Businesspeople From The United States

"These aren't the people who take drugs, these are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty. These type of guys. They come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we've got to deal with down the road."

"is forcing the American people to buy health insurance or else pay a tax. Our health care system is moving toward one that rations care and negatively impact millions of Americans."

"Jokes about shooting someone aren’t funny. Shooting cartoonists especially, post-Charlie Hedbo. It was shocking and tasteless."

"The Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and frankly, I would never want to see that repeated, maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet. ... They're headed in that direction."

"I have a heart. I have a heart for Maine people."

"We the people have been told there is no choice. You must buy or pay the new — the IRS."

"My brain was slower than my mouth."

"It's hard to hear what they're saying. Have you ever tried to say, 'What's the special today?' to somebody from Bulgaria? And the worst ones — if they're from India. I mean, they're all lovely people, but you gotta have an interpreter. Or how many of you try to return something on Amazon on a telephone?"

"There's the all mighty powerful ones like Mr. Khan — which is a con artist himself, and he uses the death of his son, who's an American soldier, which we respect and honor, and he uses that to go after Trump, which I found very distasteful."

"The parks do not belong to one state or to one section.... The Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon are national properties in which every citizen has a vested interest; they belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona. Who will gainsay that the parks contain the highest potentialities of national pride, national contentment, and national health? A visit inspires love of country; begets contentment; engenders pride of possession; contains the antidote for national restlessness.... He is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of the privilege of living here who has toured the national parks"

"Charles E. Sorensen was said to be second in command to Henry Ford at Ford Motor Company. He was in charge of the company's car production. He was instrumental in developing the production process for the World War II B-24 bomber plane at the Willow Run Plant. His contribution increased the production of the B-24s from one a day to one an hour."

"The head of the Rouge plant, Charles E. Sorensen, was the most notorious of these tyrants, and he encouraged (or often forced) his foremen to follow his example. According to the company's historians, "As Ford reduced prices on cars, there was inevitable pressure from Sorensen down to weed out men, to keep the vast plant moving at its maximum pace. The entire [plant] felt the strain." Such dictatorial methods of control at every level of the plant's operations made the day-to-day experience of working there “relentless, harassing, and to many hateful.”"

"As Ford reduced prices on cars, there was inevitable pressure from Sorensen down to weed out men, to keep the vast plant moving at its maximum pace. The entire 70,000 felt the strain. The pace was never too fast for accomplishment, but it was fast enough to make the job relentless, harassing, and to many hateful. Yet despite its sinister aspect, which organized labor and more enlightened management would in time cure, the Rouge stood out as a pioneering accomplishment in industry which affected both automotive and other manufacturing processes."

"CHARLES E. SORENSEN was production boss of the Ford Motor Company until 1945. He is something of a legendary figure today, but hardly more so than when he directed the world's biggest mass production operation."

"Charles E. Sorensen was hired by Henry Ford in 1905 as a pattern maker, a highly skilled craft of cutting exacting wood patterns from blueprints and creating a three-dimensional representation for foundry castings. "Cast-Iron Charlie," so nicknamed by Henry Ford for his foundry expertise, was master of the River Rouge empire. Fearless and ruthless, he personally was as tough as "Cast-Iron" and not hesitant to display the fact. Though respectful of the Ford family, his loyalty was to Henry, as Edsel had known only too well."

"Ed Martin, who was plant superintendent, and I practically lived at the Rouge."

"Actually it took four years and more to develop Model T. Previous models were the guinea pigs, one might say, for experimentation and development of a car which would realize Henry Ford's dream of a car which anyone could afford to buy, which anyone could drive anywhere, and which almost anyone could keep in repair. Many of the world's greatest mechanical discoveries were accidents in the course of other experimentation. Not so Model T, which ushered in the motor transport age and set off a chain reaction of machine production now known as automation. All our experimentation at Ford in the early days was toward a fixed and, then wildly fantastic goal."

"By March, 1908, we were ready to announce Model T, but not to produce it, On October 1 of that year the first car was introduced to the public. From Joe Galamb's little room on the third floor had come a revolutionary vehicle. In the next eighteen years, out of Piquette Avenue, Highland Park, River Rouge, and from assembly plants all over the United States came 15,000,000 more."

"By August, 1913, all links in the chain of moving assembly lines were complete except the last and most spectacular one - the one we had first experimented with one Sunday morning just five years before. Again a towrope was hitched to a chassis, this time pulled by a capstan. Each part was attached to the moving chassis in order, from axles at the beginning to bodies at the end of the line. Some parts took longer to attach than others; so, to keep an even pull on the towrope, there must be differently spaced intervals between delivery of the parts along the line. This called for patient timing and rearrangement until the flow of parts and the speed and intervals along the assembly line meshed into a perfectly synchronized operation throughout all stages of production. Before the end of the year a power-driven assembly line was in operation, and New Year's saw three more installed. Ford mass production and a new era in industrial history had begun."

"In all the years I knew Sorensen, he was never a politician in the plant. He was a cold aloof man, and never had any social relations with anyone in the company - myself included."

