The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast XX
[0] Hello, everyone watching and listening.
[1] Today I have the honor to speak with Frank Straunak, founder and CEO of Magna International, one of Canada and the world's great companies.
[2] Frank built that company from nothing starting in the 1950s.
[3] It's quite a story.
[4] We discussed the keys to motivating yourself, to starting and maintaining a successful and expanding business, why that's a good thing for yourself and everybody else.
[5] The idea contained within his corporate constitution, it's an economic charter of rights, which advocates for the input, autonomy, and profit sharing among all workers, management, shareholders, etc. And I'm very much looking forward to talking about it with him.
[6] Hello, Mr. Strunak.
[7] It's very, very nice to see you.
[8] We met a couple of months ago at a restaurant in Toronto, and I had the opportunity to talk to you about your business ventures over the last five or six decades, which I found extraordinarily interesting.
[9] And in the intervening period of time, I've read one of your books, the one that's more autobiographical.
[10] And I'm very interested in your story.
[11] I thought you would make a particularly good podcast guest because one of the things I do with my podcast is walk people through the lives of successful individuals because I think it would be better if people believe that they could move forward successfully in the world and that they were equipped with some knowledge about how to do that.
[12] And I think that's something we could really concentrate on, focus in on I know it's very important to you in this podcast.
[13] You came to Canada in the 1950s.
[14] We'll go through your story autobiographically.
[15] You came armed with a tiny bit of money, some actual skill, some determination.
[16] And out of that, you built a massive business empire.
[17] Let's start with this.
[18] Not everyone listening and watching are going to know what Magna Enterprises is.
[19] So would you do us the favor first of laying out your business empire, tell people what it is that you do and what you've accomplished, how you're spread out through the world, what you guys manufacture, just lay out the story, the description of Magna.
[20] Okay, I've always said life is a question of fate and circumstances, being at the right places at the right time with the right ingredients.
[21] As it happened, I was born in a working glass family.
[22] And when I finished my schooling, and I had one or two years, practically experienced, I wanted to see the world.
[23] I applied for a visa to South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Canada.
[24] Sometimes I'm a little tough on the Canadian bureaucracy, but I'm saying it's still the best because they came first forward with a visa.
[25] So I landed in Quebec City.
[26] I took the cheapest fare I could, you know, from Holland on a coal freighter.
[27] And so I arrived in, we're back in, I think it was about April, 1994.
[28] And the immigration office asked me, do you know anybody in Canada?
[29] I said, no. So I said, well, then you go to Montreal.
[30] So I moved to my, so I took a train to Montreal.
[31] But I didn't know anybody.
[32] My English was reasonable okay.
[33] and there were some English -speaking people on that ship, and so I tried to practice my English.
[34] So anyway, I knew, because I had $200 in my pocket, and I knew that wouldn't last me too long if I would right away board a hotel or whatever.
[35] So the people told me, look, just walk along the streets, and it's customary if you see a sign, room to let's just knock on the door and you might get a room so I did work for an hour too right I knocked on that there were a few signs I've seen I knocked on the door I think I kind of looked a little rough from the long journey and so they say it's already leased but I did find well I did find the room so the next morning I got up and and I looked at the roadmaps, I looked at there, and walked around, and I worked in the factory.
[36] But it was in 54.
[37] There was a major recession.
[38] I just couldn't find the job, right?
[39] And during that time, I was hungry, hungry not because I wanted to lose weight.
[40] I was hungry.
[41] I had no money to buy food.
[42] And if you experienced that, that's an impression which will last forever.
[43] it's burnt in your soul, right?
[44] So anyway, I run out of money.
[45] I was hungry.
[46] I had an acquaintance, not a close friend, but somebody know from the same town they came from.
[47] And that was in Kitchener, right?
[48] So I saved enough money to do.
[49] I bought a Graham -Basticket, and I moved to Kitchen.
[50] I traveled by bus, by Kitchener from Montreal.
[51] And so when I got off the Main Square, I asked somebody where such and such address is.
[52] They said, look, go up there four blocks, and then ask again.
[53] So up four blocks, ask you, well, go up three more blocks, and then you might have to make it left.
[54] So again, after about two hours of walking, I could find the house where that fellow lived, and I knocked on the door, and an elderly lady said, Max, that was the fellow's name.
[55] There's somebody who wanted to see me. I was very, that was a very happy feeling, you know, to meet somebody, which you know from previous days.
[56] So anyway, Max came down and he looked at me and said, do you look at a little rough?
[57] Are you hungry?
[58] I said, yes, come on in.
[59] So the next day, I slept there.
[60] The next day, we started chop hunting.
[61] In the industrial side, there was nothing, but I did find a job at the kitchen of Waterloo Hospital in the kitchen.
[62] And so I felt so sorry for myself.
[63] I feel when I come to Canada, I got a manly job, you know, cutting trees down or digging out stone, something manly.
[64] But I was there in the kitchen with a lot of elderly women, nothing against elderly women.
[65] My mother was an elderly woman.
[66] And I liked that.
[67] But I felt sorry for myself to peeling potatoes, washing salads, et cetera, et cetera.
[68] So in the evening, it was just itching to get away to me amongst people.
[69] In those days, there was an Austrian club in Kitchen there.
[70] So I went there.
[71] In those days, there was slow dancing, right?
[72] A lot of music.
[73] And when they danced with a girl, you know, what you do, where you're from?
[74] I say, I'm from Austria.
[75] What you do?
[76] Well, I work in the hospital.
[77] My hands were so smooth from washing dishes.
[78] They thought I wasn't as urgent.
[79] But that was the end.
[80] They always kind of said, no, I'm just working in the kitchen.
[81] Then I did, I guess they didn't want to dance close.
[82] They didn't want to go out with a guy which works in the kitchen.
[83] But that's the way life is.
[84] But anyway, after a little while, after about a month or so, I did found a job in an engineering and a production -oriented company.
[85] They worked exclusively for the Aero Aero Aircraft, which Canada developed.
[86] But that project wasn't financed anymore, and it was, it was closed.
