YouSaid · the spoken record

Walter Chrysler

lines on the record: 52
first: 2020-06-09
most recent: 2020-06-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I mistakenly supposed that he was feeling sorry for himself. Finally I came to realize what it was that so deeply moved him when he contemplated his inauspicious start, including those years of riding freight trains from town to town when he was hunting a chance to work and gain more experience. It was gratitude. Of course gratitude to everything American that made possible his great success. He told his story in the hope it might inspire other lonely boys roving in the land to keep on trying. Is 130 bucks done, 1,000 to go. If you want the full story, if you buy the book using a link that's in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. And I'll talk to you again soon.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think if something he did and something he's telling his son might be beneficial to you and I get down in the basement and learn what the other fellows got to do and scrub a few floors clean some offices that way you can begin to see through the glasses of other people as well as your own He did it too, and then proceeded through various jobs until he was well able to run the building. So it appears to me that he was still writing this book when he unexpectedly experienced a stroke. He became an invalid, he survived for like another eighteen months, but he was never the same and he passed away. There is a postscript at the back of this book by the person that was helping him put together this book and this is where I'll close. Every time we had a conversation, it seems to me, he shed tears, yet always what started them was thinking of the past when he was a poor young man. Sometimes at first”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I came to the conclusion that what my boys ought to have was something to be responsible for. They had grown up in New York and probably would want to live there. They wanted to work, and so the idea of putting up a building was born. Something that I had seen in Paris recurred to me. I said to the architect Make this building higher than the Eiffel Tower. That was the beginning of the seventy seven story Chrysler building. So it goes in a little detail about how much fun it was to work with the architects and build a building, but then this is the important part now fast forwarding and his son's taking control. So he says, but such matters now are problems for my son, Walter. He is running the building. He is the president and he knows his job. When he was ready to go to work, I said, you better learn something about the building. It's yours, not mine. Where do you think I ought to begin, Dad? And now you're going to see the advice he gives his son is exactly the advice that he followed through his own career.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so now he's reflecting, let's see, we're nine years into the future when he's writing these words, right? So he says yesterday, this is May 1937, we built 6,294 cars. The day before, we built 6,500, and so it goes in what some people still suppose is a depression. Yet had we lacked Dodge, there was no telling what our situation would be. The Chrysler Corporation of 1937 has no debt. Getting rid of burdensome interest charges, which is one phase of the course we pursued to come through the Depression so as to emerge stronger than when it began. So now I want to tell you about a little bit about the Chrysler building. Anybody that's been to New York knows what this building looks like. And more importantly, why he wanted to build it and a lesson that he has for his son, which I think is very valuable.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So for a few years, they're doing really, really, really well. And they realize, hey, we can accelerate how fast we grow if we can buy Dodge. So it says the Dodge brothers had passed away, but they had left a splendid name in the industry. They had been manufacturers for whom I had great respect. It says in 1928, the consensus was Chrysler bought a lemon. So he winds up purchasing Dodge, right? This is an important paragraph because he's getting a lot of flack, right? They paid like $160 million, something like that for it. And people were laughing at him. Look at this idiot. What is he doing? So it says, you guys bought a lemon. That was the opinion of some mines that contained little understanding of industry and especially of the automobile industry. Buying the Dodge was one of the soundest acts of my life.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So when he reorganizes Maxwell, it's out of receivership. This is the benefits of starting fresh. And we start to see Walt is fired up. He is fired up. What flexibility we had, exclamation point? That is by contrast with any other car that rolled upon the highway back in 1923. What he means is that we're not trying to improve a car that we've had for eight or two. So they work on it for a long time. They finally have some prototypes, right? And they're going like, okay, it's time to unveil. We're going to unveil the prototypes. We haven't manufactured any cars yet, but we're going to get people excited. We're going to get our first customers because we're going to show off our prototype at the giant auto show, which is in New York City, right? This is in 1924.