The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/01deese.html

by blogimus • 17 years ago

50 41 17 years ago

ckinnan• 17 years ago

He's a political campaign staffer with no business experience whatsoever.

bena4• 17 years ago

However, it was the people with decades of business experience that got us where we are today. So, exactly what good is this experience that everyone needs it.

aaronblohowiak3• 17 years ago

High finance is different from business experience. Yes the two worlds cross-pollinate, but by and large they are not the same. In some ways, it is like software development and IT. I contend that it is the people who did not learn the lessons of the past that were more likely to decide to become over-leveraged (let alone the massive pressure to do so as it seemed to be working for everyone else.) I presume (baselessly) that the appreciation for experience and history is something that is cultivated and evolves over the length of a person's career.

That being said, adaptable and intelligent people should be able to pick up on business decisions relatively quickly if they are given adequate support staff.

absconditus• 17 years ago

Just as in any other field, there are those with experience that are good at their jobs and those that are bad at them. This does not mean that someone with no experience should be hired to do the job.

gwc• 17 years ago

I don't mind smart people with limited relevant experience having opinions or even defending them vigorously. However three passages in particular struck me:

Mr. Deese was not the only one favoring the Fiat deal, but his lengthy memorandum on how liquidation would increase Medicaid costs, unemployment insurance and municipal bankruptcies ended the debate.

Every time Mr. Deese ran the numbers on G.M. and Chrysler, he came back with the now-obvious conclusion that neither was a viable business, and that their plans to revive themselves did not address the erosion of their revenues.

How is he drawing his conclusions? Does he really have a deep enough understanding of the underlying model when he 'runs the numbers'?

From there, he can make it quickly to the press office to help devise explanations for why taxpayers are spending more than $50 billion on what polls show is a very unpopular bailout of the auto industry.

I'm sure the NYT is not giving us the whole story, but there's a piece of me that worries that what makes this guy successful is not intelligence (though he certainly may be smart) but charisma. Just because you can sling a good presentation / memorandum and speak eloquently about it does not mean you should be setting critical government policy about tremendously complex problems.

randallsquared2• 17 years ago

When the driver of a race car has a terrible accident, it isn't a sign that someone with less experience would have successfully avoided the crash at that speed.

blhack2• 17 years ago

NYT's registration wall is infuriating.

Here is a working link:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.nytimes.c...

chaosmachine• 17 years ago

Actually, that just redirected me to the "log in" page.

This is a better solution: http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com

jonknee• 17 years ago

Or you could just register and then be cookied in for the foreseeable future. Choose your battles I guess.

uuilly• 17 years ago

NYT does not require a log in for google news referrals. Search the article name on google news and go from there.

blhack2• 17 years ago

That is what I did. I just wanted to share with everybody so that they didn't have to do the same.

I'm apologize if the link isn't working for some people, I was just trying to help out.

mahmud• 17 years ago

get the bugmenot firefox plugin.

ajju• 17 years ago

Obama's press operation is flawless. Every single junior official who is leading anything of import gets a profile article in a major leading newspaper full of quotes from senior officials praising him.

I supported Obama, but I'll wait till I see some results before buying into all the hoopla about his oh-so-smart group of govt. officials.

Retric2• 17 years ago

I think the press likes the Obama administration the same way they liked the Bush administration at the start. I still don't see how they go from the facts:

"While far more prominent members of the administration are making the big decisions about Detroit,"

To this headline:

"The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M."

randallsquared2• 17 years ago

I think the press likes the Obama administration the same way they liked the Bush administration at the start.

Yes, indeed. The press is generally favorable to the group in power, at least since Reagan (I don't remember much before him). Even when much of the press was anti-Bush, much of what they reported toed the administration line. It's easy; it's good for the career -- why wouldn't they be pro-power?

wmeredith• 17 years ago

"While far more prominent members of the administration are making the big decisions about Detroit,"

The part of this sentence you left out is "...it is Mr. Deese who is often narrowing their options."

With this information in mind, a case could be made that the headline is accurate. Secretaries and gatekeepers make and break businesses every day.

anamax• 17 years ago

How dare you question the inevitable success of the best and the brightest....

prpon• 17 years ago

The obvious: auto industry needs revamping. The not so obvious: How do we get there, in what time line and with how much pain?

I don't care if you are 31 or 61. Hope these NYT profiles are not just resume builders for these people. I truly hope these people make wise choices when there are so many lives depending on the industry.

jdminhbg• 17 years ago

"The obvious: auto industry needs revamping."

What's obvious about that? Many auto companies are doing just fine. Why would Toyota need revamping?

kirubakaran• 17 years ago

I am fairly certain that he meant "American auto industry".

bena4• 17 years ago

I think he meant the _American_* auto industry needs revamping.

(*And by American, of course I mean the United States of America, I was using the common term to refer to stuff from the United States of America since it is the dominant nation on the North American and South American continents with the word America in its name.)

jhancock• 17 years ago

Even Toyota is not doing fine. They make good cars at a good price but that does not mean their market capitalization and spending has been/is in line with what the next few years may hold. If it was, they would not have had to take a loss this past year.

The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M.

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