Just like every other CEO that thinks AI is a magic bullet.

And that's all I wanted to say.

He's actually extremely well regarded within the car industry. He was mentored by the legendary Richard Minge before he retired. It's likely that Brian Clunge will ultimately take his place at the top table.

Earlier in his career he had a law firm with Michael Tang

The surprising part is that any of the engineers went back after the company had treated them like that. I guess they'll just be saving money until they get sacked again.

> Breathtaking hubris.

Mixed with first rate marketing.

You're forgetting one thing. Even accounting for this fuckup, in the end was it still cheaper than simply paying people? If the answer is yes then this behavior will continue.

It's not just about how to build the widget. I've long held that one of the most valuable assets an employee brings to his/her employer is their historical and institutional knowledge. Why all the various choices were made all along the way, where the skeletons are buried, and how to handle a specific vendor or customer to achieve the desired outcome often provide greater value than just how to tighten the nut on the bolt. A failure to recognize that is a failure of leadership.

They still seem to think this is going to work, with minor adjustments. Well, a bunch of fool is at the start of mist spectacular failures.

I'm shocked that Ford had a standard of quality that let them notice.

I read an article recently where Ford was bragging about testing one engine a day off an assembly line for quality control. Ford felt that was an amazing dedication to quality.

I'd add the engineers should be the ones who get to fire those managers, personally giving them their walking papers. But I doubt the managers got fired. Pity.

The incentive system in modern business cares only about short-term stock prices so the managers can exercise their stock options and retire to Hawaii. A good way to bump up stock prices is to sack all the competent people because they are typically paid more.

A secondary benefit is that those competent people were the most likely to complain about policies which are long-term harmful so you no longer have to deal with anyone complaining about what you're doing.

This kind of thing has happened previously too, but it was via "outsourcing" in another contract that didn't work out, so they need the employees back, sometimes as consultants.

What's old is new again.

One of the most aggravating things right now is "AI" in the hiring process - companies use it to screen applicants but then all use a common tool like Workday, which is facing a lawsuit in California that seems to be automatically rejecting applicants at all employers once it rejects the candidate at a single employer. Applicants have no idea they've been blindly rejected and the hiring managers, some of whom are absolutely desperate to hire, are never even seeing the applicants' resumes.

> (Hapless, because they took the offer to come back instead of finding an employer that properly valued their expertise and experience.)

Keep floundering in

Well, if corporate fires you and then tries to hire you back, you have got to demand a serious raise. Do not take it personal. This? It is called doing business.

Yes, 100%. Management loves to assert that AI is some magic solution, well, also asserting it's not ready to replace everyone, but then, they go and fire everyone, since AI can replace them. It's a feedback loop of incompetence, and well, I don't hate AI, it has many good uses, it's certainly making far too many mistakes.

Put their money where their mouths are, and use AI exclusively to manage, plan, schedule, and run their jobs. Once AI destroys a calendar, how fast will AI be parked? Funny how enginee

No mod points today but +1 Insightfull

When I worked there in IT for a few years it was amazing how skilled engineers were essentially not at all part of the design process or planning but instead just "handed" some crappy off the shelf product and told to go "implement" it. This to them was software development. Even things like the supposed Sync, are actually just third party development companies using a crappy product called "SmartDeviceLink".

I recall spending months fighting something called an Infrastructure Control Review (ICR) which to this day I share the experience with my employees as a learning exercise in failure. Every filename had to be known, every click in some gui had to be listed, it was just asinine and none of it was ever followed 5 minutes past the approval stamp that took months and months of circle jerking. Never seen so many six figure salary engineers doing absolutely *nothing* in these meetings spanning months.

Ford pretends to want outside expertise and knowledge but the *instant* they arrive the company culture tells them that questioning anything at all will get you enemies fast. Toe that company line and internally the phrase "Ra Ra Go Ford" was used as a mock of this fake stupid energy that dominated the place.

I doubt that will change anytime soon, especially with Farley trying to "secretly" bribe Trump for a law banning the repair of cars without dealership involvement. But the auto journalists want to check out their stupid small EV truck coming out so no one will run the news. Go google it, Ford and GM just had a private meeting with Trump where they asked for this in secret but Trump was too stupid to keep it secret and mentioned it in news interview.

So Fuck Ford for that initiative. Repairing our own cars is part of respecting the customer which they pretend to do.

I read it that way as well. They're still clinging to the belief that they can do exactly that.

Thankfully, that's not likely to come to fruition. The experienced engineers hold the cards now and whether that AI gets trained is entirely up to them. When push comes to shove, the Ford senior leadership isn't going to try that again no matter what they say publicly.

I am shocked, SHOCKED! That AI didn't preserve institutional knowledge.

Had to study two models of treating staff in an HR course. It was more than 2 decades ago so I may get some details wrong. One was the (Henry) Ford model. People on the work floor are a necessary evil. They cost a lot, they make mistakes. Yuk! Avoid them if possible. If you give them a job, make it as simple as possible so that they do nothing wrong. Do not work well? Toss them out, replace with a fresh specimen. Etc. The other mode, Kensian, I think, it saw staff as something you invest in. Truth is in the

Yep. Nobody could have expected that, except everybody with a working mind. But these seem to be really rare on C-level ...

You are clearly too cheap at 4x.

> Same Ford asking for bills to outlaw repair

C'mon man. Only dealerships can be trusted to repair cars properly. We must ban third-party repairs FOR THE CHILDRUN.

If it only saves one life...