Elon Musk taking Henry Ford's path; that's a bad idea
As Elon Musk tries to add the social media giant Twitter to his expanding empire, hes seeming a bit busy. When hes not starting and buying complex companies, hes sounding off about free speech, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and, well, just about everything.
The electric-car magnate is developing an eerie resemblance to another automotive visionary: Henry Ford. Thats not meant as a compliment. If Musk keeps courting celebrity and pursuing side ventures, the risk is that Tesla, the company that made him a household name, will fall from its premier position just as Ford Motor Co. did in the 1920s.
Henry Ford famously parlayed visionary ideas about assembly-line manufacturing into unimaginable wealth and global fame. His headline-grabbing initiatives paying his workers the princely sum of $5 a day, for example made him an American folk hero, someone whose quest for market share and profit nonetheless held out the promise of a better life for all.
This adulation drove a transformation in Fords personality. Like Musk, Ford was originally a shy, awkward man. But as his business ventures made him a celebrity in the years after 1910, he underwent a metamorphosis that foreshadowed Musks own transformation from tongue-tied savant to global guru.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-elon-musk-taking-henry-fords-path-thats-a-bad-idea/
Ford later adopted an anti-labor and antisemitic stance.
peppertree
(21,530 posts)That Apartheid upbringing of his is really showing through.
MacKasey
(976 posts)He talks at kindness, if he is so smart, he should come up with plan for immigrants at our southern borders
lapfog_1
(29,166 posts)near a large lithium mine, like in Peru or Mexico... and a city to house the immigrants to work the mine and the giga-factory...
He could call it Musklandia. Or maybe Elonlandia.
He already works his car assembly people like slaves... might as well take it next level.
IbogaProject
(2,694 posts)Mars, the Moon, Asteroid mining etc.
Scruffy1
(3,239 posts)The assembly line had been around for quite a while before Henry went into business. It was heavily used by farm equipment manufacturers and others. As far as the $5 a day thing, most of the workers never got it and by 1919 he had the lowest wages in the auto industry. At the time he made the claim he was under pressure to declare a dividend to his partners, the Dodge brothers. He knew that they wanted to use the money to start their own company. In order to get the $5 per day you had to work for a year at a lot less. At the time the turnover rate in the factory was 400% and very few lasted a year. You also had to prove your good morality and have an inspection of your home by a company man.
What Henry Ford did was come up with an inexpensive car that was reliable, easy to drive and service. It really was a game changer, but by the mid nineteen twenties both Dodge and GM were well established. Ford was so well capitalized that he survived from 1930-1940 while losing money every year of the depression. He also had control of a lot of the iron ore mining in northern Minnesota so was a supplier of high grade iron ore. I look at Henry Ford as a guy that was in the right place at the right time, like most other "geniuses".
Doc Sportello
(7,455 posts)Especially the last line. Most businessmen viewed as geniuses are, as you wrote, just in the right place at the right time. Many, like Ross Perort, also used other people's ideas and a government loan to get where they were.
I would add that the above statement that Ford "later adopted anti-semitic views" is also BS. He always had them.
Mopar151
(9,965 posts)The famed "V-8 Ford" became an icon because the engineers made testing so rigorous that Henry's favored designs failed miserably. Henry was fixated on the "simplicity" of thermo-siphon cooling (no water pump), splash or "trough & dipper" oiling, and cast-in place "babbitt" bearings.
The 1932 and up Fords also had a simple and durable chassis design, with excellent steering geometry, plenty of wheel travel, decent brakes and robust wheel bearings and axles. The modern day "sprint car" still uses this basic design.
Until this year, every NASCAR rear axle assembly was based on Ford components and basic design (Even the Toyotas!) The "quick change" utilized on short tracks is based on a 48-53 3/4 ton truck axle, while the '58 - '80 "9 inch" is absolutely ubiquitious.