Thread regarding Ford layoffs

@fxh its not the auto industry people don’t care about - its Ford that has become irrelevant.

Think of it this way. Let’s say Detroit was the place all blue jeans were made. Detroit became arrogant and stopped listening to their customers. Soon competitors started making blue jeans - some specialized in couture, some in cheap utilitarian jeans. Most customers didn’t care who made the jeans, they were just jeans - they bought the jeans that suited them. And Detroit became irrelevant to the customer.

Now go outside Detroit and ask people who is Doug Field? You will get blank stares - likely they will tell you he is Mrs Fields (cookie company) husband. The same will be true if you ask non-Ford, non-GM employees in Metro-Detroit.

For your question “ why have so many top high tech talents outside of the auto industry come to work for Ford?”. Because they were all on the outs at the companies they were working. For example Doug was relegated to special projects and told he had zero opportunity to move upwards, so he searched for other opportunities. Ford is known for cr@ppy leaders (few exceptions like Mulally), so it is attractive place to milk $$$$.

@fxh+1jjwUorf

$$$$$$$$$$$$ - they will extract cash and jump ship

There is not top tech talent coming to Ford. There is just some people getting grossly overpaid for a few years, then they move on. DF wears out his usefulness after a few months. Ford has already benchmarked Tesla - what else does he have to offer?

I think most of you are wrong here. If nobody cares about the auto industry, then why have so many top high tech talents outside of the auto industry come to work for Ford? As you know, while Ford is global, the main hub is still in southeastern Michigan.

A good bulk of Ford's leadership are now from the outside, with for example Doug Field being one of the most notable.

I’m wondering if OP has lived anywhere outside SE Michigan. It isn’t anything new.

@OP. Of course nobody else cares! Earning their living is not tied to car manufacturing and there are plenty of brands to choose from, most of them foreign. It doesn't help that Ford retired from the car market, nor that Chrysler is now owned by Stellantis.

The competition is brutal right now, and it is going only to get worse. FMC keeps fumbling the ball, not knowing what is important anymore, with awful leadership (if we could call "leadership" to whatever is that management do), letting good people go in order to save some pennies, and it may be the last of this company.

It is time for me too to care less about Ford. After all, the company doesn't care about me.

We’ll the auto industry ki---d its own product. Everything is nothing more than a unibody fwd with a hatchback. Nothing. Junk. Not interested. Just go to an old car show and look at cars that they used to write songs about! Products are junk.

The interest towards automobiles is declining. Over one century ago, everyone from a Russian village would look at the wonder of modern technology when people drove race cars during Peking Paris Rally (also, Chinese would look at those cars too, unbelievable things moving so fast without a horse! how possible) and today, cars have become appliances instead of work of art, and this is why Bertone went out of business.

If you are still young enough to hang out with 19yo these days, those who are into cars are pretty marginalized. A young person into MG, Morris, yank tanks, pre-war cars, having driving many of them, with in-person experience on the cars spanning over a century, except me, who else is that? All over the world there are only handful of people like that.

There is a thing, called Matchbox Model of Yesteryear. Most of the original purchasers are no longer alive and it is one of the cheapest antique on the market today. Simply no one wants them, and it is the worst it can get for the auto industry, the appeal just doesn't exist

Maybe you should have left earlier, with that poor attitude

@OP you got that right. The rest of the world doesn’t really give a rat about metro-Detroit or Ford. When you are outside the bubble you realize how full of themselves Ford is and how everyone outside the bubble shakes their heads and laughs at Ford.