zlacker

>>cmcgin+(OP)
Make cars people want.

>>edw519+c1
It's kind of tough to succeed when your workers (with the same skills) get paid 2-3x what competing car companies pay. Profit margins are just as important to a company's success as demand. See Internet math of the late 90's for a perfect example of what 1000000 * 0 equals.

>>josefr+L2
Profit margins are just as important to a company's success as demand.

On what planet?

Wanna buy a buggy whip, a cassette player, or a 5.25" floppy disk drive? All marked up 100%, but still good prices.

>>edw519+S2
You wouldn't happen to have better examples? These only reinforce his point -- which alternately worded is: "Demand is just as important to a company's success as profit margins".

>>jcl+J3
You wouldn't happen to have better examples?

No. These weren't "examples". They were caricatures.

Because the statement is absurd. What difference do your margins make if no one wants to buy your stuff?

We're all so good at tech and so used to eyeball driven apps that it's easy to lose sight of the single most important fact of business: sooner or later someone has to be a customer.

I never entered the "labor vs. management" debate here because it's a complex issue that won't easily be resolved here (or anywhere else). Instead I offered a play on pg's "Make Something People Want," slightly modified for Detroit.

I don't know whose fault it is (nor do I care), but face it: hardly anyone wants Detroit's cars. They've delayed the inevitable by bolting 4 door bodys onto pickup truck chasses for 15 years now without preparing themselves for $4 gas. Duh.

Look out your window right now. After the first 100 Camrys, Accords, and Altimas drive by, do you see anything from Detroit that you'd rather have? Neither does anyone else. That's Detroit's biggest problem, so I'll restate my original, they need to "Make Cars People Want".

I know this is Hacker News (thus the questioning about the applicability of this post). We must not forget that the business aspect is just as important as the tech aspect.

No matter what your other financials are, without demand, you have no sales. Without sales, you have no business. Then all of this is just one big hobby.

>>edw519+84
OK... It sounds like you are actually in violent agreement with josefresco's statement that both demand and profit margin are important. :)

>>jcl+45
Of course they're both important. No accountant could possibly argue with that.

But that's not what josefresco said. He said that profit margin is just as important as demand. I say it's not. Nothing "violent" about it.

A huge corporation has violated the most basic business rules, including perhaps the biggest, "Make something people want." And we debate about it.

But if GM was a web app and this was a "How do you like my app" posts, we would be shredding them here. You lost 75% of your equity in one year?!? You have no small cars to sell?!? We'd be telling them to go to barber college.