[87] the factory, the Avro Aircraft Factory, I think, was closed.
[88] The company I worked for was closed.
[89] So I had checked the right from Kitchener to Oakville, Fort was building a new factory at the time there.
[90] There were huge lineups.
[91] We did about for about two, three hours before they interviewed me and the interview looked the, yes, you're dual in time, make you too young to get everything and any experience.
[92] So I wasn't hired, and I drafted to Toronto down the headshot, right to Toronto.
[93] But years later, I had many times, you know, a meeting, lunch meeting, then a meeting with the president of Ford.
[94] And I told me, you're lucky.
[95] If I got hired at the time, I would be the president, right?
[96] So I could tease him, right?
[97] I knew him well enough that I could.
[98] But anyway, I did find a job there, a very small company.
[99] year, you know, about 10 people.
[100] After a year, after a few months, the guy said, the owner said, you're doing a great job.
[101] I want you to be a partner of mine.
[102] And my chest swallowed a little, and that's great.
[103] And nice guy, but he'd never wrote it down what it's all about.
[104] So I said to myself, there's nothing to do with the run the factory.
[105] So I looked in the papers, and I found the job, I got paid a lot more.
[106] I moved in a rooming house where the toilets went a hallway and I saved every dollar.
[107] After a couple of years I saved about $5 ,000.
[108] I rented a garage.
[109] Actually it was the gatehouse of standard products in Dufferin and DuPont in Toronto.
[110] And the size was about, maybe doubled the garage.
[111] I bought a few used machines.
[112] I had a $5 ,000 saved up because in terms today, that would be at least $100 ,000 or $150 ,000, right?
[113] So I bought the used machines, and oh, they went hustling.
[114] I knocked on factory doors, and I said, I'm great in solving problems.
[115] And I said, look, if I can't solve the problems, you don't have to pay me. But anyway, after one month, I hired a worker after a year.
[116] 10 workers, after two years, about 20, after five years, about 3 ,4 ,000, after 10 years, about 75 ,000, after 20 years, 125 ,000.
[117] And then I built up a company with 170 ,000 employees in 34 different countries.
[118] So anyway, the message I want to get across is, you know, when you we're younger, we all hustle to make some monies so that we can live in dignity.
[119] I guess I could have lived in dignity in all the 34 countries, but I choose Canada.
[120] I think I've seen the world and I met just about every president, you know, from Clinton to Putin, to Donnie Blair, just about everybody.
[121] And I could see Canada, perhaps the only country now, which could be a role model, which, well, we could implement an economic chart of rights.
[122] Magna basically is more than a business.
[123] It's really a culture.
[124] I call it the fair enterprise system.
[125] The basic philosophy and free enterprise is the human chart of rights alone is that sufficient.
[126] We have to fortify it with an economic chart of rights, economic charges of rights related to economic democracies.
[127] And economic democracies are the basis for democracy itself.
[128] But let me explain it a little better because we don't talk too much about it, you know.
[129] Those conversations are not, they're not by default, right?
[130] But let me simplify things now.
[131] All the politician, all business, the matter of fact, most people agree if the economy doesn't work, nothing else will work.
[132] You cannot treat the hungry, you cannot look after the most fragile people, the elderly, the sick, and the handicap, but we do not talk what drives the economy.
[133] The economy is driven by three forces, smart managers, hardworking employees, and investors.
[134] That means all three have a right to the outcome, which is profits.
[135] The message I want to get across is if we fail or if we do not let workers participate in profits, then we got a problem.
[136] Because the world has always been dominated by the golden rule, and still is.
[137] The people which have the gold make the rules.
[138] I don't want to be dominated by anyone.
[139] If I feel that strong, then I should not be able to dominate somebody either.
[140] So thereby, the only way we be able to achieve that, That is why an economic charter of rights.
[141] The message I want to get across to Canadians is, the human charter of rights alone is not sufficient.
[142] We have to fortify with an economic charter of rights.
[143] Economic charter of rights, as I said before, we lead to economic democracies.
[144] And economic democracies are the basis for democracy itself.
[145] The human charter of rights alone doesn't mean a lot of things for a kid and innocent at Detroit, is free to be hungry.
[146] So the amazing story about the whole thing is, when I put in a corporate constitution at Magnet, it was about in the mid -late 80s, the Constitution basically said, or the most important thing on the Constitution was, we predetermined what we do with the profits.
[147] So the Constitution said, the profit sharing said, 20 % of the profits go to the shareholders, 10 % goes to the employees over and above their wages, half in shares, half in cash, 6 % management gets, 2 % charity gets, and 7 % is reinvested for research.
[148] So when I put the Constitution in, the profits went up the first year about 40%, the second year about 100%, the third year about 200%.
[149] When you empower employees where they share, there's a clear -cut concept where they share in the profits, you release an enormous energy.
[150] You know, because they're on the front line, the employees on the front.
[151] line.
[152] They can see what you have to do to make a better product for a better price.
[153] So that's what it's all about.
[154] That's the kind of can.
[155] That's what the world needs.
[156] You know, we stand perhaps at a crossroad.
[157] Who will dominate the world?
[158] The United States is slipping to a certain extent.
[159] The United States has dominated the world for the last hundred years.
[160] to have freedom and religious freedom, freedom to speak, and a lot of freedom, great, right?
[161] We have maybe followed it up and we could do a little better there, but the United States, unfortunately, has a lot of problems.
[162] There's cancer in the inner cities.
[163] The poverty is enormous.
[164] I don't know if it's feasible, right?
[165] But the very, the very, the key question, We have to ask ourselves, what can we do, you know, because the divide is to great.
[166] There's so much money's health by just a few, and there's so much poverty by many, okay?
[167] So what do we have to do, to level that out, not completely.
[168] You can never, you should never level it out.
[169] At the same time, I say, a country which stifles its citizens, in pursuit of productivity, ingenuity, creativity, is a decaying society.
[170] Because you have the society or the world's made up of different minds, different desires, different, let everybody choose their own route to happiness.
[171] But it's very important.
[172] So I divide, actually, the program, I classify business over 300 employees.
