#118 Forty Years With Henry Ford

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick Lashonessy from the Invest Like The Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. Henry Ford's greatest achievement was changing the face of America and putting the world on wheels. His greatest failure was his treatment of his only son, Edsel. And this treatment may have hastened his son's death. Henry Ford wanted Edsel to be like him. But what he forgot or ignored was the fact that his father wanted Henry to be like him.
William Ford, Henry's father, was a strong-minded, domineering farmer who did all he could to make his son Henry become a farmer. But Henry hated farm work, which accounts for his later interest in farm machinery. Henry wanted to and did live his own life. And that is what he would not accept and understand in Edsel.
Although Edsel was a more dutiful son than his father had been, he might have had an easier life and probably a longer one had he deferred more to the elder Ford and his ideas.
In two important respects, Edsel was like his father. He was an individualist who wanted to live his own life. And like his father, nothing could move him once he decided upon a certain course that he felt was right.
His decisions though were unlike his father's. The elder Ford was guided by hunches and intuition.
Edsel reasoned out his problems after listening to the opinions of others. He wouldn't compromise between what he thought was right and wrong, but he would seek adjusted agreement between extremes.
What Henry Ford was unable to realize was that his son could not be a second edition of himself without being a mere copy of the original.
Okay, so that's an excerpt from the last chapter of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is My Forty Years With Ford, and it was written by Charles Sorensen. That chapter, interestingly enough, is called Henry Ford's Greatest Failure, and it goes into great detail, the tragedy that Charlie, as we're going to call him today, witnessed with the breaking down of the father-son relationship between Henry Ford and Edsel Ford. Before I jump into the book, as a reminder, this is the fourth book that I've read about Henry Ford and the fourth podcast that I've made about Henry Ford. So if you haven't done so already, you can learn more from Henry Ford by listening to Founders No. 9, No. 26, and No. 80
Okay, so I want to start with an introduction to Charlie. This is David L. Lewis writing in the introduction of this book. David worked at Ford for over a decade and is now a professor of business history. And so he says, Charlie claimed to have known Henry Ford better than any man dead or alive.
Henry Ford used to say, Charlie could smell what he wanted.
Summing up Charlie in 1970, the famous aviator Charles Lindenberg, who came to know Charlie through the work they did together at the William Run bomber plant when the Ford factory was shut down. They stopped automobile production in World War II so they could make machinery for the war. So this is what Charles Lindenberg had to say about Charles Sorensen. He said that Charlie was born for another era. He lived in the two-gun days of American industry and shot it out with the best of them. He was a hard-boiled, hard-fisted fighter and probably would prefer to be known as such.
And then this also gives you an indication of why this book is so important and it's so worthy of our time and attention to study.