Stories from Detroit
I just finished reading Lee Iacocca: An Autobiography. And it was hell of a good read. I would recomment it to anyone who loves reading about business. In short, Lee Iacocca was a son of Italian immigrants who started with Ford Motor Company as a student engineer and moved to the business side pretty soon. He moved up the ranks and became the President. He was the father of the Mustang and other cars during his twenty-three years at Ford. When he was fired suddenly by Henry Ford, he joined Chrysler Corp and helped bail out the ailing company in a very short span. In the process, he became a celebrity of sorts - admired by many in the business world.This book is full of interesting business stories and his views on things like labor relations, management excesses, turning aroung a dying company, dealing with the government and so on. It does manage to stimulate the reader through various twists and sometimes it feels like I am reading fiction. Its fun! But sometimes it does get rote when he introduces random people he worked with into the book and mentions some of his personal grudges with other people. Nevertheless, its a great book overall.
It goes into showing what all one must go through to be there and do that - at the very top of the corporate ladder. Its a true success story - and an attestation to the fact that this is still the land of dreams - where any body who cares to dream big and does the hard work, gets a fair shot at achieving that dream. That American Dream.