[173] It's a large business.
[174] Below 300 people, it's a small business.
[175] The law would stipulate that the large business, which have more than 300 employees, that the law would provide that workers could share in some of the profits.
[176] And that could be determined, right?
[177] the AI who could be an escalated program.
[178] The small business, small business basically is the backbone of any country.
[179] This, they pay the most taxes, they have the most employment, and this is where, call it, the new products come forward, the new technology, etc. So we must do everything we can.
[180] That's what that we take the red tapes off, take the chains of small business, and let small business operate under the pure interprese principles.
[181] So there is, the bureaucracy has climbed enormously, you know.
[182] I could never build the magnet anymore.
[183] Imagine starting out in a garage.
[184] Imagine who built 170 ,000 employees.
[185] Over 400 factories worldwide.
[186] I could never, because I would choke under the first factory, right?
[187] And I could give you examples now how cumbersome it is, right?
[188] Okay, and when we look back 40, 50 years, yes, we have a lot of security, our safety measurement, and, you know, buildings have to be built.
[189] They then will collapse over the snow load, et cetera, but the bureaucracy has climbed to such an extent.
[190] But let me, I'd like to point out, I, to bring.
[191] about change, you won't bring up a change if you point the fingers whose fault it is, and you cannot do it with the change so either.
[192] So I'm saying it's not the fault of the bureaucrats.
[193] In a free society, everybody has the right to find the job, whatever the job openings are.
[194] It's the system, the system we have to change.
[195] Our politicians are trapped in the systems because the politics is whoever brings forward something new, any politician or a party, they won't win.
[196] Because you get criticized them.
[197] So this is the problem.
[198] Politics government can't fix things.
[199] So it needs a private citizen.
[200] It is a coalition of what I would call concerned Canadians, which where you could leave the program relative short that you could combine, this is what we need to get the economy going.
[201] Because the economy, you know, I think it's frightening what will happen over the next five, ten years.
[202] We don't make things anymore.
[203] When you look, when you see factories, the factories are all warehouses.
[204] We don't make things.
[205] And when a country doesn't make things, they got to import everything, then is where the economy breaks down and where there's no jobs where people go hungry.
[206] So we got to avoid that.
[207] So I think I've given you a bit of a short overview, and I would be very happy to now to answer questions and how can we fix things.
[208] Okay, so I would like to know, first of all, what skills you brought to Canada with you and how long it took you to acquire those skills, say on the tool and dye maker side.
[209] And then also what attitude you think you brought to bear to your work that enticed the first person, for example, to offer you a partnership, but that also made you capable of taking the risk and developing the vision to.
[210] rent that first empty garage.
[211] So how were you trained?
[212] How long did that take?
[213] What made you a good potential partner?
[214] And why did you have enough daring, let's say, or vision to rent that first garage?
[215] Well, the training, I served high school.
[216] High school, it was only eight classes.
[217] And I proposed to in Canada, we should, high school should enter grade 10, grade 11, at grade 12, we should, students should focus, we should teach them trades.
[218] And that doesn't mean that the students, after grade 12, couldn't go to university.
[219] I'm just now telling people the situation I was exposed to.
[220] So it was a three -and -a -half year program.
[221] we had one or two days where we had theoretical stuff where we had to be in classrooms and let's say four days we were in the workshop on the floor learning different things so that was the program what did you learn what skills did you acquire it toolmaking is sort of for every you need to let's say let's take this pen here.
[222] That's not made by hand.
[223] There's so much precision, so much knowledge goes in a writing band.
[224] The ink's got to come out for the next few months.
[225] It's such a minute, just that you can read and write.
[226] So you've got to make machines or tools.
[227] People might understand.
[228] Well, let's have a bumper for it.
[229] car is not made by hand, okay?
[230] You need a mold because it's plastic, right?
[231] And it's, you, so this is what toolmaking is about, right?
[232] And this is, this is maybe the most important trade to get things done, to get things made, right?
[233] When you take a car, might it be a door, might it be a seat, might have been a seat, a bumper, right?
[234] You need tools, you need ties and then special machinery.
[235] So that will call it the basics would take three to four years, and then it might take another few years till you slowly walk yourself up, that you'd be a qualified drill and die maker.
[236] And so what machines did you learn to operate when you were doing your training?
[237] And you also mentioned earlier that you were confident in putting yourself forward as a good problem solver.
[238] And so what was the relationship between learning those machines?
[239] What machines did you learn?
[240] And how did that facilitate your development as a problem solver?
[241] Interesting.
[242] The first, when I came out of high school, my first day at that factory, you know, I needed a platform because I couldn't quite reach up, right?
[243] I was 14 years of age.
[244] I couldn't reach up.
[245] There was a vice grip mounted on the thing here.
[246] And then there was a piece of steel.
[247] The piece of steel was about, about four inches square, okay?
[248] We took two people to lift that steel up on the vice grip, and then we had a hacksaw, a metal hacksaw.
[249] We had to cut a piece down four inches square.
[250] And that took maybe a week, okay, till we cut the thing down.
[251] And then it took maybe about three, four weeks.
[252] had to file it perfectly square.
[253] So that, it's an amazing thing that leads to and how you accumulate the precision work, right?
[254] I did a similar school in Canada where we had a school here to teach young kids how to be told on die makers, right?
[255] But anyway, so you go and then we learn things on a lead where you make round things or a milling machine and laid on precision computerized machines, et cetera, et cetera.
[256] So you go to a stage, right?
[257] Okay.
[258] So anyway, that's what we, I did my first job then in Toronto, as a drill and dye maker.
[259] We made a stamping dye, right?
[260] We did to maybe punch out a piece of metal with some holes in it.
[261] And so that's basically what the drill that I make it does.
[262] And as you go along, it gets more and more sophisticated.
[263] Right, right.
[264] So you got familiarized with a wide variety of tools and the ability to make precision parts.
[265] Now, you said you also became a good problem solver, and then you also developed this idea that you could rent your own garage and start producing your own tools.
[266] Now, one of the things you said was that when you, you went out to sell your services, you told your potential customers that you could solve a problem, and if you didn't, they didn't have to pay you.
