19 ms·
The new Ford, a Silicon Valley software company
- bound008 10y agodoes anyone else want to talk about the elephant in the room? the eMate 300 sitting next to a HTC Vive VR Headset?
- wwweston 10y agoIf you see one of those these days, it's quite likely attached to someone who thinks pretty carefully about their tools. If that doesn't make a lot of sense, consider this: it's a general purpose computing device with a suite of acceptable productivity software (and third party ecosystem) that gets over 24 hours of battery life off of 4 AAs. Very useful for head-down writing/thinking.
- brianbreslin 10y agoThat's theVerge offices, not Ford's. Though good eye recognizing the eMate.
- aerovistae 10y agoThe new Ford: Tesla.
- r00fus 10y ago'cept they're not going to design cars.
- aerovistae 10y agoYeah, I meant Tesla is the new Ford.
- mathattack 10y agoIt's very hard to believe that Ford will be able to compete for talent with the hottest startups in Silicon Valley. Would someone really take a position there over a similar one at Google, Apple or Uber? Or a smaller startup?
- mmkx 10y agoYeah, I would.
- ryguytilidie 10y agoI'm a HUGE auto nerd. I'm pretty happy at my job but stuff like this would be the kind of thing that might make me listen...
- ryanSrich 10y agoOut of those three you mentioned? No brainer. But those aren't startups, by any stretch of the word. What ford really has to compete with is actual startups. Companies that are 10-100 people, offering positions where people can make a difference.
- jzwinck 10y agoPeople can make a difference in a startup if it takes off. They can also make a difference by doing a small part of the work of a huge company which half the people in the world have heard about and from which hundreds of millions of people buy very expensive, important products. If Ford can convince us that working for them is a path toward making motoring better for a hundred thousand people per vehicle model, wouldn't we be interested? Or are we only up for hacking on prototypes whose main hope of mass production is getting acquired by a major maker?
- ryanSrich 10y agoDifferent strokes I guess. My main point was that at a startup I most likely would have the opportunity to shape the engineering culture, hire people, architect, and build a company from the ground up. I wouldn't have to deal with the horrifying corporate culture that comes with any massive company.
- r00fus 10y ago>Patel: Are you going to want them to design cars? Fields: No Not sure how they're going to focus on software without integrating that with car design, maybe it's the whole "FordPay" allusion that was made later but this just seems not integrated or solution-driven enough to compete with Telsa, Google, Apple or Uber. Just seems like Ford wants it's finger in all pies.
- elbelcho 10y agoHonda is doing something somewhat similar: https://www.hondasvl.com/ https://www.hondasvl.com/
- noname123 10y agoIn the same vein of startup-like enclave within a large institutions but in the Boston area, Shell has a startup/incubator space in Cambridge that do innovation on drilling and exploration. http://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/innovating-together/shell-techworks.html http://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/innovating-togeth... Also lots of major hospitals also have "innovation centers" that try to innovate on in-patient and out-patient care and IoT in a clinical setting setting. http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/25-hospitals-with-innovation-centers.html http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-... Also finally, also very curious if GE's move to Boston will be just for tax breaks or if they are planning to open up an tech incubator of their own in the area: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2016/03/ge-execs-planning-announcement-about.html http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2016/03/ge-...
- jzwinck 10y agoSome of what the guy says is generic business speak. But then he says this: "We’re a brand that’s recognized around the world consistently. We don’t have different brands in different parts of the world." Well, you have Lincoln (and for much of history, Mercury) in the US. They sell your cars under different names, but don't really exist much outside of North America. Then you have Mazda, your activities with which I cannot summarize better than to quote Wikipedia: "The Mazda B-Series and Ford Ranger models sold in North America were developed by Ford, whereas models sold elsewhere under the same badge were engineered by Mazda." So no. You aren't a single brand everywhere. It's hard to see how you could claim this with a straight face.