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you keep alert and qualify yourself for opportunities, that lasts four words is a good description of the path that Walt took. He qualified himself for opportunities. He did not know, there was no such thing as the when he started wanting to learn to be a master mechanic and machinist. There's no such thing as the automobile industry. That's where he made all his wealth. All he knew is I have a passion. I'm going to get as good as I can. I'm going to qualify myself as much as I can for the opportunities that are so far in the future. I don't even know what they are yet. That's brilliant.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Once you get yourself in a field that gives you a chance to cover all kinds of chances in or outside of aviation, you know this country is filled with developing industries, and there are a lot of chances. You simply want to make yourself smart enough to recognize them before the other fellow does. If I were you, I'd qualify myself for accountancy. I'd become an accountant. Young accountant, not to stay an accountant. That's not what he's saying. This is really smart what he says. Young accountants are set around by their firms to audit the books of companies everywhere. They have a skill that makes them mightily valuable in business. They're indispensable. They often get this the most important part. They often get chances to go to work for the companies who books they have audited. And not only that, they see they have access to information. No one else does. So you can see where the greatest opportunities are usually before other people do. And then his final bit of wisdom to this young person. If you miss one chance that is no reason to brood, there will be enough.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is now Walt speaking. You've come to me for advice? Yes, sir. All right, son, you're gonna get some. Aviation, as you say, is the developing industry. But from what I can hear, there are scores of youngsters after every job it has to offer. So this is going to echo if you listen to the podcast I did last week on Felix Dennis. He says the same exact thing, that so many people want to get involved in glamorous industries. And there's all the, he's like one of the richest self-people self-made people I know lives in has an unglamorous job. He gets rid of human waste and he makes like 20 to 30 million dollars a year and he owns the entire company. So he says, why don't you get yourself in a field that gives you a chance to discover all kinds of chances in or out of aviation? Because he's like, listen, you're going after, yeah, you like that job, but so does everybody else. How are you going to figure your way in? That doesn't make sense.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From them after they dumped 26 million, he explained why he's like, listen, I'm going to settle the rest of the debt for $5 million. I'm going to liquidate their inventory and we're going to build a great car. And that's exactly what he winds up doing. But in the middle of this, he's talking about all the things. Remember, we're towards the end of the book, right? This is a very short book. It's like 130 pages. And you wouldn't think that with all the highlights I have from it and how long I've been talking to you about it. In the middle of all this, he's going back and forth and reflecting on all the different things he learned in his career and how he applied it to the opportunities later in life. He's only got another...”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Chrysler. This is the company that becomes Chrysler. And so we finally got to the point in the story where we have the beginning of his ideas like, hey, I want to make my own car. And what he realized because he realized, just to say Willis Overlin, that if you don't have a great product, if you don't have a great car, you don't have a great car company, right? So he says, what was my future going to be? I had determined that I was going to make somewhere somehow a kind of automobile, an automobile that I was beginning to feel pretty strongly was unlikely to be made in the Willis plants. In the meantime, my banker friends had asked me to help them in another troublesome situation. This time, it was the Maxwell Motors Company that was in distress. And it's pretty crazy when you think about these numbers. We're talking early 1920s, the bankers have hit 50 million into one company, didn't go well. They put another 26 million, as we're about to see in Maxwell. So it says bankers had continued to extend credit to the Maxwell.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Offer he didn't think they'd accept. He's like, Listen, I will come, they're worried about losing all this money. He's like, I will come turn this company around. He winds up not being able to turn it around. It's too far gone. But he says, I'll undertake the job for two years at a million dollars a year. And they accept. He had such a great reputation of what he was able to accomplish at Buick that they said, okay, it's worth. Let's take the risk of spending $2 million to see if this guy can get us back our 50 million. So those bankers also have money tied up in this other company. Let me stop here for a second. The company he was hired for the million dollars a year for two years is called Willis Overland. And what he realizes is like, yeah, they have costs out of control. People don't know that are running the company don't know what they're doing. And he could fix those things. But he's like, your product sucks. And I can't fix that. So they also had money in this other call company called Maxwell. And that is the precursor. They went to buying it or taking it over out of receivership. And this is really...”