Draft Steve Jobs to run GM? Why not?
Finishing off his column for Wednesday's edition of The New York Times, Tom Friedman offers a novel suggestion:
Somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn't need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he'd like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I'd bet it wouldn't take him much longer than that to come up with the GM iCar.
No, it's not a GM
(Credit: Tesla Motors)Friedman obviously doesn't expect General Motors to act on the idea (although Jobs did simultaneously manage both Apple and Pixar for nearly a decade). His larger point, I think, was to contrast the mindsets that prevail in Silicon Valley and Detroit. And as the political powers try to grapple with the fate of GM and the U.S. auto industry, they must be wishing there was a way to perform a gene graft.
In his piece, Friedman approvingly cites a column in The Wall Street Journal by Paul Ingrassia, who used to run that paper's Detroit bureau. It deserves quotation in length:
"In return for any direct government aid," he wrote, "the board and the management (of GM) should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver--someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical--should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company...Giving GM a blank check--which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant--would be an enormous mistake."
So on and so forth. But as important as all this is, these are process questions to get GM through the near term. However, the salvation--not just for GM but the entire American auto industry--depends upon the sort of innovation that has helped the technology business thrive through several economic cycles.
Without putting Jobs on a special pedestal, he embodies a textbook example of how creativity can rescue a near-moribund operation. After Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he did not hesitate to pull the plug on dead-end projects like the Newton, or ruffle feathers by cutting off the Mac clone makers. At the same time, he infused Apple with a design aesthetic that manifested itself in the development of products such as the iMac, the Mac OSX, the iPod, and the iPhone. None of this was preordained; it was the result of innovative thinking and fast execution.
Now contrast Apple's experience with that of GM. That company let itself get addicted to churning out hulking gas guzzlers because that's where the easy money came from. Energy was relatively cheap and management's thinking was that "green" was the purview of left-wing pansies who ran San Francisco. (GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who is on record dismissing the potential of hybrid autos, also was quoted saying that global warming was "a total crock of [expletive deleted].")
I don't want to get into the debate over global warming today, but Lutz and the rest of GM's management was unprepared when energy prices spiked and consumer demand shifted abruptly. Is it any surprise, then, to learn that more forward-looking approaches to the auto industry's future have come courtesy of some old tech names like Shai Agassi and Elon Musk.
A former SAP exec, Agassi is attempting to build out an electric car network. Musk, a serial entrepreneur best known as a co-founder of PayPal, now oversees a start-up developing a line of luxury electric cars. (Unfortunately for Tesla, the market meltdown forced it to fire about one-fourth of its full-time workers and delay production of one of its models.) It's hard to know whether Agassi or Musk will be able to make it. If they fail, though, it won't be due to lack of imagination.
Imagination. That's what built the auto industry in the first place. So why can't history repeat itself. Maybe a Jobs, a John Chambers, or a Sergey Brin can help offer an answer. Too bad they won't get the opportunity.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.
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Not necessarily that we need Steve Jobs for the job, but it is time for the big 2.5 auto makers to think outside of the box and that may take emptying out the current box.
It would have a click-wheel. :)
No the point of Friedman's comment is that GM, Ford, and Chrysler are the ones who need to get past design hang-ups.
Nah, kidding aside, a new outside viewpoint would help the auto industry. I don't think Jobs is it though. Remember that Jobs didn't design or invent any of the hardware that Apple produces- he is just good at managing those creative talents. You really want the person who designed the iPod, not their manager.
B. Someone not afraid to pull the trigger on the waste. (Remember that GM [I think GM] paid Ross Perot a cool 17 million to leave, and on the condition he didn't pontificate on their internal wasteful management practices. Again, answer to B, is A.
C. The guy didn't "quit" Apple. He and his wife both left Apple, and the there was not much more than that disclosed.
Point taken, the Japanese autos had cup holders for years before Detroit started designing them in. Safety considerations not withstanding, people do drink beverages in their autos.