- wittekm 10y agoWhile I agree that the article is all business-speak ("we're just like Apple!" said every auto exec ever), the Mazda/Ford partnership is basically done as of the market crash. Ford at one point owned 33% of it in the 90s, now down to 2.1%.
- kirrent 10y agoThe article is certainly generic business speak I think he's probably referring to the practice of using different brands in different countries. In Australia general motors is known as Holden. Ford is Ford.
- jzwinck 10y agoEven if we restrict the discussion to Australia, Ford is not the only Ford. Witness the Mazda BT-50, which is actually a Ford Ranger in disguise. In Southeast Asia, Mazda light trucks are probably the most popular Ford vehicles on the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_BT-50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_BT-50 Ford and Mazda vehicles are manufactured in Thailand by a single company: https://www.autoalliance.co.th/en/about_product.php https://www.autoalliance.co.th/en/about_product.php
- maxerickson 10y agoMazda selling vehicles produced under a joint venture with Ford is not the same thing as Ford having another brand.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago"We want to become a tech company" is the new management fad. Culture change is incredibly hard and requires really great leadership. Capital One wanted to become a software company just like Ford says, the difference, Capital One already had great leaders. Is Ford full of great leaders? Sure Ford can throw some money at a few labs and occasionally turn something into a product. Spending money on R&D doesn't make you a software company. I wish them the best.
- barry-cotter 10y ago> Capital One wanted to become a software company just like Ford says, the difference, Capital One already had great leaders. Is Ford full of great leaders? Chrysler and GM both went bankrupt during the financial crisis. Ford didn't. It's by far the best run car company in North America.
- yompers888 10y agoThe fact that Ford didn't need the bailouts that GM and Chrysler got (though I'm aware they still had the line line of credit available) suggests that their leadership is at least strong within the American car making industry, for whatever that's worth. On the side of whether they're developing/integrating tech effectively: on the one hand, that Microsoft system they farmed out for info/music is abysmal and everyone knows it; on the other hand, the Focus RS they've just released shows some impressive work put into even a lower-end car (particularly I'm thinking of the way they handle power delivery to the rear wheels in tight corners.) At least in what I've seen, Ford is one of the few mass-production car makers doing some pretty interesting stuff.
- Caprinicus 10y ago>Focus RS they've just released shows some impressive work put into even a lower-end car (particularly I'm thinking of the way they handle power delivery to the rear wheels in tight corners.) That sort of system, while important, is not particularly complicated or advanced though. The tech been employed in various forms for over a decade, I don't see the software implementation as evidence of competency within ford.
- lowglow 10y agoIf they really wanted to affect change within the company, they'd make bolder decisions with upper management to change the core of the company from within and up top.
- yitchelle 10y agoAs aside, I watched "A faster horse" documentary on Netflix a couple of months ago. It is a documentary on the evolution and the design of the 2015 Ford Mustang. The passion of getting a car from concept through to Job1 is infectious. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3762974/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3762974/
- vernie 10y agoI can barely contain my excitement. MyFord Touch is a masterpiece.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lucio 10y agoSun: "We want to become a software company". It didn't go well
- altotrees 10y agoSo, perhaps a silly question...but if Ford is going to be competing for the best talent Silicon Valley has to offer, will they establish a stronger presence in the region? I am not trying to knock Detroit or Dearborn, but it seems like they would need to do this. Maybe I missed it in the article. I think it would be kind of hard (even given the cost of living) to get top talent to migrate from, say Cupertino, to Dearborn en masse.
- sandover 10y agoTotal spin. No basis in reality. I know the person who got permission from Ford leadership to open and lead their Silicon Valley lab in 2012. They gave him funding to select a building, and select furniture, but somehow neglected to authorize any meaningful hiring for over a year, except a few interns. He sat in a virtually empty office. When he finally left this situation behind, Ford didn't hire a new lab head for nearly a year after that. Press coverage for Ford's new presence in Silicon Valley continued unabated during this entire period. When you read these articles, you should picture very expensive office space in Palo Alto, sitting empty.