Thread regarding Ford layoffs

Train tracks right up to the data center of the future, that would be interesting, but no matter it is the data center of the past, soon to be outsourced to Kyndryl

At the time I thought “there goes my project share”. They would have been better off putting the money to make WHQ and add some train tracks and call it a train station.

$400 million wasted.

Ford has a terrible track record in real estate.

Remember the Renaissance Center in Detroit?

Built by Ford and sold to GM for pennies on the dollar.

History has a habit of repeating itself.

Ford land might be footing the bill for the train station. Ford motor is probably on the hook for some high rent guarantees.

Solution: Double down with an EV Train ! Ha ! Y'all can park in the 'burbs, take the F Train down to the wedding reception at the Detroit Depot Station ! All Ford's creation !
Can Billy, et al. ever promise that the EV Train will 'run on time' without breaking down ?
All Aboard ! [Note who jumps up front for the first tickets.]

@vze - Work from home requires “trust”,,, please,,, the reason LL* squawk about trust is because they themselves are untrustworthy. Look at the amount of cozy supplier relationships, look at the number of LL6 who pretend to work, “oh yes I am working just because I have my cellphone with me all day” - all the while posting pics from bike rides, boating, snowmobiling, Home Depot shopping — all during the day while pretending to work.

Dedicated to Detroit for altruistic reasons,,, please,,, Just do a wee bit of research and see all the Ford family business ventures that are upstream and downstream in the project. Same is true of Dearborn campus.
Been to any of the US cities Ford has basically abandoned and let to rot? Oh wait, wasn’t Detroit one of those?

Or maybe the Dioxine plume and PFAS invading Ann Arbor water supply has Bill looking to relocate downstream now and he wants some gentrified area to move the family to?

He bought it when Detroit came back to life in 2019 or so. Imagine, the city grew more beautiful and you can actually spend time downtown now and enjoy yourself. Impossible in 2016 if you ask me. He bought it to grow the city nicer and made a huge dedication to Michigan and Detroit with it.
He easily has enough money to put up camp anywhere in the US but he decided Detroit it's going to be. And once the economy recovers somewhat and companies realize this dr-g dream of total work-from-home is the crp-sh*t idea that it is, it might actually all work out?! Unless people realize they don't want to live in Michigan which isn't all that hard.
And work from home... in a few years that's gonna become a lot less, maybe already by this down turn. Cause work from home has a cost... trust. And you have to pay that upfront.

Wanting to open a Detroit office was reasonable at the time. Buying one of the most dilapated buildings in a sketchy area (even by Detroit standards) and then pouring close to half a billion into it was financial malpractice. But that's what happens when family members control the company's purse strings. This was nothing more than a vanity project for BF's ego and he misused company finances to build it. They could have built an entirely new, state of the art office building in a nicer neighborhood of Detroit (with far more amenities surrounding it) for a fraction of the cost. The fact that Bill doesn't get raked over the coals for this boondoggle is mind boggling. Maybe they'll throw yet another party among the unfinished tran station ruins this summer.

@neu+1hMr7nQv You must like KOOL AID? Anytime BF is involved in something it goes right into the toilet. He failed as a CEO and was forced out by his own family. Then you have the Lions. Man was booed at a Red Wings game when he was announced. So, I will continue to short the stock. BF and JF are like a sure bet for the shorter.

I will never buy the snow job that talent will come to Detroit because of the train station. I hate Detroit and nobody wants to be in that city. twice a year for a game or a show is the limit and I don't enjoy it while I am there. It is a broken city infested with poverty and crime. The only solution to improve Detroit is slide it into the river and rebuild it in entirety, then rename it. Snowflakes will melt at this truth but I'm sorry that is the truth.

LMAO @neu+1hMr7nQv
The Ford facilities as bad as they are aren’t the reason Ford cannot attract and retain talent. Every survey that Ford performed pinpointed the talent retention and attraction problems, but they repeatedly dismissed the survey results that they did not want to hear.

Truly great talent wants to be surrounded with great talent, they don’t give a rip about a train station, or the Dearborn campus, or Hacketts open office transformation. Ford could have easily and inexpensively spun up satellite offices in talent rich (desirable) areas of the USA, which their surveys and exit interviews have told them repeatedly to do since the 1990s. Yupper let’s keep fooling ourselves that Ford is still a powerful company and the world will come to Detroit on bended knee for the opportunity to bask in Ford’s greatness.

@neu+1hMr7nQv

You could not be be more misinformed. Spending exorbitant amounts of money renovating a building that should have been torn down (according to people I know who were inside prior to Ford’s purchase) is not in the interest of Ford shareholders or employees. The Moroun family coerced Bill’s ego to buy the place, and the Ford Motor Company will pay the price for many years. It is a money pit, no where close to being habitable, and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. Maybe we will break out those costs on our new line item P&L that will list all the money we earn from data and software?

As an employee and shareholder, I hope so.

The train station plan was brilliant prior to the affects from the pandemic hit. Nobody could've predicted the future on how covid changed the workplace and Ford's plans. Now with the current company transformation to digital/data and software as a primary focus, I would say this alternate plan to attract big tech talent to Ford with the current state WFH environment will be a success (the original plan was to have the train station alone to become the attraction to bring in the best talent).

With Ford still having a development footprint in the train station and the Dearborn campus still in the works, we are in good shape for growth. The proof is already here with the latest new executive hires the past year all coming from big tech outfits and outside traditional automotive sectors.

Choo! Choo!

In the America of the future you will just have to provide housing and a payment solution for student debt. Then they will come by themselves.

The entire train station and Dearborn campus renovations seem like a bad dream. They sold the idea that to attract young talent you needed to provide a hip place to work. Seems WFH is pretty hip to most.

Bill never admits mistakes, including Hackett and Farley.