#120 Billy Durant (Creator of General Motors)

What I learned from reading Billy Durant Creator of General Motors: The Story of the Flamboyant Genius Who Helped Lead America into the Automobile Age by Lawrence Gustin. ---- [0:32] DURANT MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT AUTOMOBILE PIONEER: Of all the colorful men who propelled the United States into the automobile age, Billy Durant was perhaps the most unusual, and from an organizational standpoint in the pioneering era, the most important. Durant had a hand in shaping the beginnings of three of the four major American automobile manufacturing corporations that exist today. [4:16] HIS LIFE STORY HAS A SURPRISING END: The guy founded General Motors, Chrysler, and Frigidaire. Three gigantic, successful companies. How does he die with no money? [6:04] DURANT TRIED TO PROTECT HIS INVESTORS: He had an attitude, not a common among men of big money. He tried to protect the people who invested with him, even if this protection would break him. Finally, it did. And when he was unable to save the dollars of his supporters he plunged from multimillionaire to bankruptcy. [10:29] DURANT WAS SKEPTICAL OF AUTOMOBILES: Durant starts out as an automobile skeptic. He builds the General Motors of horse-drawn transportation and then takes that same playbook and uses it again to do the same thing in the automobile industry once he gets over his skepticism. [17:08] IF SOMETHING IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR BUSINESS YOU NEED TO CONTROL IT: We have seen this over and over and over and over again in these stories throughout the history of entrepreneurship. If something is important to your business, you need to control it. Durant line up a big contract for the buggies only to find that Patterson chanced upon the same buyer and told him that since the product was actually being made at his factory, the buyer could save money by buying directly from him. Durant that from then on they would build all their own vehicles. [19:12] DURANT ON SALES: Assume that the person you are talking to knows as much or mo