The Ford era: how the stubborn romantic from Michigan rebuilt the world by its rules

July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947

The story of Henry Ford is not a boring chronicle of industrial success. This is an action-packed romance about a man who twice became bankrupt, fought Wall Street, argued with his own engineers, but eventually created a modern world. A world in which an ordinary person can buy a car, work 8 hours a day and have a legal day off.

Part 1. Runaway Farmer and Pocket Watch

Henry was born into a family of wealthy farmers in Michigan. The father saw his successor in the eldest son, but the boy was sick of agriculture. Ford hated manual labor on the farm precisely because he considered it monstrously inefficient.

At the age of 12, Henry had two passions. The first is the locomotive, which he first saw on the road: a heavy car was moving on its own, without horses! The second is the pocket watch that his father gave him. The teenager disassembled and collected them for hours. The district quickly learned about the young genius, and Henry began to work on the repair of mechanisms.

At the age of 16, against the will of his father, he fled from home to Detroit. The young man got a job as a student in a mechanical workshop. In order to survive and pay for housing, he repaired steam engines during the day, and at night he worked with a jeweler – he repaired the watch.

Part 2. Night experiments and first failures

By the age of 30, Ford was already working as a chief engineer at the Edison Electric Company. Thomas Edison himself appreciated the talented guy. But Ford had a secret night life. In a brick shed behind his house, he had been collecting a “horseless cart” for years.

In June 1896, after hundreds of sleepless nights, the firstborn was ready. The car was called Quadricycle. When Ford tried to roll it out into the street, it turned out that it did not go through the doorway. Henry just took the ax, smashed the brick wall of the barn and made his first trip.

Inspired by success, Ford left Edison and opened the Detroit Automobile Company. It was a complete collapse. Investors demanded fast money, and Ford was endlessly improving the design. The company went bankrupt. He opened the second – ‘Henry Ford’s automobile company.’ History repeated itself: disagreements with partners, leaving the company and the status of a “loser”, with whom no one on Wall Street wanted to do business. Ford was already 40 years old, he had no money, but there was a fanatical stubbornness.

Part 3.

In 1903, Ford finds new companions and founds the legendary Ford Motor Company. He finally formulates his main idea: the car should not be a toy for the rich, but an affordable tool for millions.

While competitors were trying to make cars more luxurious, Henry was looking for a way to make them simpler. in 1908 the legendary Model T (In the common people – ‘Lizzie Tin’).

• Minimum details: It was so simple that any farmer in an open field could fix it with a hammer and a wrench.
• Any color if it’s black: This famous Ford paradox is not harmful, but pure calculation. The black paint dries out the fastest, which accelerated production.

Demand instantly exceeded the capabilities of the plant. Ford understands: old build methods don’t work.

In 1913, a revolution takes place at the Highland Park factories: Ford introduces The world’s first moving assembly line. The results were shocking:

• The assembly time of one chassis was reduced from 12 hours to 93 minutes.
• The price of the car fell from $850 to $260.
• Model T captured more 50% of the global automotive market.
  

Part 4. Capitalist, whom business hated

In 1914, Ford blows up the business world again. Due to the monotonous work on the conveyor, the terrible turnover of personnel began. Ford’s answer was radical: he reduced the working day to 8 hours and set an unprecedented fee – $5 a day (Twice times the market).

Newspapers shouted about ‘socialism’, competitors predicted a collapse. But Ford won. Queues of the best specialists lined up at its factories. But the main thing is that his own workers could now accumulate and buy a car, which they themselves collected. Ford literally created the American middle class.

Part 5. Trap of your own triumph

In the 1920s, Henry Ford became a billionaire and iconic figure. But its main quality – reinforced concrete stubbornness – turned into tyranny. He refused to believe that the world was changing.

competitors from General Motors They began to produce comfortable cars of different colors and on credit. Ford said: “You can get a car of any color if this color is black”. He did not want to change the outdated Model T, fired the engineers who offered innovation, and severely suppressed the unions.

As a result, Ford’s share in the market collapsed. The company had to completely stop the factories for several months to develop a new Model A model. Ford survived, but this crisis showed: Even geniuses are vulnerable to their own pride.

Henry Ford passed away in 1947, leaving behind a giant empire and a world that changed his pace forever.

5 lessons of success from Henry Ford

• Crush the impossible. Ford said: “No work will seem impossible if you break it into small pieces”. This is the basis of any success. A big goal is scary, but divided into daily simple steps (life conveyor) – becomes inevitable.
• Age is an illusion. Ford founded his successful company at the age of 40, going through two bankruptcies. If you feel like you are ‘tard’ or your first attempts failed, remember Henry. Failure is just a new starting point.
• Invest in people. An increase in wages for workers to $5 proved that a strong, devoted and satisfied team brings many times more profit than a hard saving on resources.
• Beware of ‘Excellent Syndrome’. Ford’s main failure happened when he believed that his product was perfect and no longer needed to change. Success is a continuous process of adaptation. As soon as you stop learning and listening to the market, you start losing.