"It took only a few days to block off the little room on the third floor back of the Piquette Avenue plant and to set up a few simple power tools and Joe Galamb's two blackboards. The blackboards were a good idea. They gave a king-sized drawing which, when all initial refinements had been made, could be photographed for two purposes: as a protection against patent suits attempting to prove prior claim to originality and as a substitute for blueprints. A little more than a year later Model T, the product of that cluttered little room, was announced to the world. But another half year passed before the first Model T was ready for what had already become a clamorous market..."

"Early one morning in the winter of 1906-7, Henry Ford dropped in at the pattern department of the Piquette Avenue plant to see me. 'Come with me, Charlie,' he said, 'I want to show you something.'"

"A production genius and loyal servant of Henry Ford for thirty-nine years, Charles E. Sorensen is probably the best known of Ford's many lieutenants. His crowning achievement was design of the production layout of the mammoth plant at Ypsilanti, Michigan, where giant B-24 bombers were produced during World War II at the phenomenal rate of one every hour."

"The summer before, Mr. Ford told me to block off the experimental room for Joe Galamb, a momentous event occurred which would affect the entire automotive industry. The first heat of vanadium steel in the country was poured at the United Steel Company's plant in Canton, Ohio."

"After getting to know the young Daytonians () Henry Leland told them about a friend of his who had stopped to help a woman whose car had stalled. As he cranked the starter, it kicked back and broke his jaw. The man later died from an infection as a result of that accident. This led Leland to ask Kettering and Deeds if they could use electricity to start a car. Of course, they accepted the challenge. A self-starter would not only prevent such accidents but would also open up the car market to women who were unable to crank a car. They returned to the Barn to try and make the first self-starter for automobiles..."

"Henry M. Leland was the guiding genius of the Cadillac Motor Car Company. He was the company’s founder and became the Division's first general manager when it was purchased by Billy Durant and in 1909. Religiously devoted to accuracy of machining and quality construction, Leland recognized that in true interchangeability of parts lays the key to a great future automobile industry."

"You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge."

"Henry Leland had a profound influence not only on GM, but also on many later automakers. His nickname became “the Grand Old Man of Detroit.”"

"If they had made that longer six-cylinder strong enough and had supported it well enough, they would have obtained the smoother action they talks about in their advertisements. But they could not do that, and those early sixes had a very undesirable period vibration at certain speeds. That vibration more than offset the gain that they would have realized, if they had treated the crankshaft properly."

"On the train I was going over the problem of Sixes versus Fours and the disturbing periodic vibrations with which the 'six-cylinder manufacturers were contending. I realized the emphasis our competitors were placing on the fact that six smaller cylinders, producing the same maximum power as four larger ones, would result in smaller individual impulses, and consequent smoother action."

"I had trouble at first, in the early 1900s, in selling Mr. Leland our roller bearings. He then taught me the need for greater accuracy in our products to meet the exacting standards of interchangeable parts. Mr. Leland came to the industry with a mature experience in general engineering and in gasoline engines, which he had long made for boats. One of his specialties was precision metalwork, which went back to his experience in toolmaking for a federal arsenal during the Civil War, and which he afterward developed in the Brown and Sharpe Company, machine-tool makers of Providence, Rhode Island. It has been called to my attention It has been called to my attention that Eli Whitney, long before, had started the development of interchangeable parts, a fact which suggests a line of descent from Whitney to Leland to the automobile industry."

"Apart from Dr. Dre’s countless collaborative works, his own records throughout the ‘90s solidified him as one of the rap genre’s single most important and influential artists."

"The teams at times could go but a short distance every day. In bad weather at night there would be as many as 150 horses at one of the small frame inns which were not more than five or eight miles apart. Each driver had to care for his eight horses, feed, clean, card, harness and unharness. For all this work my father received the wages of $15 per month."

"There always was and there always will be conflict between Good and Good Enough, and in opening up a new business or a new department one can count upon meeting resistance to a high standard of workmanship. It is easy to get cooperation for mediocre work, but one must sweat blood for a chance to produce a superior product."

"At first we were of necessity slow in putting out those motors, but after we had gotten under way we delivered them so rapidly that Mr. Olds said we must have a motor incubator at our place."

"Around 1930, Sloan considered the problem of ride quality as one of the most pressing and most complex in , and the problem was getting worse as car speeds increased. The early solid rubber tyres had been replaced by vented thick rubber, and then by inflated tyres. In the 1920s, tyres became even softer, which introduced increased problems of handling stability and axle vibrations. On a trip to Europe, Sloan met French engineer who had patented a successful independent suspension, and had him visit the US to make contact with GM engineers. Also, by 1933 already had an independent front suspension, which was on cars imported to the USA. , who had previously worked for Rolls-Royce, was employed by GM, and worked on the introduction of independent suspensions there. In Sloan's autobiography, a letter from Olley describes an early ride meter, which was simply an open-topped container of water, which was weighed after a measured mile at various speeds. Rolls-Royce had been looking carefully at ride dynamics, including measuring body inertia, trying to get a sound scientific understanding of the problem, and Olley introduced this approach at GM."

