My years with General Motors

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1. eatonphilJun 2024
   I've been reading the mentioned Bush memoir "Pieces of the Action" and it's pretty good. Stories about engineering and organizational politics. As good as any business classic (e.g. "My Years With General Motors" or "High Output Management").
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2. pg_botOct 2018
   May I suggest "My Years with General Motors" by Alfred Sloan
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3. nbouscalJul 2014
   Bill Gates also recommends My Years with General Motors [1], calling it "probably the best book to read if you want to read only one book about business." I would second that recommendation.

   [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Years-General-Motors-Alfred-Sloan/dp/0...

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4. khandekarsJun 2009
   "Founders at Work" by Jessica Livingston. Full of good stories.

   "My years with General Motors" by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. How he built the organization is quite an interesting read.

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5. maxlybbertApr 2017
   > Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations.

   There are several reasons for the salary differential. But, fundamentally, one issue is that some things don't scale linearly.

   To use a simpler example: Richard and Maurice McDonald created a hamburger stand in 1948. They created the original recipes, came up with the original ideas, and opened the original stores. Apparently, they even started offering franchises. But their ability to grow McDonald's was limited. Ray Kroc managed to make McDonald's scale. Without the McDonald brothers, there was no restaurant to scale. Without Kroc, there was no chance that McDonalds would eventually have signs saying "billions served." What is the fairest way to allocate their rewards based on their contributions?

   What about Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan ( https://steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1... )? Durant figured cars were going to be profitable. He managed to get loans to buy several car companies and called the combination General Motors. He actually created a good sized business. At some point, though, the banks lost their nerve and convinced Durant to turn over control of GM to Alfred Sloan. Sloan's book, My Years With General Motors describes his approach to R&D, accounting, marketing, and trying to organize the world's largest company in some sane way. Without Durant (and the bankers) there would be no GM. But without Sloan, GM would have never grown as large as it did. When a company gets that large and accumulates that much capital, how do you fairly divvy up the revenue? Without the people on the assembly line, there are no cars. But without the people in the board room, there's no assembly line.

   I don't think Bezos is a god, or a saint, or even necessarily a good guy. But it is clear that without him, there would be no warehouses and no inventory. We live in a world where small teams of people can create hugely profitable companies. When it comes time to divvy up the revenue, how do you reflect the fact that companies don't necessarily scale linearly based on the effort and contributions of their founders and executives?

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