On a clear day you can see General Motors
by John Z. De Lorean · first published 1979
75% recommend13% neutral13% critical
Why HN recommends it
Insider memoir of a senior GM executive's career, offering a candid view of how the company was managed and why it struggled. It serves as background on corporate dysfunction and management missteps.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From the Dust Jacket: During his 17 year career at General Motors, John De Lorean was one of the automotive industry's most controversial figures, and also one of its most talented and successful executives. So his resignation from GM in April, 1973 shocked the business community. When word leaked out that he was writing a book about life at General Motors, with journalist J. Patrick Wright, GM and the auto industry anxiously awaited its arrival. But in a jolting new move, De Lorean refused to let the book be published saying he feared that reprisals from GM would sink his attempts to launch a
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…I expect that if she retires soon, her successor will make a statement such as "We're a car company, not a map company!" and close the project. Which will doom Super-cruise. If you get a chance, read On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors which tells the tale of GM from the viewpoint of John Z. DeLorean.
on “Under the hood of the Subaru Levorg: ADAS and programmable logic” ↗The Car That Could: The Inside Story of GM's Revolutionary Electric Vehicle by Michael Shnayerson. If that gives you a taste for how crazy General Motors is, follow up with On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors by John Z. Delorian. Less about tech, more about management anti patterns!
on “Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?” ↗…http://www.amazon.com/Iacocca-Autobiography-Lee/dp/055325147... He wrote it in 1984, but everything he says applies to the 2008/2009 collapse of the auto industry. For that matter, go back a little further and read John DeLorean's On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors. It's pretty amazing how long these poorly run companies managed to trip along, and these books make it pretty clear it's not just the unions to blame.
on “Teachers unions are not the reason many schools suck” ↗If you haven't read it, the autobiography of his career at GM "On A Clear Day, You Can See General Motors" is worth a look. Some very nice stuff in there, and corresponds well with what others have said about the company.
on “Car and Driver's Review of the 1981 De Lorean (1981)” ↗…Kingsley Ward (Author) - The Design of the UNIX Operating System - Horse Sense - Hemingway farewell to arms - Save your marriage - The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America - On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John Z. DeLorean's - made me never want to work for big company 1000s of books... no time to read or list them all.
on “Books that have affected you and your life the most” ↗John Z's autobiography "On a Clear Day, You Can See General Motors" is an enormously fun read, both for what it says about GM in the 50s-70s, and what it doesn't say. My recollection is that most people writing an autobiography might use it as a way to acknowledge things…
on “DeLorean considering all-electric reboot” ↗There was a combination of factors. I suggest reading the book "On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors" for some starting information. But for some information upfront, in the 1950s GM had become the largest automotive company in the world, buying makes from all over the world with the money they made…
on “As unions decline, inequality rises” ↗I know. I read De Lorean's "On a clear day you can see General Motors" (1979) and Lutz's "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters" (2013). Lutz makes a key point about automotive. He says that all the functional needs from automobiles have been met. You can buy just about any car…
on “Cruise Automation, GM’s Self-Driving Cars, and the Founders Behind It” ↗…about them, US ones at least (for Japanese, the revelations of Toyoda's horrible software practices after their code was subject to 3rd party examination is sufficient for me): Read a bit of DeLorean's On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors (hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Day-You-General-Motors/dp/09603... paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Day-You-General-Motors/dp/03805...), you'll be impressed by the insanity. Granted,…
on “Silicon Valley Decides It’s Just Too Hard to Build a Car” ↗