[267] And, you know, the reason I want to focus on that in part is because I want to know how you develop the vision to rent that garage to begin with, but also how you knew that the proper thing to sell to potential customers was your service as a problem solver, right?
[268] Because what you're saying to them essentially is, well, you guys have a problem and it's plaguing you and you need it solved and I'm the guy that can solve it and I'm willing to demonstrate my capabilities, which is really an excellent approach to sales because you want to find out what the person's problem is and you want to be the solution.
[269] But how did you develop that problem -solving ability and your confidence in it?
[270] And then why did you think it was worth taking the risk to rent that first garage?
[271] Jordan, you ask great questions.
[272] It does have to be answered.
[273] The reason why I'm sitting here is, look, I want to roll off the experience I accumulated.
[274] There's thousands and thousands and thousands of young Canadians out there which could do the same thing if we teach them the basics, right?
[275] And I think a society would be much better off with thousands of smaller companies than one or two large companies, right?
[276] That's what, that's the idea.
[277] So anyway, so I opened up that factory.
[278] I could solve a few problems.
[279] I got some orders.
[280] And I, like I said, after two years, I had about 20 people.
[281] And I noticed my foreman was a little deafened, right?
[282] Because when he had just got, you work so closely together.
[283] His name was Herman.
[284] I said, Herman, what's the matter with you lately?
[285] Well, he said, Frank, I'm thinking.
[286] of opening my own factory.
[287] I said, I sympathize with that.
[288] That's what I did, too.
[289] I said, look, why don't we talk tomorrow?
[290] Maybe we can't find a better solution.
[291] That evening, I was talking to myself, and I said to myself, if that foreman's going to leave me, that would stifle my growth.
[292] I didn't like that.
[293] The next reason was, if that foreman's going to leave me, I got to do all the work myself.
[294] I liked that if less.
[295] The third reason was, if I hire new foreman and I don't show him how to run the business, I still get it to all the work.
[296] If I hire new foreman and I show him how business is run, it's just a question of time before he goes out and opens up his new factory.
[297] I think the key is we need those experience.
[298] There is this huge potential, right?
[299] huge energy, which lies tormenting people.
[300] We had to teach them the right way.
[301] So I think it's important while I'm still, I have everything in my mind quite clearly, that we record that.
[302] And it's great that your skill is to ask the right question, how come and how what, right?
[303] Okay, so I'm delighted to sit here.
[304] Well, so you grew very rapidly.
[305] So there's two mysteries there to me, because one of the things I've noticed with small businesses, for example, is that it's very difficult to get your first customers, right?
[306] It's very difficult to get from zero to one.
[307] Once you have a customer or two, the next customers start to be easier because you can refer them to other customers you have.
[308] But getting those first people to decide that you're the person when no one else has done it or has been willing to show that faith, that can be very tricky.
[309] So what do you think you manage successfully, how do you think you managed to present yourself successfully to the first people that you offered your services to?
[310] Well, price or quality doesn't function, right?
[311] And if you have a lot of knowledge and you transmit that knowledge to other people, then you can give a great service, better pricing, better functioning, machinery, better tools.
[312] So that's the very key, and that's what I would like to transmit.
[313] So fortunately, around that time, that's why I'm always saying, life is a question of fated circumstances, being at the right place at the right time.
[314] Around in the early 60s, you know, there was a free trade arrangement signed with the United States.
[315] And I see this huge potential out there.
[316] I should say I didn't finish up when I talked the next day with my foreman.
[317] Where I said to him, look, why don't we open up a new factory?
[318] You own a third?
[319] And I said, no more overtime.
[320] I own two thirds.
[321] And by the end of the year, we take parole rather some monies out.
[322] and we leave some money in for expansions.
[323] He said, do you mean it?
[324] I said, yes.
[325] We went right away to a lawyer and signed the thing here, and the guy hustled like crazy, you know.
[326] He spent more time in there.
[327] That was his factory.
[328] Basically, I took the next foreman, the next form and the next form and the next foreman.
[329] I said, business is easy, right?
[330] And then when I had about, I think it was about, six or seven factories and the free trade arrangement came under the being, I saw this enormous potential up there.
[331] Up to that now, I only shared with the foreman.
[332] I said if I, and then I got to know the United States, better Canada, better, the power of the unions, the size of the and I said, if I, I would have to do certain things to be competitive.
[333] So I had a friend of mine, a machinery dealer, and he said, I kind of explained to him, I really should go public, because I want to have, the workers also participate.
[334] Well, he says, I know a fellow, which his name is, uh, he'll.
[335] I'll remember it, and it's immodial, but anyway, he gave me the name.
[336] I met them at the ski hill.
[337] We went skiing to get up at George Beeks, and he said, look, that was Magnetronics.
[338] Okay.
[339] He said, I have a certain age.
[340] I would like to retire.
[341] Why don't you sell your companies in Magna Electronics, and you have close to control and then you could put that program in that where we also where you can share the profits with workers.
[342] So that's what I find that I was totally green when he comes down to a public company, right?
[343] I did not have total control.
[344] I had a board there, right?
[345] And they were more in driving the stock up, right?
[346] And the defense industry was very, they were mainly magnet electronic, did mainly defense work, right?
[347] And that was very popular.
[348] And I was an automotive.
[349] And I said after a year, so I said, I don't think this makes a lot.
[350] I said, I want to be out, okay?
[351] And I said, I sell my stock on the market.
[352] They pleaded with me, please sell the stock to us, and I said, fine, no problem, and give us a year time, and they said, fine.
[353] They were basically okay, guys, but the market kind of went down, the shares there, they didn't have the monies.
[354] I never sued anybody, and I just said, look, under the circumstances, you guys can't be on the board.
[355] and then I put in different directors and after a while I went to the board and read to the public and said I forgot about 25 % of my stocks if you're the shareholders vote for a multiple vote because I came to the conclusion I want to run things and I can't have 20 guys or 50 guys left and right discussing debating forever right So I had the shareholders voted for that.
