Topic
6 facts from 5 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1900
The host says Henry Ford's boss at the electric company told him to choose between his internal combustion engine experiments and his job, and Ford chose the engine.
“If you keep up your experimentations with your internal combustion engine, you either have to choose between the engine or your job.”
1916
In 1916 Emile Hermès, then a French army officer, was sent to the United States to study industrial and military production, and met Henry Ford.
“during World War I in 1916, Emile becomes an officer in the French military. And the military sends him to the United States to learn about kind of U.S. industrial and military production.”
Undated
The host says that nineteen years after being told to give up his engine work, Henry Ford owned all of the Ford Motor Company and had built the Model T, of which over 15 million were made.
“Fast forward nineteen years from when they're having that conversation, Henry Ford owns 100% of the Ford Motor Company, has created and manufactured a car that made over 15 million people's lives better.”
Undated
Henry Ford advised Walt Disney that if he sold any of his company he should sell all of it.
“Ford was blunt. If you sell any of it, you should sell all of it.”
Undated
Tim Crawford invoked the Henry Ford adage that customers asked what they want would say faster horses, to argue for rethinking how businesses operate.
“it's the Henry Ford adage, right? If I ask customers what they want, they'd say faster horses.”
Undated
According to a Henry Ford biography, Ford paid for a schoolmate's son to attend college and helped him get a forestry job in Oregon.
“Henry Ford uh had an old schoolmate whose son wanted to become a forester. Ford paid for the young man's college education, arranged his transportation”
Episodes