He, and his critics, should remember the meaningful work he is capable of
“Rub it out!” stormed Henry Ford when his sensitive son Edsel summoned the courage to present him with a proposal to modernise the Model T. It was 1924, and Edsel saw the threat posed by the stylish cars emerging from General Motors. General Motors, of course, would go on to become the world’s biggest carmaker and then the acme of sluggishness. To learn how to make better cars, it spent billions creating a new company, Saturn, and undertaking a joint venture with Toyota at a factory in Fremont, California. Both attempts to overcome inertia failed.
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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Star dreck”
From the December 3rd 2022 edition
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