[356] Then I said, in the return, I also give you a thing a certain discipline.
[357] This is why I put the global constitution in.
[358] That if I had control, I only could take out so much.
[359] There was clear control what management could do.
[360] And that sort of became the magna, that the magnet environment.
[361] But, yeah.
[362] Well, let's go back to your foreman.
[363] So you had said that when you made that arrangement with him, that you valued his work and you wanted him around, and you were concerned that if he left, while all of that work would fall on your shoulders again and also stopped you from moving ahead.
[364] And you sat down and contemplated what sort of deal you would have to make with him in order for his needs to be met in yours.
[365] And there's something very important there about the nature of a deal.
[366] You know, people often think that with a deal, you try to win or with a deal, you try to compromise.
[367] But my sense with the proper negotiation is that you want to figure out what you want so that you're thrilled to progress with the deal.
[368] And you want to figure out what your partner wants, so he's thrilled to progress with the deal.
[369] Because if you set it up that way, then your interests are aligned and you're both going to work as hard as you can autonomously.
[370] Now, you knew your foreman had the same kind of entrepreneurial vision you did, and you wanted to unleash his abilities.
[371] And so you offered him a third of the company.
[372] You said you'd take two thirds.
[373] And then you said he was thrilled, which is a good thing to have happened in a partner.
[374] And he went off and treated this factory like it was his own, partly because it was.
[375] Now, and then you said you duplicated that subsidiary structure across six factories and then expanded much more dramatically.
[376] And you also, at that point, also noted that that principle of distributed ownership should be brought down to the workers.
[377] So you were starting to develop that as an explicit philosophy.
[378] Now, why do you think it was that you realized that your formative, needed ownership, why do you think you were willing to grant it to him, and why do you think that the agreement that you made, which was that you would own one -third of the, or that he would own one -third of the company and you would own two -thirds, why do you think that was a desirable and a compelling motivational arrangement for your foreman?
[379] First of all, a deal, you've got to be a deal for both sides.
[380] It's got to be good, right?
[381] As a company grows, circumstances might change a bit, et cetera, et cetera.
[382] So you make provisions if you can.
[383] The reason why I think he was delighted with the deal is when we had verbal arrangements, I never went back on my ward.
[384] I think that's a very key, right?
[385] So he felt comfortable when they say we take out a third, right?
[386] We take out a portion in a pro rata, so he felt kind of comfortable, right?
[387] That I, that's very crucial.
[388] Like later on, if I, you know, once when they had about 30, 40 or 50 or 100 factories, and I had a prospective manager, which I interviewed, I said, look, there's the name, the addresses of 100.
[389] factories, like whoever manager, you want to choose and ask him how I run things.
[390] Okay, the message, what I wanted to get across, if you promise something, you must keep it.
[391] Doesn't matter what the thing is, because if you got the ability, you can always make monies.
[392] If you lose your reputation, you can never repair.
[393] So I think I had a reputation built up, and again, when I said small companies, you don't need a form of structure, it's kind of loose, it's pure free enterprise.
[394] Look, when I was small, when I had about 20, 30, 40 work, because I showed you my bank book and said, look, this is our contract we have here, if you do X, X, X, X, X, I share it with you, right?
[395] So you don't need, it's pure free enterprise, and that's what I want.
[396] to get across.
[397] That's pure capitalism.
[398] But capitalism, if we don't change, if we do not like workers participate, capitalistic the system is self -destructive.
[399] And let me give you a quick story, right?
[400] I spent a lot of time in Washington.
[401] At one time, I had a meeting with the leader of the House, Mitch McConnell.
[402] He's the senator from Kentucky.
[403] He was the president of the Senate.
[404] I had a farm in Kentucky, so I knew him.
[405] So I said, Mitch left.
[406] But, you know, I like to see you one of the days.
[407] So we arranged that met him and I said, Mitch, America did great via the free enterprise system.
[408] And without free enterprise, there's no free society.
[409] So we must do everything we can to have free enterprise.
[410] But I said, free enterprise got a major problem.
[411] So he said, what do you mean by that?
[412] I said, Mitch, more and more capital is helped by few and fewer.
[413] And I said, in nature, when a species does not reproduce itself, another species will take over.
[414] And the laws of nature are much stronger than any man -weight law, right?
[415] And that's what happens now.
[416] That's the way we're going to go.
[417] So we got to share with the employees.
[418] Because without employees, we can't make a profit.
[419] And if employees make more money, they have more purchasing power.
[420] The economy functions better.
[421] Okay, so we must have the large companies, they must have more of a discipline because they sometimes they run by institutions, by, and they have got no more affinity for people, that they just look at the share price, they look at the profits, so it's not there, right?
[422] So the illness are not there anymore, so anyway, we need a discipline there.
[423] But we must open up.
[424] We must.
[425] It's so crucial that small enterprise that we don't time up in chains and with regulations.
[426] You highlighted three things.
[427] The first thing you highlighted was that the people that you were negotiating could trust you.
[428] Now, people who are cynically critical of capitalism tend to justify that by noting the sort of winner -take -all problem that you described.
[429] And then they presume that if you're greedy and you shovel everything towards yourself, you're most likely to, let's say, win in the capitalist enterprise.
[430] But you pointed out something very much contrary to that, three things actually.
[431] The first is that you don't develop a reputation by screwing other people.
[432] You develop a reputation by telling other people what you're going to do and then bloody well doing it.
[433] And that you should also write down what you say you're going to do so that everybody remembers and knows exactly what the deal is.
[434] That you said that by the time you were negotiating, let's say with a foreman who wanted to leave, you had enough track record with him of trust so that he believed that you would do what you said you were going to do and he could envision a future with you without having to worry about your motivations.
[435] So you established your trust.
[436] Then you also realized that he was going to be a hell of a lot more motivated if he was an owner in the system, right?
[437] And so your answer to the problem of capitalism isn't exactly less capitalism.
[438] It's a much more distributed and generous form of capitalism that pulls everybody, the workers and the managers and owners into the profit -making structure.
[439] Now the other advantage, this is so cool, because I've learned this as I've built enterprises too.
