I like to be right. I try not to miss the big ideas, forget the little ones, and try to get them right. End of job description.
I consider most of the talent in the financial world to be suboptimal. It could be better placed earning its living in the real world.
The Obama administration took rapid and decisive action to restructure GM and Chrysler. Within a fairly short period of time these companies were working effectively again.
I remember working with Rod, though, on Chrysler Hour. I was too young and dumb to know that I was supposed to be scared of anybody or anything - like getting fired or anything like that.
Some people really like to have an open car that lets them see everything. Of course, others want the squinty, protected feeling of something like the Chrysler 300.
I'm kind of a Midwestern snob. I think we're just nice people and have a great work ethic.
You can't just carry everyone else's hopes and fears around in your backpack and expect to stand up straight.
Battering down solar cells on the roofs of Wal-Marts in California. I think that will be some of the highest-return investments that anyone ever makes.
Capitalism does millions of things better than the alternatives. It balances supply and demand in an elegant way that central planning has never come close to.
Bubbles have quite a few things in common, but housing bubbles have a spectacular thing in common, and that is every one of them is considered unique and different.
Dick Goodwin: You know, money isn't everything. Sandra Goodwin: I'm not the one who came home with a Chrysler catalogue.
In order to work for Chrysler, you are required to join the union, in this case UAW. There's no choice - it's a union shop - the employees voted to have it that way, and in America, that's the way it is.
Chrysler invented rebates, I'm sorry to say. I didn't have anything to do with that. A lot of flaky deals were made in order to give the customer enough cash for a down payment.
Basic philosophy, spirit and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation and timing.
The products built in the factories of G.M., Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps.
Once Michigan stood proud. In addition to GM, Ford and Chrysler, it was home base for the United Auto Workers, a powerful escalator transporting hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers into America's middle class.
I manage through a sense of humor. We all work hard, and work has to be a really interesting, fun place. And that has to start at the top.
You look at what happened with Chrysler, it went through that bankruptcy, and it's re-emerged in a much different fashion, privately held in some of those things, and it's really putting out a great product.
When trouble strikes, which it always does - bad economy, bad quarter, activists, takeover - when trouble strikes, those board members who don't understand or are not committed are not helpful.
Organizations can get in the way of innovation, because if people are all bound up, and if they don't know if they get to make the decision or somebody else, and if they do, what happens to them, and so on and so forth.
The worst job I ever had was working nights in the Chrysler Building. I was part of a team of about five guys, and we polished the leather furniture.