"Mr. Sloan, are made to run, not just to sell."

"One of the hardest-to-down myths about the evolution of mass production at Ford is one which credits much of the accomplishment to 'scientific management.' No one at Ford—not Mr. Ford, Couzens, Flanders, Wills, Pete Martin, nor I—was acquainted with the theories of the 'father of scientific management,' Frederick W. Taylor. Years later I ran across a quotation from a two-volume book about Taylor by Frank Barkley Copley, who reports a visit Taylor made to Detroit late in 1914, nearly a year after the moving assembly line had been installed at our Highland Park plant. Taylor expressed surprise to find that Detroit industrialists 'had undertaken to install the principles of scientific management without the aid of experts.' To my mind this unconscious admission by an expert is expert testimony on the futility of too great reliance on experts and should forever dispose of the legend that Taylor's ideas had any influence at Ford."

"Before World War II management was the concern of a tiny band of “true believers,” mostly consultants and professors. Very few practicing managers paid any attention, though Alfred P. Sloan at General Motors, at Sears, Roebuck, and Chester Barnard at the American Telephone Company—to mention some prominent Americans—were significant exceptions. But even Barnard’s colleagues at the Telephone Company showed no interest in what they considered his hobby. Few managers at that time would have even realized that they practiced management; and concern with management as a field of study, as a discipline, and as a social function was practically nonexistent."

"Our car was an Oldsmobile, delivered to our home by Mr. Olds himself. I recall how our family went out to the street curb to look at it. Mr. Olds worked quite a while cranking it, muttering something about each car having an individuality of its own. But after we began to make motors for him, father took the individuality out of them. After our own little Oldsmobile was properly equipped, it acted in quite an exemplary fashion."

"I then went on to suggest that we make a serious effort to gauge the demand over the next five to ten years, and make plans to meet that demand. In building new facilities, I suggested that we "use corporation funds for such new plants needed for armament if that gives us better control over same from the long term position in relation to the master plan." Accelerated depreciation made the use of corporate funds all the more feasible, and relieved the government of the necessity of providing capital for the plants."

"I am sure we all realize that this struggle that is going on though the World is really nothing more or less than a conflict between two opposing technocracies manifesting itself to the capitalization of economic resources and products and all that sort of thing."

"In the 1920... the closed body rose to dominance, the Model T came to an end, and the upgrading of cars began. The events of the past few years of car market, I believe, have validated the General Motors product policy that we formulated in 1921. John Gordon, president of General Motors, recently observed that our slogan of “a car for every purse and purpose” is as appropriate as ever; indeed, we have never offered our customers greater variety and choice than we do today. In the 1963 model year the industry offers 429 models of domestically produced cars, compared with 272 in 1955; General Motor alone had 138 models in 1963, compared with 85 in 1955."

"Competition is the final price determinant and competitive prices may result in profits which force you to accept a rate of return less than you hoped for, or for that matter to accept temporary losses."

"Competition is the final price determinant and competitive prices may result in profits which force you to accept a rate of return less than you hoped for, or for that matter to accept temporary losses. And, in times of inflation, the rate-of-return concept comes up against the problem of assets undervalued in terms of replacement. Nevertheless, no other financial principle with which I am acquainted serves better than rate of return as an objective aid to business judgment. This principle had governed the thinking of the Finance Committee of General Motors since 1917."

"By The middle of The 1920s General Motors had accomplished some things, but apart from survival and reorganization, they were more in the realm of the mind than of reality. We knew, as I have related, the strategy with which we proposed to approach the car business, how we proposed to manage the enterprise financially, and the relationships we wanted to establish among persons in different roles. But by the end of 1924 little of this was reflected in Our activities in the automobile market. That our volume of business had increased after the slump of 1921 — and especially in 1923 — could be attributed less to our own wits than to the improvement in the general economy and the rising demand for automobiles. While internally we had made much progress, externally we had marked time. But the time had come to act."

"The transformation of the automobile market was essentially complete in 1929. If Mr. Ford, in that pivotal year in the modern economy, still held stubbornly to his old concept in his new Model A, he was counterbalanced by Mr. Chrysler, who had come up from nowhere with tremendous vitality and with a market policy similar to General Motors'. The fact that Mr. Ford built nearly two million of the five million U.S.-produced cars and trucks sold that year was only incidental from the long-term point of view. it was a splurge, not the sign of a trend."

"I hold that if companies are attacked simply because they are big then an attack on efficiency must be a corollary of that attack. If we penalize efficiency, how can we as a nation compete in the economy of the world at large?"

"The business of business is business."

"Without titles and tier of officials how could one build an organization? When Flanders resigned as production manager taking with him his assistant Walborn, to work for a newly formed company, Henry Ford called Ed Martin and me to his office. "Ed and Charlie," he said, "Flanders and Walborn are leaving, and I want you to take their places. You Ed, will be plant superintendent and you Charlie, will be assistant superintendent. Just go out there and run the plant. I know you can do it. But there's one thing I want to add: work together as one. I don't ever want to hear that you can't work together. And don't worry about titles.""