flâneur

Founders Notes: Billy Alfred General Motors

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Billy, Alfred, and General Motors William Pelfrey They were opposites in all respects. William C. (Billy) Durant, the high school dropout, was the flamboyant dreamer and gambler, focused on personal relationships and risk. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., the MIT engineer, was the stern organizer and manager, focused on data and logic (not to mention profit). Billy managed to create General Motors in bold defiance of the industrial and financial powers of his day. Alfred went on to transform it into the largest and most successful enterprise the world had ever seen. (Location 204) Apart from creating General Motors and losing control of it not once but twice, he had amassed and lost several personal fortunes. When he finally declared bankruptcy, after losing all in the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, he listed his total assets at $250, the value of the clothes on his back. (Location 230) Sloan's most constant criticism of Durant was that he acted on instinct and whim rather than facts. Yet the achievements and decisions of Durant the dreamer were what made Sloan the manager's spectacular career possible. (Location 257) "The perpetuation of an unusual success or the mainte

Billy, Alfred, and General Motors William Pelfrey They were opposites in all respects. William C. (Billy) Durant, the high school dropout, was the flamboyant dreamer and gambler, focused on personal relationships and risk. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., the MIT engineer, was the stern organizer and manager, focused on data and logic (not to mention profit). Billy managed to create General Motors in bold defiance of the industrial and financial powers of his day. Alfred went on to transform it into the largest and most successful enterprise the world had ever seen. (Location 204) Apart from creating…

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