Without knowing exactly what went on at Apple between 1997 and May 1998, you (nor Freidman, who famously advocated "six more months" in Iraq) have no reasonable basis for assuming he'd be good or bad for GM. I'm afraid even Mr. Jobs' vaunted creativity wouldn't be much use against the entrenched obligations GM must meet aside from the business of conceiving and building cars.
The way it works is pretty straightforward: If you make things that people want to buy, people will buy them. If you make things that people don't want to buy, people won't buy them. All other things being equal, that's pretty much the case.
The American automakers, buried beneath tons of bureaucracy, have become clumsy, slow-footed, and insular. They build what they want to sell, rather than building what people want to buy. So they end up making big, unreliable gas hogs with aging, primitive designs, because they think there's more profit in that than in investing in a more nimble manufacturing infrastructure, more modern engine designs, and more fuel-efficient cars.
Make what people want to buy, not what you want to sell.
Steve Jobs, for all the fact that he's a bit of a psychotic lunatic, is quite skilled at designing and building things that people want. I doubt he'd be a good fit in Detroit, but it certainly would help to have SOMEONE who understands the notion of building things that people want to buy behind the wheel of the American automotive industry.
I could be wrong just a thought
stan
And because American workers decided they wouldnt work for less money than it took to pay the bills.
General Motors has a pension program that's among the world's most generous--and most expensive. For years, GM's pension plan costs have increased at a rate of about 12% per year, year over year. Today, GM is spending tens of billions of dollars--yes, that's right, tens of *billions* of dollars--per year on its pension plan. When you buy a GM car, the total amount of the proce of the car that's paid in taxes is insignificant next to the total amount that goes into the GM pension fund.
Between pension fund expenses to cover shortfalls accumulated over the past several years and benefit expenses, GM is out more than $50 billion of its cash this year alone. That's a staggering amount of money, and it's a huge drain on GM's ability to stay afloat. You can't blame taxes for this particular mess, I'm afraid.
GM and UAW et al partner in creating one of the most cash-inefficient operations on the planet, and that gets them HELP from the federal gov't? I'd be able to hire two college-degreed professionals for every one average UAW worker at the $35-40/hour rate they pull--and that doesn't even include their benefits!
Maybe if GM and UAW paid fair wages, they would have had some dough hire some more highly educated professionals to run the place in a more efficient manner, and they wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place!
If GM shuts down, the workers will get free job retraining anyway...isn't that probably the best use of taxpayer money?
Take note, Google.
Steve Jobs could help GM, if he could constrain himself from firing all of the management.
What GM needs to do is follow Apple's simple philosophy which was in an Businessweek article a while back. Just one of those points was, "We make products we ourselves want to use." There's a novel idea. Make products real people want to use, not what engineers want to design. (As if the word design belongs in the same sentence with engineer.)
If GM fails it is not for a lack of insight it is a lack of will. GM was betting its future on a strong economy and cheap fuel. It always falls back to greed and shortsightedness. GM should be allowed to fail. I have a big stake in the company but the company has only itself to blame.
Also, my comment is not related to Global Warming, it's just related to the attitude his quote implies.
The company I work for is staffed by people who don't give a crap about "organic" food and are generally conservative, but we saw that that was the way the market was going and went hell-for-leather to make sure we were ready when it happened.
But I think the real difference is this: If our company fails, we're not expecting the government to bail us out.
We also sell ALL of our products at a profit, which, I have to say, is the type of crazy thinking that just seems to get us over the line.
Evey hard working american I know who is a good american supports bailing out our good Auto industry.
Who would not our auto industry is one of the last we have left.
If it goes so does the country.
A.Either people here are stupid.
B. Toyota PR is spamming this site.
C. US citiziens want to become more poor and make the foreign countries richer by buying foreign products.
I am a US owner of a good business. I am going to call my congressman to make sure my money goes towards US industry.
The fools here who dont support the bailout are stuipd anti-amierican foreign car owners who want to destroy gm because they love there toyota camery so much.
I dove a camery and they are a POS.
YES to bailout. America Deserves it!