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He winds up selling his stock for $10 million to DuPont and to Durant. And he says I was going to retire. I was 45. I had no plans of any kind. I had given myself completely to my job for years. So he stays retired for about half a year. And, you know, he's got more money than he can ever spend. And he winds up taking an opportunity. He wasn't sure. So the guy that winds up loaning him the money to buy that car, you know, maybe 10, 15 years in the past at this point in the story, he still has association with Walt. And him and a bunch of other bankers got $50 million tied up in another automobile company that's not doing well. So this is a series of events that happens to happen before Walt can start Chrysler. And he didn't want to come out of retirement. So he makes them...”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can accept only if I'm going to have full authority. I don't want interference. I don't want any other boss but you. If you feel anything is going wrong, if you don't like some action of mine, you come to me. Don't go to anyone else and don't try to split up my authority. Just have one channel between Flint and Detroit from me to you. Full authority is what I want. He was then beaming at me. It's a deal, he said. So moving ahead, even though he admired Billy, he had a hard time working with him. And this exchange they're having in Durant's office, it's part of the reason why. Billy, for the love of God, please now just say what your policies are for General Motors. So he's saying, I'll do enact your policies, but I have to know what they are. Billy laughed at me. Walt, I believe in changing the policies just as often as my office door opens and closes. I wag my head and said, you and I could never get along.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Him. This is Billy Durant. How crazy is this sentence? I'll pay you $500,000 a year to stay on here as president of Buick, so now he's going to give them 500 grand, 10x salary, but now he's like, you're running the whole show. You're not just running production. This is Chrysler's response. He just sprang it on me that way. He did not bat an eye. I couldn't think for a few seconds. And so he didn't say anything. And so this is Durant just keeps talking. Now Walter, You just put aside for the time being all your plans and getting into business for yourself. I don't blame you for that ambition, but I ask you to give me three years. And so Walter also, he recovers, but he also see this guy's, you know, he's very confident, as he said himself over and over again. And so now he's like, okay, you want to give me this money, but you're also going to make sure that I have one boss and you're going to let me run this thing the way I want to run it. Remember, he wants control.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Express the charm of the man. He had the most winning personality of anyone I've ever known. He could coax a bird right out of a tree. And this is when, remember, he went from 6,000 to 25,000 real fast in the 50,000. Now things are going to go bananas under Durant. And the notice myself on this page was, wow, that was fast. Durant, he was about to leave. So let me give you some background, actually. Nash leaves was one of Chrysler's best friends. They're going to organize their own company making their own cars, but it's not in Michigan. I think it's in Wisconsin. And so Chrysler's thinking about quitting Buick and going to work for them, but he's hesitant because he doesn't want to move his family. He's made the move, you know, multiple times to chase opportunities. And now they're finally settled down. So he says, he's telling Durant, you know, I'm out of here. Durant seated himself on the opposite side of the table. I was going to ask him for a raise. He didn't even get a chance to ask.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was 40 years old. When I got home, I really started to enjoy that race. I told my wife, and then this is where he talks over and over again in the book, you know, years of sacrifice and support that his wife gave him. In fact, there's not a lot of detail around this, but his wife passes away at 58 years old, and shortly after he has a stroke, some people believe he couldn't bear to be without her. So he says, and then this is her response. I knew you would do it. And then this is his response. This is why it's so important to really have people around you that believe in you. Those words contained everything I wanted to hear. Okay, so at this point, Billy Durant is going to come into the story. He takes back over GM, gnashes out, and so GM's the man, or Billy Durant's the man at GM rather, and he says flat out, even though they didn't get along. They have different personalities. Billy Durant, straight up genius. He says, I cannot hope to find words.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so he winds up Nash has to say you're going to get your $25,000. Okay, so that's a smart move, right? But predictable, of course, he's really talented. Let's give him the $25,000. That's not why I'm telling you this. Because Walt's next sentence was really surprising. Yes? Oh, well, thank you. And by the way, next year I want $50,000”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Walter It was pretty nearly a scream the way he uttered my name. Now Charlie, we've gone along fine. We're making good here in Buick. We got the one company that has been making money. Remember, there's only two profitable besides Ford under the GM brand. I don't even know why I brought it Ford. Ford's profitable, but it's not under GM. GM only has two profitable divisions, Buick and Cadillac. So Nash tries to interrupt him. He says just a minute until I've finished. I have waited a long time before saying this. When I came here, I was getting $12,000. I took this job for $6,000 and you haven't given me a raise. I want $25,000 a year or I'm going to leave.