[440] If you make a really great deal with someone and the person's good and they're competent and they're honest and they're productive and they're generous, if you make a really good deal with them and you can let them go off on their own, that means that they're going to take care of a thousand details on their own, keeping their own affairs in order that you don't have to take care of anymore.
[441] You don't have to micromanage.
[442] And that means that you can go off and expand your enterprise and do your own thing.
[443] And so the advantage you gain by distributing more responsibility, let's say, to an extremely competent foreman, the advantage you gain is massive freedom.
[444] And you also gain the advantage of the fact that that foreman, who now partakes in the enterprise, is going to be much more motivated to make the enterprise work.
[445] And so even if you end up paying him more, like a third of the company, let's say, or the profit share that you described, the overall profit is going to be so much greater that there's nothing in it but benefit for you and for him.
[446] And then you also pointed out, and this is a very crucial thing for people to understand, because this is where the left -wing critics of capitalism actually have a point, although it's not a problem that's specific to capitalism, which is that as an enterprise grows, and it doesn't matter what the enterprise is, the benefits tend to flow into the hands of fewer and fewer people.
[447] And that destabilizes the whole damn enterprise, because you get too many slaves on the bottom and not enough pharaohs on the top, and that produces discontent and dissatisfaction and a motivation, and that can bring the whole damn system to a halt.
[448] So your solution to that was to set up this constitution that you described, which also enabled you to grow.
[449] I'm going to review it again because it's very, very important.
[450] This is the economic charter of rights.
[451] So your management philosophy is to distribute responsibility and profit, and to make that an explicit part of the agreement.
[452] And the deal is 20 % of the profits go to the shareholders, 6 % to the management, 10 % to the workers, 2 % to charity, 7 % reinvested in research and further development.
[453] And you make that explicit.
[454] Now, the trust you described is also crucial because the workers with whom you're arranging to share the profits, aren't going to trust that deal or go along with it if they think you're going to gerrymandered the books on the profit side, right?
[455] They have to actually believe that you're going to play a straight game.
[456] But if you can explain to them that, well, you're going to play a straight game because if you motivate them properly, they're going to work a hell of a lot harder, and everybody's going to make a lot more money, and the products are going to have higher quality and we're going to sell more, then there's absolutely nothing there for people to, you know, steal selfishly and run away with.
[457] there's only the possibility that all that distributed responsibility and ability is going to produce more and more, well, it's going to be more and more productive and more and more generous.
[458] Now, I asked you when we met at the restaurant a couple of months ago, whether or not you had run into labor problems as you grew, because going from, you know, no employees to 100 ,000, you're obviously going to be dealing with potential labor issues.
[459] And you've said that as a consequence of this Constitution and the trustworthiness of the process that you've had, that you've been able to pay your workers a premium rate, but that you've also had almost no labor trouble.
[460] Is that correct?
[461] Have I got that right?
[462] Yeah, that is correct.
[463] And the interesting part about it is we were basically in the automobile industry and the auto workers union was maybe the strongest union in America, right?
[464] Okay, so anyway, the president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, his name was Buzz Hargrove, or still is his name, and I called them and I said, Buzz, let's have lunch.
[465] The two of us, we have an obligation.
[466] What are we going to do to maintain jobs and create new jobs?
[467] I said, let's have lunch.
[468] So, we agreed, and then we sat down and said, Buzz, it shouldn't be that difficult to put on one page what's important for the workers, and on one page, what's important for business.
[469] And we call that a framework of economic justice.
[470] After a few weeks, we managed it a bit.
[471] We agreed on the thing, on that structure.
[472] He said to me, I might not get it through to my.
[473] my membership, okay, but he did get it through.
[474] And we incorporated that, huh?
[475] We took two factories where we said, look, we're gonna try and see how that works, right?
[476] The part was, our workers were very upset.
[477] They said, look, we find we are happy, you wanna change a total different thing here.
[478] I took, I said, look, I said, look, I have an obligation.
[479] We live in a society.
[480] We are a very important part of that society.
[481] We've got to find ways and means.
[482] Can we learn from that, right?
[483] Because when I made my, you know, if you have a few hundred factories, when I made my rounds, I made it a habit always to at least every month I see maybe a new factory which I haven't seen for a while.
[484] When I made me around, they got the workers together, and I said, look, those are the basic principles, but I said, let's make one thing clear, no government can guarantee your jobs, no union can guarantee your jobs, not even Magna can guarantee your jobs, but I'm the head of the Magna, I can guarantee one thing, the basic principles.
[485] And that is, the very key I said, is if we, if labor and management work together and make a quality product, that's the best guarantee.
[486] That's the best guarantee.
[487] And we can make the quality product if we communicate and we put a very important structure in our company, right?
[488] We ordered the human capital.
[489] It's a very, it's a very unusual thing here.
[490] First of all, I put in a hotline.
[491] I had some trusted people, and we got a big notice in the factories.
[492] If you're unhappy with something, that's something, discrimination, or unfairness, or women get past the by a, whatever it is, call a hotline.
[493] But you don't have to give your name.
[494] And I had people then investigate those were thrusted people.
[495] And now when I would talk with managers, they said, that's one of the best things you did.
[496] Because the first reaction when it did that they said, the manager said, are you spying on us?
[497] They were unhappy.
[498] But now it's another.
[499] Because if you have an unhappy employee, unhappiness is contagious.
[500] If you get unhappy employees, there's no way it can make a quality product at a competitive price.
[501] So we've done that on a verbal thing where we have.
[502] And then we did actually an audit, a human audit, where an employee, got an envelope with no name on it, no, no, and they could take it home and fill it out, you know, various questions, is it safe, as a fair discrimination, whatever, you could fill it out.
[503] And there's only one in an envelope, no name on it, and you drop it in a box.
[504] And it's collected, and then we analyze it.
[505] And we could see it right away if there was a problem.
[506] Okay, we could see it.
[507] So that is another very, because as a manager, let's say, the average factory was about 200 people in our, in our, and that's another very important thing to become.
[508] I always had efficiency experts come to me. Grides together with 400 factors, reduce it, you know, reduce it maybe to 20.
