New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is a big fan of recycling, so it probably warms his heart to see Spark Capital founder Todd Dagres recycling his November suggestion that General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) should replace Rick Wagoner with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) founder and CEO Steve Jobs.
Dagres penned an open letter via Tech Crunch to President Obama and his Auto Industry Advisory Board with the suggestion, but the Silicon Valley venture capitalist didn't end with Jobs' name. Recognizing that Jobs' reportedly failing health may prevent him from taking on the role, Dagres suggests alternatives from Silicon Valley:
Should Mr. Job's be unable to take on the position, in my opinion, great technology leaders including John Chambers at Cisco Systems or Craig Barrett at Intel would also be worthy of your consideration. Both are great Americans and capable of leading the charge.
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So what exactly is that charge? Well, that's where Dagres and
Friedman seem to diverge. Where Friedman dreams of Jobs steering the
company toward green technology, Dagres simply suggests a
re-thinking of how cars are designed and made when he writes:
To compete in the global auto industry, they must
develop Macs, iPods and iPhones with wheels. Rather than pouring
billions of dollars into these failed companies, why not replace the
current management with people capable of changing the way cars are
designed, manufactured, powered and sold?
The suggestion has not necessarily been well received by automotive watchers. Autoblog wrote of the idea:
Steve Jobs has been nothing short of heroic during
his second tenure with Apple, but comparing his Cupertino-based company
to GM and Chrysler is like comparing Apple to oranges. For instance, GM
still builds its own engines, transmissions and many other components
that make up their automobiles. Apple doesn't make its own processors,
motherboards, graphics cards, hard drives or disc drives. In other
words, the two industries are far too different for Jobs -- or any other
tech guy -- to make a difference. Dagres argument is also predicated on
the assumption that GM and Chrysler are selling vehicles that people
don't want to buy. While that may be true to an extent with Chrysler,
GM's lineup is chock full of competitive products. To simply say
they're not what people want is willfully ignoring the countless other
reasons for not buying a new car during a recession.
But maybe Dagres is on to something. Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) and Apple are huge
successes even if they don't design the "engines" in their computers.
And in some ways, there already exists the equivalent of the Intels,
Seagates and Nvidias of the automotive industry in the forms of Magna International Inc. (NYSE:MGA),
Bosch Group and other suppliers. So maybe the idea of Jobs, Barret or
Chambers isn't so wacky after all. In fact one of the names bantered
about amongst automotive insiders as a prime Wagoner replacement is
Fiat SpA's CEO Sergio Marchionne, who prior to taking over and turning around the Italian
carmaker had never worked in the auto industry either. - Matthew Wurtzel
See Dagres letter from TechCrunch
See response to Dagres from Autoblog
See Friedman column from The New York Times
See related story about Marchionne from Dealscape
Comments
My reference to Stsve Jobs was taken too literally. The focus should be on the donut and not the hole. I was trying to stress that new leadership capable of transforming the US auto industry is needed. There have been others that have recommneded Mr. Jobs for the post but my point was that we need to attract the very best to the problem and not trust the same people with $20B in taxpayer money. Car companies don't solve problems, people do. I have nothing but respect for the people that work in the Industry- they are good, hard-working people. However, their leaders (GM and Chrysler in particular) are failing them. Why does GM have 50 suppliers of Brake pedals? Why has Delphi been in Chapter 11 since 2005? Why is their profitablity dependent on gas guzzling SUVs, Trucks and Vans? I don't know. I guess I'm ignorant. Ingnorant maybe, but not stupid. Stupid is pouring $20B into a ship that is sinking and has been sinking for years without repairing the holes.