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think this is a little bit of what Chrysler is experiencing because, again, he's going from a mature, developed industry that's making a ton of money into a new frontier, one that he's not, you know, doesn't know how it's going to turn out. So he says, when I was not excited by my prospects, I was sad. After all, until then, I had devoted my entire life to locomotives. I love them. Whenever I realized that the decision to go with the Bureau company would part me forever probably from association with railroad engines and railroad men as my companions, I was afflicted by regrets aside from these feelings I had to stop and think that I was taking my wife and children away from the comfort and dignity of the best situation I had ever achieved into a young and somewhat raw industry. And as we've seen over and over again as we go through this series, it was definitely a raw industry at the beginning, like every industry is, at their crazy times. They're fascinating.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I was not prepared to let this chance get away from me. This is not the first time in his life that he'll accept less money for a better opportunity, nor the last time he does the same thing. Mr. Nash, what will you pay? He thought a while and pursed his lips. He scratched his head. Mr. Chrysler, we cannot afford to pay over $6,000. I accept it, Mr. Nash. He looked bewildered. Before I had been within three months, we were the best and the warmest kind of friends. We became friends in fact for life. Charlie is a grand man. So now this is Walt reflecting on how difficult, even though he's excited to do this, it was still like a bittersweet decision. And it's probably a good indication that you're probably doing something you have a mixture of fear and excitement. There's a great quote by Mark Andreessen. It says, why he loves working startups so much that in startups you only experience two emotions. Euphoria and terror.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he can't he the next day he goes meets with Charlie Nash who is running Buick at the time. He says, Mr. Nash, I'd like to come here. I think I could be a useful man in this plant. I'm anxious to get into this business and with this company. Well, you formed your opinion very quickly. Now the response from Chrysler. I saw enough to be able to make up my mind. Finally he said, what salary do you want, Mr. Chrysler? I just had to raise Mr. Nash. They raised me from $8,000 to $12,000 a year. I could see immediately that Charlie Nash was getting ready to focus his attention on something else. His interest in me was gone. He just seemed to collapse the way a tire does when its air is let out. In this business, we don't pay such high salaries, he said. There was a reason for that. $12,000 really was a big figure in Flint in 1911. He did not know me. I was an outsider.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is such a great feeling to have. What was more important was the change in me. The fun I had experienced in making things as a boy was magnified a hundredfold when I began making things as a man. There is in manufacturing a creative joy that only poets are supposed to know. Some day I'd like to show a poet how it feels to design and build a railroad locomotive. So he winds up turning around this locomotive manufacturer. His reputation gets spread around and that's where he starts to get recruited. This is the part of his life story where he gets recruited to run production for Buick. Now keep in mind I've already, I didn't bury the lead, he's going to start at $6,000 a year and when he leaves he's the highest paid person.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Before he would even drive it. That's a very unusual decision, right? But I need to talk to you about how he raises the money, because I think this is interesting. Let me read it to you and then let me tell you my interpretation of it. He's got an acquaintance that has a lot of money. He's a banker, and so he goes to him for a loan. And the guy's name is Van. And Van's like, listen, what are you doing? This is so stupid. You have $700. Why are you doing this? And he says, Van, you know a lot about the transportation business. You do business with the railroads here in Chicago every day. Well, the automobile is the transportation business too. The railroads have made this a richer country, haven't they? Sure, was the response. Well, then, just ask yourself what this country will be like when every individual has his own private car and is able to travel anywhere.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is where it happened. I saw this local mobile turing car. That's the name of the car. Now here's the problem. $5,000 cash he wants to buy the car, right? I had $700 to his name. That's all he has to his name. I must confess that I never stopped to ask myself if I should, if I could afford to go and hawk to buy that car. All I asked myself was, where could I raise the money? So this is a story that I've referenced. It's in several other books because almost everybody in the automotive industry also admires Walter Chrysler. And what was fascinating, they talked about one of their best memories of him is that the fact that he raised the money to buy a car and it was, you know, like the luxury car of the day. It's $5,000, right? And he would take it apart, I think it's several months. I think it takes three months of him taking it apart, putting it back together, taking it apart, putting it back together to make sure he understood how it worked.