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December 9, 2005
GM can die
Coyote Blog says it's okay if GM dies, and it is okay with me, too.
Don't get me wrong – I'm not rooting for GM to die. (Well, I did wish it a few times while sitting in an Avis rental.) But the thought of what wonderful things could follow GM’s collapse is pretty exciting.
Talented designers and engineers would find new employment where they could actually do something exciting, free of GM’s heavy baggage. Autoworkers paid to "spend their time doing crossword puzzles" would rejoin the working workforce. There would be room in the market for competitors to create new cars and maybe even for new auto companies to emerge. GM's assets – facilities and patents and people – would be split up and placed with companies that would make more efficient use of them. Hundreds of ex-GM'ers would become entrepreneurs.
Would it hurt? Yes. It isn't called creative destruction for no reason. But how much worse off would we all be if we propped up a dysfunctional organization by wasting funds and labor and time?
I hope GM can turn things around in a way that doesn't crush its individual employees and retirees. I hope GM can find a way to build a car I could love. I hope GM can be reborn as a great company. But if it is destined to lumber into failure, I just hope it dies quickly. Because I want to see what all those people can do once they are freed of the big, bureaucratic monster.
Posted by Bob Pritchett at December 9, 2005 9:28 AM
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