyone thinks of when they make statements like yours have exactly the track record you claim. But it's not because they are PE. Smaller PE firms like the one my step dad works for is proof-by-existence that responsible PE is not an oxymoron.
PE is notorious for buying firms with debt and then driving them into bankruptcy by loading them with that debt. It’s the only thing they’re notable for. They’ve essentially killed all traditional US brick and mortar retail — it wasn’t Amazon alone; it was crushing debt load and/or profits siphoned off to the PE firm instead of reinvesting in the business.
If you don’t want your stepdad associated with those monsters, find a different term to describe his work.
Well it’s true there’s a spectrum: venture capital is a tiny corner (really just a pimple) of the private equity space. But there are tiny PE buyout funds doing the same — look at Bending Spoons who is discussed on HN for how they manage acquisitions like Evernote.
You just can't generalize like that. My step dad was brought on as the CEO of a small Ag manufacturing company when it was acquired by a PE firm. He is an engineer. He's been in charge now for close to 10 years. He has developed new products, invested in procedures and protocols, and in general focused on an increase in quality and repeatability of procedures while bringing new products into development. He cares deeply about the company (and has in fact tried at least once to buy it from the PE firm)
This might very well be a non-central example (I certainly don't have industry wide stats to argue either way), but the point is that there is nothing inherent to PE that means companies have to be cut to the bone and stripped for parts. Yes, it absolutely can and does happen, but it's not because it's PE that's doing it.
I'm fully willing to believe that the big PE firms that everyone thinks of when they make statements like yours have exactly the track record you claim. But it's not because they are PE. Smaller PE firms like the one my step dad works for is proof-by-existence that responsible PE is not an oxymoron.