[509] whatever.
[510] That means to have maybe 5 ,000 people per factory.
[511] People become a number.
[512] It doesn't work.
[513] It doesn't work, right?
[514] So we, look, you should never forget the human side, right?
[515] By having smaller factories and we, let's say the factory is located more in the northerly region, it's run like a factory, right?
[516] If hunting season comes and some people want to take some time off.
[517] Other people jump in.
[518] I said, like, I cover for you.
[519] I've worked the extra time.
[520] It's everything relates to people, the workers got to be an equal.
[521] And I said to myself, and I said to the managers, your number one thing is, every day you got to walk.
[522] Are you respected by the workers?
[523] That's your main aim.
[524] You got to be respected.
[525] And once when you built that thing, Then you be productive, right?
[526] You be, they think of better, the workers think of better ways to make things, right?
[527] And business is easy.
[528] All you have to do is make a better product for a better price.
[529] That's as easy as it is.
[530] So you pointed out there are a number of things that are extremely interesting.
[531] So one of them, you imagine that you're trying to differentiate your enterprise as it grows.
[532] You have 100 ,000 employees.
[533] and obviously there has to be a hierarchy between you and them.
[534] The question is, what size should the pieces of that hierarchy be?
[535] You know, there's an anthropological literature that relates cortical expansion, so brain size, to average group size in primate communities.
[536] And the optimized group size for human beings seems to be something around 200.
[537] What generally happens in hunter -gatherer societies is that if a, society exceeds about 200 individuals, it'll break into two separate societies.
[538] That's very common.
[539] And I think the reason for that is, well, I think the reason for that is the one that you just pointed out is that there's a, once a network of associations gets to be too big, you stop having that personal connection with people and you start to become a number.
[540] Like I've certainly seen this in educational institutions, you know, the huge universities reduce the university students to numbers.
[541] They're irrelevant.
[542] There's no personal relationship.
[543] And so the students end up feeling alienated, and that demolishes their motivation.
[544] And you know, in the typical educational apparatus in the higher education field, you have a 40 % dropout in the first year.
[545] And that's a catastrophic figure.
[546] And I know a college, Hillsdale College, a small place, it's only got 1 ,200 people, and it's hierarchically organized.
[547] they've managed to get their dropout rate down to 1%, so 40 % is an absolute crime.
[548] Now, you how do you do, you talked about human audit, you also talked about allowing employees to put forward their concerns and to indicate their unhappiness with process and to bring new ideas to the forefront without having to worry that they were going to be targeted for doing so.
[549] And that was very effective.
[550] So you set up communication networks in your factories and you kept them small so you could do that.
[551] How do you guys do in terms of employee wages, in terms of per capita employee productivity and with regard to turnover?
[552] Well, first of all, when I listen to you, there is a university's lecture course of what is the optimum people on the leadership.
[553] et cetera, and how many people are below or whatever.
[554] It's 200, right?
[555] So I should go back to school to maybe learn more about that.
[556] So in practice, you get to know, you learn as you go along.
[557] In practice, and every business might be a little different, right?
[558] But in our thing, what I could see about a factory, with 200 people, the manager had to gain and Brackle know everybody by his first name, and how is Billy your son, how is he in football?
[559] It's that kind of environment, right?
[560] A genuine, not a phony one, right?
[561] Not a phony one.
[562] Because employees will realize if it's funny, you know, or if it's genuinely menth, right?
[563] That's very crucial, right?
[564] So anyway, over the years I gave a lot of lectures in university, and I always start the students, when they started out, the success of life can only be measured, the degree of happiness you reach, you have.
[565] But I said, let me tell you from my experience, it's a lot easier to be happy if you got some monies.
[566] The smart students always have asked, well, how can we make some monies?
[567] So I said, luck, if you be around 20 on your early 20s, you don't know yourself that well.
[568] experiment a bit.
[569] Do something what you enjoy.
[570] When you enjoy something, you're going to be good in it.
[571] If you put in the extra effort, you could be one of the best, whatever it is.
[572] If it be one of the best, money is a byproduct.
[573] But I said, but one thing don't forget.
[574] You must not forget.
[575] Life has been great to you.
[576] Your parents sacrificed that you perhaps went the school.
[577] You have a right to use that knowledge what you accumulated in school for your own benefits.
[578] But never forget, abortion of that wisdom, of that knowledge, got to go back to society, to a better society.
[579] But the very interesting thing is, it's only the last number of years I came to the conclusion that, look, we have no. faculties, right?
[580] They mean, as far as I can see, universities, their mandate is to teach young people, can we have a more civilized society or be more specific?
[581] Can we teach young people?
[582] Can we as a university participate to develop a structure which could lead to an ideal society?
[583] That should be the main focus of a university.
[584] As we in universities, we teach great medicine, great art, great sport, great technology.
[585] But we do not teach, you know, what is the structure of an ideal society.
[586] But it dawned to me, in the United States, about 70 % of the universities are subsidized by private industry.
[587] And in Canada, 100 % under the provincial jurisdiction.
[588] Okay, 100 % subsidized.
[589] And management doesn't want to bite the hand which feeds them.
[590] Okay, but luckily I could convince the minister of education of universities, chill round three, and I think I'm doing a series in search of the ideal structure, which would lead to an ideal society.
[591] Your workers, you've had little labor trouble formally.
[592] How do you know that your workers are in fact comparatively well paid in relationship to other enterprises of your type?
[593] And how do you guys do in terms of retention and promotion?
[594] Well, we do constantly a survey.
[595] The corporate constitutional says the wages got to be average to the competition within the region.
[596] And the profits the profits in late town.
[597] We had a formula.
[598] It's not up to a manager say, like that person or this or that.
[599] She's beautiful or whatever.
[600] It's we have a formula.
[601] The formula was based upon.
[602] We wanted to reward loyalty.
[603] And suppose you get a point for a year you've been with the company.
[604] Suppose you've been with the company five years.
[605] You get five points for loyalty.
[606] And suppose you get a point for every $5 ,000 you earn.
