We needed to become a truly global company. We were broad with our reach, doing business in numerous markets around the world, but we needed to better penetrate certain markets, particularly the world’s most populous countries, like China and India.

The nascent industry did not escape the attention of rationalisers and consolidators. Billy Durant took over the Buick company and used it as a base for acquisitions of many competitors and suppliers. In 1909 alone he added the names of Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Pontiac to his stable of brands. Durant’s talents as salesman and dealmaker exceeded his capacity to run a business, and the banks that had financed his acquisition spree took control of the cash-stretched company and sacked Durant.

The unprecedented prosperity of the modern world is the result of the growth of our collective intelligence.

The most powerful military machine the world had ever seen was defeated in Vietnam and Afghanistan and failed in Iraq. It is hard to imagine a more compelling demonstration that the scale of an organisation is less important than the match between the capabilities of the organisation and the problems it is asked to solve. And the most powerful manufacturing organisation the world had ever seen was defeated in global automobile markets when Asian businesses successfully challenged the hegemony of General Motors. Toyota famously introduced the Andon cord, which enabled individual workers to stop the production line if they identified a defect or a problem. The system restored personal initiative and encouraged workers to take pride in their work.

30: Who are the Capitalists Now?

“But while people like Bezos, Gates and Musk top the modern ‘rich list’ and capture the public imagination, most large corporations are controlled by men in suits, if no longer in ties, whose careers have been spent ascending corporate bureaucracies. Of the ten largest companies in the Fortune list discussed in Chapter 7, none was founder-controlled.