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Originally Posted by Norm Peterson
I'm referring to business management more generally than just finance. I remember when getting your MBA really became the big thing to do if you wanted to get into management. I also remember that most of the people who went that route didn't see themselves wanting to stay at a hands-on level with the product. Or even remain in the same industry.
Would you consider Ms. Barra to be cut from the same cloth as a Lee Iacocca or a Bob Lutz?
Norm
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Definitely not Bob. But Lee was also a great innovator of product. Mary's forte is driving the business and keeping it profitable. And she is, despite the hate I read, doing great at that. Too many people think a good CEO is like Jobs or Musk hugely invested in every decision. But Cook has done great for Apple post Jobs and he isn't the innovator/creator. And the CEO's biggest job is to make sure the Board and by default stockholders are happy. And that count she hasn't done well as even though GM is 10x more profitable than Tesla (and Tesla has yet to make a dime making cars) GM stock is languishing well behind.
So trust me, there are a ton of people at GM and Ford (sorry Dodge you have been a foreign owned company for too many years now) that would love to have a Camaro sell well and be working on a future Gen7 with an awesome ICE under the hood. Despite what many think there are a ton of car people left. However, it's not selling now, the architecture it's based on goes away leaving the Camaro an expensive orphan (and a reminder Gen6 was always going to be expensive when they picked a Cadillac architecture to base it on) and GM has stated that they will go all electric. So it's not a matter of if but when. So those same Engineers and Managers that understand this website and the people that love cars are now limited to Corvette. And many years ago the guy that is now Chief Engineer on Corvette was one of many that used to approach me for a job just to work on Corvette. That passion is still there. It's just now funneled into programs that not many here don't appreciate or understand the need for. So that's Barra's role is to bring the company to that next level and do it well. The failure will be to go all electric and not do it better, cheaper and more interesting that the competition. There is a risk that she (and others) are wrong.