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In me from the very first through all the years when I was a grease stained roundhouse mechanic. So he's talking about even when I knew I could be better than my current situation and I had that belief other people around me might have doubted it, but she never did. So he describes this continuing rise through the locomotive industry. And he says everything in those shops was to be my charge. So he keeps getting promotions, right? I did not worry for a second. It was a bigger job, but thanks to an abundance of self-confidence, I knew I could run it. Now, what's very fascinating is almost at the peak of his powers in this industry now he's been working in for what, two decades, he has the title of the chapter is A Chance Meeting in Chicago. And he doesn't know it yet. He wasn't expecting it, but this is where another passion is going to grab him, okay? It says, I went to Chicago to see the automobile show.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is what he says. Don't let a fine, this is the advice that Hickey gives Walt. Let me be clear here. Don't let a fine opportunity slide by just because you are comfortable in a job that you have mastered. Don't be afraid of your future.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was the old man simply because he was the boss, the one whose words of praise, of sympathetic understanding, gave more lasting satisfaction than my paychecks. Now looking backward over the course I have travelled, I recall him as one of my best teachers. A trainer who showed me how to curb some traits of temper that well might have sidetracked me or even cause derailment. So shortly after this happened, Walt gets a letter offering him a job. It's a better position, right? Higher up and more money. And so what does he do? He goes and asks advice for old man Hickey. And Old Man Hick, this is again, shows his wisdom. He does not want to lose Walt. He's like, listen, I don't, you can have the job that you have, Walt, as long as I'm here, right? I love your work. Want to lose you, but you've got to take this job.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is Walt now talking since that, so he doesn't obviously get fired, he gets a lesson. Since that day, I've never answered any letter while in a passion. Oh, I've gotten mad and pounded my fist on a table when talking face to face, but I've never lost my temper on paper. God knows I have received letters that seem to tear my heart out, but those letters I have always filed in the bottom drawer. Just the act of pulling it open brings a thought of old man Hickey and cools me down.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can bet I listen that day You know, Walt, you've got a future. I don't want to see you throw it away because your feelings get hurt now and then. Let me tell you this. Now and then I get a letter that makes me boil with rage. You know what I do? mister Hicky reached deep into his desk from a small drawer beneath. He pulled out a sheet of paper. I saw that it was the letter that I had written Walt, this is where I put letters that make me mad. I leave them there for three or four days until I have calmed down, when I'm sure, mister Hicky smiled on me then, I take them out and read them over. If you had put my letter in a drawer until you cooled off Walt, you'd have dealt with it much more soundly. You would have been fair to me and fair to yourself. Don't you see? Now, you remember what I've told you.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hickey had caught me off guard. Well, you're a good boy. You're a hard worker. I don't know a better mechanic, and you've got courage too, so this goes on for a few minutes. And then he continues. So he starts off with kind and gentle words. And this is the lesson that he's learning from Mr. Hickey. Walt, I know you pretty well. Right after you went to work, I fixed my eye on you. Remember when we bought those four new cross compound engines? I was so worried about their valves. Where would we get a man to set them? Then Baldman, this is another worker, then Baldwin assured me it would be no problem. He said we had a kid in the roundhouse who knew as much about engines as he did, so he's talking about himself. That floored me, right? So he's starting off this rebuke with building him up, building up his confidence, right? And then this is what Walt says, which is this shows how smart Hickey is. This is the most important sentence of this entire section. Certainly, he knew plenty about human beings. There isn't one of us who won't listen carefully to a sermon that begins with praise of our work or something else that we take pride in.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Trains do not break down that they're functioning so they can always arrive on time. So he says his office was much finer than mine. He was a boss of thousands. I was a forceful, snappy young fellow, quick-tempered. That was the trouble. A few days before I had opened and read a letter from the general master mechanic, I had forgotten now what act of oversight of mine had caused him to write me this rebuke, but I remember how quickly I got mad. A sassy letter from the boss, hey? Well, I could write a sassy letter too. My trouble was youthful sensitiveness. Mr Hickey had both cause to rebuke me and caused to feel outrage for my lack of respect. So he comes, I'm going to fast forward a little bit, he gets into the office and he's nervous. He's very nervous. He thinks he's going to lose his job here. But he starts off, Mr. Hickey. He starts off being very calm. He's like, hey, Walt, nice to see you. Sit down.