Dumb and dumber

Several years ago, I attended one of those ‘all-hands’ corporate meetings at Renault. Carlos Ghosn was on the stage for a Q&A session when some brave soul shot up a hand and asked M. Le Président if we should all be afraid that Google, Apple and Facebook might soon flex their muscles and put us all out of work.

Ghosn paused a second, looked up and replied, ‘Look, those companies in Silicon Valley turn maybe 50 per cent profit, mainly on software. In the car business, we develop hardware that takes billions of dollars and years of work, and if we get it right, we make maybe six per cent profit. Those guys in California are way too clever to go into such a bad business!’