#80 Henry Ford (Today and Tomorrow)

**David Senra** (0:00)
We are being born into opportunity. For hundreds of years, men have been talking about the lack of opportunity and the pressing need of dividing up things already in existence. Yet each year has seen some new idea brought forth and developed and with it a whole new series of opportunities. Until today, we have already have enough tested ideas, which put into practice, would take the world out of its slows and banish poverty by providing livings for all who will work. Only the old outworn notions stand in the way of these new ideas. The world shackles itself, blinds its eyes, and then wonders why it cannot run. Take just one idea, a little idea in and of itself. An idea that anyone might have had, but which fell to me to develop. That of making a small, strong, simple automobile, to make it cheaply and pay high wages in its making.
From a mere handful of men employed in a shop, we have grown into a large industry, directly employing more than 200,000 people, not one of whom receives less than $6 a day. Our dealers and service stations employ another 200,000, but by no means do we manufacture all that we use. Roughly, we buy twice as much as we manufacture, and it is safe that another 200,000 are employed on our work in outside factories. That gives a rough total of 600,000 employees, direct and indirect, which means that about 3 million men, women, and children get their livings out of a single idea put into effect only 18 years ago. And this one idea is only in its infancy. These figures are given not with any thought of boastfulness. I am not talking about a specific person or business. I am talking about ideas. And these figures do show something of what a single idea can accomplish.
And this has matured in less time than a child matures. What nonsense it is to think or speak of lack of opportunity. We do not know what opportunity is.
So that is from the introduction of the book that I read this week and the one that I am going to be talking to you about today, which is Today and Tomorrow by Henry Ford. And this is a book that was first published in 1926 I found this book because this idea that you and I talk about quite frequently, which is that books are the original hyperlinks, and they link us from one idea, much like the modern web, one idea to another and one person to another. I was reading, I can't even remember which book it came from, but another founder was talking about what he learned from this book. And I didn't even know that this book even existed. I was like, wait a minute, what is Today and Tomorrow? And I've read a few books by this time, turned them all into podcasts. So if you just search Henry Ford of Founders Podcast, you could see all of them.
So it was a pleasant surprise because this is another, after reading Henry Ford's autobiography, which is My Life and Work, you see that he gets right to the point. He speaks very plainly. And it's almost like a journal of sorts, where he's just his ideas on not only the work he does at Ford, but he talks about all kinds of different topics, like education and war and economics and the meaning of money and the meaning of work. And so it's like a lot of good practical knowledge for us, but also a lot of exposure to his own philosophy on life. Which I particularly appreciate. So let's not waste any time. Let's go ahead and get back into the book. And I just love this idea that he talked about. He's like, listen, look at what one single idea can accomplish. And it's just a reminder that there's always new opportunities. And if you're on my email list, I just sent an email to everybody on the list. I was watching Jeff Bezos talk probably about 20 years ago. The video I was watching took place 20 years ago, rather. And he has this bizarre, and I mean that in the most flattering way possible, because I've never heard anybody else talk like this. He has this metaphor about the web's future. What's the internet future? And he's like, it's not the gold rush. It's more akin to like, he calls it the electricity metaphor. And in that, he talks about like every single new idea or every new business creates two new opportunities. So therefore, like we're not living in this zero sum game anymore, like Henry Ford was just talking about. He's like, the opportunities out here are limitless, and they're only going to multiply faster. So it's just a good reminder that there's always new opportunities. And here, Ford is echoing a very similar sentiment, you know, what, 100 years before Bezos did. So he says, with the maturing of industry, a whole new world of opportunity opened up. Think about how many doors of creative activity every industrial advance has opened. It has turned out, through all the fierce competitive fights that no man could succeed in his own opportunity without creating many times more opportunities than he could begin to grasp. That's why I'm personally skeptical about this idea that we're going to ever get to a point where technology does everything we want it to do, and we're just going to be all sitting around with nothing to do. I see no evidence of that at all in history. In fact, I see the opposite, that the more that we're able to invent new products and services and more we're able to put different ideas into implementation, that's only going to create other opportunities for other people to pursue in the future and future generations. Okay, so he says, and this is something that always blows my mind.