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every upper place he worked if he stayed there long enough, he would rise up the ranks very fast. So in this case, Hickey gave him, made him a boss for the first time, right? He's a foreman or a superintendent. He's managing a bunch of other people. Let's go right to what Walt says. You do not need to drown to have much of your past life reel through your mind in just a single second. Jobs were scarce and the sudden fear that you're about to lose your job may do that to you if you are young. I was 27. My own little office meant much to me. I had authority. I was the boss of scores of men, fellows like myself who understood metal and machines. However, Mr. Hickey's office was much finer. He was the boss of thousands, so he's the boss of an entire railroad, right? And Walt is working on the end. He's the one responsible for making sure that the”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I must confess I like that sort of life. I like the freedom, the sense of adventure, and the lack of responsibility. It's a very, very special time in life. And so he also talks about something I didn't know about this point in history was he'd run out of money, but you could go knock on people's doors for food. And this is something he knew because his mom fed thousands of people this way. He says, in her life, my mother must have fed thousands out of this way. Anytime you knocked at a back door out west and explain that you were on the move looking for work, you got something to eat. Maybe just bread and butter. Maybe a few slices of cold meat. No one ever felt a need to blush in those days of eating such a meal. And so after doing this for a few years, he's able to save a little bit of money. When I mean a little bit of money, I mean a little bit of money. And he finally saves up enough money where he feels he can go back home and marry his sweetheart, right? And this is Walter at 26 years old.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Me. If any foreman dressed me down, I'd get my time. I'd get my time, pack up my bag, and head to the next shop town. I was spending money as fast as I made it, spending money was one easy way to get over an attack of blues, as I was often homesick. Yet I must confess I like this sort of life. I like the freedom, the sense of adventure, and the lack of responsibility. And I think that, especially for every young man, at least that was my experience. In the early 20s, we've talked about this over and over again. We see it in a lot of these books. There's just a special time where we've now transitioned from you're on your own, in most cases, you're still rather young and dumb, but you don't know that. You definitely don't think that at the time. And I just think this feeling that he's experiencing, you know, this is an 1800s still occurs today.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to do and this experience that he's going through is one of the most cherished memories that he has the rest of his life. And this is where he's just going from town to town to town. And he's talking about it now. And he says, there's no order in my recollection of those times. I found jobs in many places, yet I never seem to find the job I hunted. Often I was broke, but if I went hungry, that was simply due to bad management. The important thing is that I'd never have forgotten how it feels to rove around this country hunting work. In the shops I was learning more and more. I learned something from every good mechanic with whom I worked. I learned the workings of a variety of engines. I learned shop practices. But most important, I learned a lot about men and still more about Walter Chrysler. I lacked patience then. I wasn't willing to stick around a shop to prove that I was good. If they did not appreciate me,”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had not then replaced the discipline of home with self discipline. Lacking that any human being soon finds trouble. So what does it mean? Let's look at this like two-bit circus that's coming to town. And so he asked his boss and the other workers if they can go take some time off work and go see the circus or the parade or whatever. And they say no. And he gets so mad that other people are telling what to do. And him and a bunch of other workers decide, hey, we're going to do it anyways. And then they come back to they come back to the job and this is the reaction from their boss and the lesson he learns. He was exceedingly solemn and quiet. In my years of railroad experience, he began nothing like this has ever happened to me. You ought to be fired. Every one of you ought to be fired here and now. You know that and I know that. And he winds up not doing that, right? He wants them to feel guilty, not just punish them. And this is what Walter realizes. He says, I wish I had not been so foolish.