3 ms·

Henry Ford just wanted to be rich and said something that sounded good and inspired people to work for him. Bezos does similar things for his workers.

hashiyakshmi 1y ago
That may be true, but it certainly helped that he DID pay his workers enough for them to be able to afford the cars they were making.
- vinceguidry 1y ago
  Not enough to offset losing their fingers left and right.
- claudiulodro 1y ago
  It might be apocryphal, but my understanding is that he did this less out of a sense of civic duty and more because the skilled tradespeople liked their existing lifestyle and did not want to work in factories much, so they needed a big raise to be convinced.
  - burnerthrow008 1y ago
    I think it's even simpler than that: To run an assembly line, you need all stations staffed at the same time. You can't run the line if you're missing staff for just one station, but you still have to pay all the people who did show up. So the easy solution is just to pay a lot and threaten to fire (and possibly blacklist) anyone who no-shows. Since the pay is much higher than they can get elsewhere, the people are much more likely to show up. The high pay probably also helped find people who would tolerate the extremely intrusive practices of Ford's "morality police" (my term), who would inspect worker's homes to ensure they were living "the right way".
vishalontheline 1y ago
Didn't he pay more than his competitors and get sued by his competitors for not acting in the the best interest of his shareholders (by wanting to pay his workers even more)?
- AndrewKemendo 1y ago
  Kind of but it was moreso that he wanted to invest in expansion and R&D while driving prices down for consumers See: Dodge vs Ford
  - vlovich123 1y ago
    Fascinating read especially when viewed from the strategic angling to make Ford less profitable and cut off the minority shareholders the Dodge brothers from the dividend revenue stream they were using to build a rival company. So ironically, while the court held that the board had to prioritize shareholder profits, he would have realized greater shareholder profits by stifling the competition in its crib.
    - burnerthrow008 1y ago
      > while the court held that the board had to prioritize shareholder profits It's a bit more nuanced than that. The court held that company directors have to be acting for the benefit of shareholders. They still have wide latitude about how to do that. The reason Ford lost is because his legal position was essentially "I am king, therefore I can do whatever I want". But you can't do whatever you want. You can't lock the workers in the factory and burn it down with them inside, for example. You need to have some kind of colorable argument that what you are doing is somehow in the interest of shareholders (either long or short term). The problem for Ford was that he couldn't articulate any reason for how his actions were beneficial to shareholders (probably because the real reason, killing the Dodge Brothers Company, would have been illegal under the antitrust laws of the time).
      - vlovich123 1y ago

hashiyakshmi 1y ago

That may be true, but it certainly helped that he DID pay his workers enough for them to be able to afford the cars they were making.

vinceguidry 1y ago
Not enough to offset losing their fingers left and right.
claudiulodro 1y ago
It might be apocryphal, but my understanding is that he did this less out of a sense of civic duty and more because the skilled tradespeople liked their existing lifestyle and did not want to work in factories much, so they needed a big raise to be convinced.
- burnerthrow008 1y ago
  I think it's even simpler than that: To run an assembly line, you need all stations staffed at the same time. You can't run the line if you're missing staff for just one station, but you still have to pay all the people who did show up. So the easy solution is just to pay a lot and threaten to fire (and possibly blacklist) anyone who no-shows. Since the pay is much higher than they can get elsewhere, the people are much more likely to show up. The high pay probably also helped find people who would tolerate the extremely intrusive practices of Ford's "morality police" (my term), who would inspect worker's homes to ensure they were living "the right way".

vishalontheline 1y ago

Didn't he pay more than his competitors and get sued by his competitors for not acting in the the best interest of his shareholders (by wanting to pay his workers even more)?

AndrewKemendo 1y ago
Kind of but it was moreso that he wanted to invest in expansion and R&D while driving prices down for consumers See: Dodge vs Ford
- vlovich123 1y ago
  Fascinating read especially when viewed from the strategic angling to make Ford less profitable and cut off the minority shareholders the Dodge brothers from the dividend revenue stream they were using to build a rival company. So ironically, while the court held that the board had to prioritize shareholder profits, he would have realized greater shareholder profits by stifling the competition in its crib.
  - burnerthrow008 1y ago
    > while the court held that the board had to prioritize shareholder profits It's a bit more nuanced than that. The court held that company directors have to be acting for the benefit of shareholders. They still have wide latitude about how to do that. The reason Ford lost is because his legal position was essentially "I am king, therefore I can do whatever I want". But you can't do whatever you want. You can't lock the workers in the factory and burn it down with them inside, for example. You need to have some kind of colorable argument that what you are doing is somehow in the interest of shareholders (either long or short term). The problem for Ford was that he couldn't articulate any reason for how his actions were beneficial to shareholders (probably because the real reason, killing the Dodge Brothers Company, would have been illegal under the antitrust laws of the time).
    - vlovich123 1y ago