The facts are American Automakers are too big. They can't compete because they have NO flexibility to adjust financially (because of bonds), with wages (because of unions), and because they are unimaginative. They have made TERRIBLE mistakes not just in recent years but going all the way back to the 70s. GM could have purchased both Honda and Toyota outright for 1/3 of their R&D spending in the 80s. They spent 65 Billion dollars on R&D in the 80s and came up with crap.
The cars are poorly engineered compared to competitors and both companies are burning ships ready to implode. I say good riddance and I know there are A LOT of jobs depending on this industry but that is what Bankruptcy is supposed to do - allow a company to restructure itself and BE PENALIZED for making mistakes. Bankruptcy allows them to cancel contracts and start over which is what needs to happen. Get the friggin government out of the picture completely except for a couple of bankruptcy lawyers and a judge.
If all the consequences for taking down a huge company are negated by the government then what incentive is there to run a good business? You are messing with incentives and just like the financial bailout did NOTHING this will only prolong the problem and cost taxpayers money to line stockholders pockets. They took a risk now let them learn from losing. I guarantee they will invest more wisely in the future.
You only learn by making mistakes or watching others make mistakes. If the consequences for making mistakes are removed then I am going to tank my business and demand the same compensation to keep it afloat. It doesn't make any sense and an auto bailout makes no sense either.
I knew how flawed the financial bailout was before it was voted on and I knew the political machine would eventually push it through? Now, over a month later we are getting ready to do the same thing with the auto industry? Oh, Really!?!? Why don't politicians learn from their mistakes? Because they have no incentive too. They are locked in for x number of years and no one can touch them. We as tax payers and business owners are at their mercy and from my point of view - screwed.
Your opinion is foolish at best.
As far as I am concerned, grant the bailout but force complete control into the hands of companies like Tesla. Oh, one more thing, get someone like a Steve Jobs to manage it's products, get someone like Jesse Ventura to cut the crap out of it.
This isn't a prototype or a future promise never to fulfill, but a real product scheduled for production in 2010. And the production date isn't a promise either.
From a technological point of view the Volt is exactly the right product. It has a generator and an electric only drive train and li-ion battery's.
Maybe it is difficult to understand what is needed to build a new car, because the Volt isn't an electric add-on car, it is a new design in almost every way. This means apart from designing it, everything must be tested extensively, because failure can result in loss of live, or enormous material damages, or huge financial claims. And in that respect it isn't an iPod.
I think that the Volt is a bold move from GM, and demonstrates exactly the innovation and technical expertise that is asked for. It is a shame you missed this point in your blog entirely.
The innovation (even revolution) at GM is already there!
The only problem I see, is the possibility that GM motors cannot finance the production of the Volt.
And that is where government support might be needed.
J.
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by Grumpypaul
November 13, 2008 3:49 AM PST
- An obvious point that I think is being missed is that while the "Big 3" may not have had smaller more fuel efficient vehicles in their lineups, it's the American public that was buying the SUV's as quickly as they could be made. So much so that the offshore manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon as well. The only saving grace for many of them is that they also had a plan B on the showroom floors so when the huge Toyotas and Nissans stopped selling, at least they had the economy Toyotas and Nissans. GM Ford and Chrysler did not, or at least the public's perception was that they did not. In fact there are several alternatives on the Amercan manufacturers floors that are selling nicely. Unfortunately the weighted average of the product mix is poor at the moment. We've got at least two generations of Americans who have convinced themselves, rightly or wrongly, that the quality and value of the Chevy, Ford or Dodge, is less than the competing Nissan, Toyota, or Mazda. While I believe the perception was true back in the 70's and 80's, I feel it is less than accurate today. What can be argued is that the available products don't fulfill the dreams and desires of the public. Although I do own a Dodge pick up, my other two vehicles are an '04 Audi Convertible, purchased as a "Certified Used" car and a Mazda Miata, with over 100K miles when I bought it 3 years ago, the former being purchased as the main transportation for my wife, and the latter as a "toy" for me. There truly weren't and domestic products around that fit our desires and our budgets.
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by Thomas, David
November 13, 2008 1:48 PM PST
- Riiiiiiight.
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See all 44 Comments >>You need to watch that documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car"
Then get back with us on that.