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I simply had to get away. I know that now. I had to give myself a chance to be a man away from home. So he searched traveling around and at this time if you did this you're called a round house mechanic and you just go from city to city job to job and he's looking for opportunity and looking for knowledge that does not exist in his hometown. But what he realizes there was also a benefit to having that structure around him. So at this point he's homesick, unhappy, and he lacks self-discipline at this point of his life. The discipline that he received was disciplined from other people, his parents, his bosses and everything else. We see an example of being young and dumb in this story. Even though through my home six spell, I continued confidently. I was getting all the best jobs to do around the shop and I knew my skill in fixing locomotives was a cause of satisfaction to the bosses. I think an even bigger factor was that I had not then yet”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, sir, not a thing. It's just I want to get more experience. I think I'm a good mechanic. Say I know I am. I saw him grin. Because of my habitual willingness to appraise my qualities at their proper value. So this is something you have to know about Walt his whole entire life. He's got an abundance of self-confidence. And it's not an abundance of self-confidence because he's arrogant or cocky. It's because he puts in so much work. He is determined to master his craft and he gets the reputation as being one of the best mechanics and best machinists in the country, which opens a bunch of doors for him later on, which we'll get to. So it's my habitual willingness to praise my qualities at their proper value.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is how Walt described the person he was at 22, and when he's going to make the big decision to get out of the small town that he's in. Sure, I was cocky. I thought I was quite a kid. I had a sense of hurry, settled down, why that was just the trouble. I never had a chance to put myself in a situation from which I could settle down. Besides, I just knew that any other town was better than Ellis. Anytime I met a stranger, no matter where he was from, he knew things that were unknown in Ellis. To my parents, my defense was that I had ambition and wanted to get ahead. I had my mind made up. So he goes to his boss, this guy's, this is actually Mr. Esterbrook, the one that interceded on behalf of his father. He says, you've been mighty nice to me, that I am a machinist. This is the end of his apprenticeship. It's something I owe to you. I'll never forget it either, but I'm going to quit. And so he goes, is there anything that matters, Wald?”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you'll never come back. Now, here's the great story. I went back to work. That frightened me a lot of good. From that time on, I really settled down to learn because I knew then just how much I love mechanics. And now in nineteen thirty six, out in Kansas City on our payroll, meaning the payroll of the Chrysler Corporation, there is the name of a gentleman, a friend of mine, now quite old. The name is Newbert.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Door, but so this is the background of the story I'm about to tell you. But it was not McGragh that I splattered in the face. It was Mr. Newbert. This is his boss. So he essentially dumps a bunch of greasy, dirty water all over his boss by accident. He fired me before he had the stuff wiped off. For some days thereafter, I felt it as if I had been banished from the earth. I was sick. Nothing in the world was half so important as my apprenticeship. Eventually somebody intercedes on his behalf and he says, hey, go see Mr. Newbert. I went to see Mr. Newbert. I begged his pardon while tears splashed on my chest. He beckoned me to follow him outside the shop where no others could hear him dress me down. So he's yelling at him for half hour, telling him what you did was wrong, everything else. And at last he says this. This must be a lesson to you. If it ever happens again, I'll fire you for sure.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That made them run concerning all the unfolding forms of magic which were then beginning to transform the continent, I was mad with curiosity. As there were none in Ellis well informed enough to answer all of my questions, I addressed myself in almost every mail to the scientific American. In that editorial office whoever received the questions from subscribers must have thought that Walter P. Chrysler was the pen name of a dozen youths. At least half of whom were crazy, yet many of my questions were answered. And at this time these are his early twenties there's this great story him and another fellow workman, this guy named McGrath. McGrath winds up like throwing, there's like dirty water everywhere and they throw it on each other as kind of this game. So McGrath dumps it on Walt and then Walt tries to get him back and he thinks it's McGrath that's going to walk through this.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Failed to make the grade, but I had done so readily. This is where he gets into needing tools. So he says, a good workman was likely to mistrust any tool whose metal had not been tempered by himself. But I had an even better reason for making mine. I lack the money with which to buy them. Years after I ceased to need them to earn a living, those tools I made were placed on display in a class case on the observatory floor seventy one stories up in the Tower of the Chrysler building. And that is just one of the most remarkable paragraphs in the entire book because think about this. In one lifetime, he goes from being so poor that he has to make his own tools to having a skyscraper built for the company that he creates and that bears his name.