Ford Motor Is Replacing Mark Fields as C.E.O
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The self driving car aspect of his responsibilities seem pretty tangential to his professional skillset, and not a reason for his ascension to CEO.
NYT probably has some data saying that any headline including "self dirivng car" gets more eyeballs.
While there are 62 year olds who are quite comfortable with new technology and new ways of working, required to transform and innovate, you and I both know that _on average_ the older people get, the more they struggle with change and learning new things.
It may seem like a glib comparison, and I hope it's substantive enough that it doesn't start a flamewar. But if one person can come to see ageism as equally valid as racism, then they can teach others, who will teach others, and eventually it will no longer be a problem.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/22/news/companies/ford-ceo-fiel...
Though Ford's in-house autonomy efforts have been going nowhere fast. Then they started up Argo AI, another separate 'silicon valley style' company under ex-google SDC program manager Brian Salesky, and Jim Hackett was nowhere to be seen all through the press conferences and media accompanying that announcement, so I'm not sure Hackett had anything to do with it. Argo isn't exactly inspiring confidence in Ford's autonomy efforts either.
There's been a lot of big talk from both Ford and GM about the future of mobility the past few years, but while GM has played their cards perfectly and is doing exceptionally well, Ford's situation is a complete clusterfuck. I'm sure they mean well and understand the implications, but their execution has been sub-par.
The NYT headline is "Ford Motor Is Replacing Mark Fields as C.E.O.". Also, they do not give any more emphasis on "self-driving" than needed.
> Jim Hackett, who oversees the Ford subsidiary that works on autonomous vehicles, will take the reins from Mr. Fields. Ford plans to make an announcement on Monday morning, the officials said.
It was embellished for hakcernews, and it isn't present in the linked article.
I think this change is mainly window dressing: the outgoing CEO was committed to self-driving car research, as is the new guy. The fundamentals of the company are unlikely to change.
I suspect that the stock would go up in the short term if Ford started putting more money into SUVs and crossovers, at the expense of the company's long-term success. If Ford's investors believe that self-driving cars (or at least, semi-autonomous cars) are the future, they should be willing to put up with a low stock price over the next few years.
Overall car sales have hit a plateau, you can't expect it to keep breaking records year after year, which it has done since 2009.
SUVs and trucks are still in high demand, it's sedans that have taken the biggest hit.
Otherwise, I agree with your comment.
The GM share price is not steady either -- it has dropped nearly 15% from its value in March, and about 6% from it's value on January 1st.
IME, the only way a Board can live with falling market share is if they believe the CEO/company is poised with some "secret weapon" bringing new competitive advantage soon.
Evidently, secret weapons are in short supply in Dearborn.
Ford has said they expect to have a fully autonomous vehicles by 2021 (link: https://corporate.ford.com/innovation/autonomous-2021.html). That always seemed too ambitious to me, but I welcome being proved wrong.
I invested in Ford partly because I think, unlike GM, they recognize an existential threat to their business and are trying to take steps to avoid it. It has been a horrible investment for me this far.
Why do you think GM is unaware of the changing tides? They are currently selling the all-electric Bolt which is meant to compete directly with the upcoming Tesla Model 3. And they are investing however many billions of dollars into self-driving technology with their acquisition and support of Cruise Automation.
As for Cruise Automation, I am not convinced they have accomplished anything groundbreaking relative to their competitors.
I can't speak much about the Bolt. A quick Google search shows a Bloomberg story stating they will lose 8-9k per car sold. GM better hope it doesn't sell well, if that is the case! (link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/gm-s-read...)
I didn't even recall the GM incident without clicking the link even though it was so recent.
This seems like a knee jerk reaction made by the Ford family out of fear that was unwarranted. But I hope to be proven wrong.
This move has to do with one thing and one thing only- share price. The Ford family isn't satisfied with the image Fields was giving the company to investors and wants to shake things up in the hopes of jump starting the demand for its stock.
Despite the doom and gloom image portrayed in the article, Ford has actually been wildly profitable for years and is far from struggling. In fact they are coming off a series of the most profitable quarters in company history. This move has little to nothing to do with autonomous car development or electric for that matter, both of which Ford is already investing in heavily.
Also looks like the outgoing CEO was the fall guy for the company's mediocre sales. Replacing him with a guy who oversees self-driving cars is not going to magically change the trend.
"oversees but does not have any technical expertise in" self driving cars. Just a standard case of a senior executive taking over for a CEW who underperformed earnings expectations.
As a shareholder I think the Ford family wants to create an image that will signal to the market Ford is very serious about autonomous and electric. I'd be very surprised not to see some very publicized development of a new line of cars in the next year or two.
http://www.mgoblue.com/genrel/jim_hackett_934376.html
This may have brought him to the attention of William Clay Ford who lives in Ann Arbor. He went to work for Ford shortly thereafter.
Too bad this isn't true ;)
I'm disinclined to pay for the NYT because of its role in getting Trump elected. By refusing to subject HRC to appropriate scrutiny and by amplifying all of Trump's stunts and gaffes, the paper was useless as an authoritative voice during a very important time in history.
If the quality were more consistent I'd happily use the google trick to get the articles for free, but much of the content is seemingly meant to generate clicks from issues that have already been covered extensively elsewhere.