OK, how may of you are doing your homework for the SI thread? Retiarius, have you read any great patents lately?? Tom Hoff, have you run down any rumors? (No, Don, driving around in your EV1 doesn't count as homework.)
Me, I have gone to the library, and pulled out the "Car that Could". I believe I must have given my copy away. Thought I'd read about one of our new board members. For those who haven't read it Michael Shnayerson's book is a MUST READ. Herewith from the last pages before the epilogue:
"Often, in those tumultuous months, Baker's thoughts turned to his job. In the nearly two years he'd been a GM vice president, he'd done much to prove himself, setting R&D on a more agressive, commercial track, positioning it to be the think tank for real products, not futuristic fantasies. Now the Advanced Technology Vehicles platform would report to him as well.
Sometimes it seemed enough. Sometimes being vice president seemed a lot less fun than he'd imagined it would be. Perhaps his expectations had been too keen: being a vice president had meant, he'd somehow assumed, that life would finally e perfect, that all problems would be solved. Of course, they weren't. And being that much further removed from the real work of engineering that he loved had proved a mixed blessing as well.
Should he have stayed with Impact [predecessor to the EV1], he wondered? Taken the gamble it might be revived? Turned down R&D? Certainly, eeing someone else bring the car to market still stirred feelings of loss and regret. Yet given the choice again-- he would have made the same career decision. He was an engineer, and a dreamer of sorts, but also a corporate man. Allowed to rise in the ranks, he rose.
A different thought haunted him as he stood in his VP's office, looking out over the lake. Managing Impact-- the job he'd so dreaded-- had become the best time of his life. The greatest challenge. The most satisfying success.
What could equal it now?"
The Car That Could, Pages 255 & 256
Sounds like a good board candidate for our little company... |