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, sir, I do. I was a cocky youngster and full of confidence, but I was shivering in my eagerness. Mr Estherbrook won my father over, so I began my four year term as a machine shop apprentice. My pay at first was five cents an hour. Who could ask for a better chance? So once he had his dad's permission, he had to take a test to become an apprentice, and he passes, and he gets his first real sense of pride and accomplishment. And this is something that continues throughout his whole life, that he really valued work and learning and the sense of self-confidence you get from doing something well. So he says a Union Pacific Shop Apprentice, you can bet that I was proud. My opinion of myself had expended tenfold when I became an apprentice. Everybody in Ellis knew that any apprentice had been required to pass an examination, a stiff one.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't want to be a boilermaker. I'd yell back at him. So he wants to be a machinist. His brother doesn't want him to be machinist. His parents don't want him to be a machinist. They want him to go to college. And he says, I did not like the thought of college. I had a stubborn streak in me, so his dad won't give him permission to become an apprentice. That's how you learn the trade back in those days. So I was like, okay, I'll do the next thing. I'll get a job as a janitor and I'll sweep the floors. So he does this for a long time. He says, but I loved it. I love to see the engines with their mysteries exposed. I envied the mechanics who understood their inner workings. I like to handle tools. After six months, I went to the master mechanic himself and asked his help. So this guy named Edgar Easterbrook. And he's seeing if he could appeal to Edgar to talk to his father. You want to be an apprentice, eh? Yes, sir. Well, Walt, if ever anybody had the right to ask for the chance, it's you. You stuck to your job and you haven't bellied. I'll speak to your father. That is, if you are sure you want to be a machine.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was no plumbing in Ellis. Ellis is the small city in Kansas that he grew up in. There was no plumbing in Ellis that anyone could brag about. And it was an event when my father bought a windmill so he could have running water. The next thing was a bathtub for which he had built a special room against a kitchen. He made it himself. And so one thing he learned from both his parents is the need to be self-sufficient. They built their own house. They raised their own food. They created their own jobs. If they wanted, for example, if they wanted plumbing, they created it themselves. And so that's something that Walter carries on with his own work. At the time, he's too poor. He obviously wants to become, he's a machinist by trade. And that's something that he's very passionate about. He's very passionate about mechanics and understanding machines. And he'd have to create his own tools because he was so poor and couldn't afford to buy them. He talks later on that he thought that was the right way to do it because”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Making. I confess I raised my small share of hell. Maybe there is as much fighting among boys today. I can only say that I do not think so. In the schoolyard we had four or five fistfights in the fifteen minutes of recess. A kid who had a yellow streak would lead a dog's life. If you could take your beatings fighting back with all you had, you did not have to take so many beatings. We really had a tough environment. And so he talks about the results of that. He says, I certainly aimed in those days to grow up tough.”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Henry Chrysler was known from end to end of the Union Pacific. That's the railroad he worked on. Certainly he was the best locomotive engineer of the division. Obviously, he talks about I used to walk as I was walking to school, he'd be walking to work in the morning. And so he would go into his father, would go to work at 7.30 in the morning. He says, I used to watch him then and still be thinking of him when I got to school at 8 o'clock. Often when he left the house, I walked beside him, lugging his dinner pail. What he carried rested on his hip, a great big six shooter. He was no swashbuckler, just a railroad man who had been a soldier, so when his father was a young boy he served as a drummer boy in the Civil War. On a few occasions his dad would actually let him come to work with him and watch his father work and he'd spend the whole day there. And this is how Walter remembered that. He says, the part of me most tired would be my face. And it was tired from grinning in my hours of ecstasy. Now this is Walt telling us a little bit more about the time and the place that he grew up in. It was a tough place to grow up in and you had to be tough to survive. So he says, despite the taming influences of chores and money,”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kitchen was the only barbershop my father knew. My mother was the one who always cut his hair and shaved him. We never spent money for anything that we could get without spending. You can bet my father's skin was tough. It had to be to withstand that Kansas sun and wind and blizzard. But if his skin was like bristly leather, his heart was gentle. We two boys, his sons, were a pair of fighting, chore dodging cubs, unruly and frequently in need of taming, yet he never laid a hand on us in anger. He would reason with us and get obedience, but his mighty arms and calloused hands were never used against us. In many of the visions of him that recur to me, there is a paintbrush in his hand, or a hammer, or a saw. Always he was trying to make life better for his family”
2020-06-09 · Founders · #130 Walter Chrysler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source