[607] And suppose you're on $50 ,000, you get them points for knowledge, right?
[608] And the more points you have, the more you share out at the bar.
[609] But it's pre -formulated, right?
[610] So we want to reward loyalty and performance.
[611] the managers are separate, right?
[612] They purely participate in their factory.
[613] I've always said there is no bad employees, only bad managers.
[614] And there's very few bad manage.
[615] Let me rephrase it.
[616] There's some managers which need more learning experience, right?
[617] but there's very few bad managers, but there's no bad employees, okay, because we, it's our thing to assist them in learning and what makes a factory run and I guess as a businessman, it's what makes the economy run in a country.
[618] The economy, we need a new model of the economy, and I think Canada could be the first.
[619] country with an economic chart of rights.
[620] The economic charters of rights, it's fundamental.
[621] How many companies, okay, you've had a lot of success with this particular model of corporate governance and it's allowed you to grow very rapidly, to develop a very large enterprise and to maintain it across now quite a long time because it's about 50 years, 70 years, 70 years.
[622] That's very long in the corporate world.
[623] How widespread have your ideas of constitutional profit sharing become?
[624] And what, in your view, has been the impediment to their wider acceptance?
[625] Well, keep in mind, it was for many years on the corporate governance board of NASDA or the New York Stock Exchange, where we take a look, minority interests, or the market not behaving properly, right?
[626] And we worked at, we interfaced with the SAC Security Commission and brought forward that the market needs changing.
[627] There's no different in here.
[628] It's a constant and it should be done within the company, right?
[629] And so it's expected that management lift to certain standards.
[630] employees have to live in society.
[631] We have to teach standards.
[632] We have to, we don't teach enough of our kids what it's all about, okay?
[633] And I moved to, after I finished my schooling in Austria, I moved to Switzerland, right?
[634] And it was a great learning experience.
[635] It's a great country with great people.
[636] It's made relatively easy to demand a referendum.
[637] Okay, and so important things, they have referendums.
[638] About two years, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal.
[639] Swiss people defeated the referendum to have more vacation.
[640] I think the referendum was to move the vacation up from three weeks to five weeks.
[641] the people defeated it and said we cannot afford it.
[642] Right, right.
[643] It's the ultimate democracy.
[644] So why have the ideas that you've put forward in relationship to the corporate constitution not being accepted and implemented by more companies, do you think?
[645] I mean, your model has shown that if you're more generous with the profit distribution, and if you formalize that distribution, you seem to gain an increment productivity.
[646] And so why, also given the fact that, you know, capital tends to accrue in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and that that's a problem for the maintenance of the popularity of the capitalist system in general, why do you think your economic model hasn't met with more acceptance?
[647] Is it just that it's too new?
[648] You know, I mean, new ideas take a long time to distribute.
[649] What's the impediment?
[650] I brought a book to Greed Factor, right?
[651] And homo sapiens are born with some greed.
[652] greed, homo sapini cannot exist.
[653] But greed after a certain thing, it's the most destructive for us.
[654] So like I said, I've pinned on the corporate governance board.
[655] It's what an education.
[656] We've made it too complicated for public companies, right?
[657] The paragraphs like, I mean, it's so complicated that it's just the fees of bloody war, right?
[658] So young entrepreneurs, I think, ah, that's, it's, and so everything is more complicated.
[659] So we got to get back again, and there was nothing wrong with Canada about 40, 50, 60 years ago.
[660] So everything functioned quite well.
[661] So we have gotten into that where we analyze, where we look.
[662] When you look at our, what the best way to bring it across is, when you take a look at our DAX code, it's a dick book with thousands of paragraphs.
[663] Keep in mind when I fully run back, I had quite a lot.
[664] on one side of my office and 20 financial export just on the other side.
[665] When I went to the lawyers and said, I'd like to do X, X, X, X, X, X, is that within the law?
[666] Well, they see, that's within the law.
[667] I went to the thing here now, how is it treated from a tax point of view?
[668] After a week, you know, you get the thing, it's so complete, it's so gray, it could be the way.
[669] But they said, there's some experts down in the city, so you give, you sent them the problem or the clarification.
[670] After a few weeks, they get a big bill, and they say, can be either way.
[671] So everything, every paragraph, there's thousands and thousands, they're more convoluted than the others.
[672] Until we have a DAC system black and white, where everybody can fill out down, how can a society function?
[673] The DAC system is slanted in favor of specialized intersgroups.
[674] That's the dilemma.
[675] Well, so you mentioned earlier in our conversation that you believe that it would be very difficult for you to start your, you know, dual garage basic factory today, that the regulatory burden would be just too high.
[676] And so, you know, as societies move forward in time, they tend to accrue more and more rules, right?
[677] They tend to stagnate themselves.
[678] And that's a constant danger.
[679] I mean, one of the advantages to the capitalist system is that large, unwieldy enterprises that no longer function get killed by the market disappear.
[680] And we don't really have an equivalent function of death, let's say, in the bureaucratic realm, we have elections, but that doesn't really affect the bureaucratic state.
[681] Do you have any sense of how it might be possible to clear out some of the regulations that are impeding entrepreneurial development?
[682] And have you had any success in talking to politicians, let's say, in Canada, about how some of that house cleaning might occur?
[683] The politicians can't do it.
[684] I could give you many reasons or maybe some other times we have a little more time.
[685] But again, I want to point out, no -chainsaw approach.
[686] It's not the fault of the bureaucrats.
[687] It's the fault of the system.
[688] But one being a civilized way would be not to rehire until he reaches a certain status, right?
[689] And it's got to relate to the GDP, to the GDP, to what we can create.
[690] It needs X, same as a management needs X managers, the same a society could have on the bureaucratic side a certain percentage related to the market to what does the country produce.
[691] Let's talk a little bit about the future now.
[692] One of the things we discussed when we first met was a new product that you're bringing to market.
[693] on the cheap and easily accessible transportation side, especially for urban commuters.
[694] Do you want to talk about the product that you guys are bringing to market soon and where you're going to build that and what your vision is for that?
[695] Yes, about two years ago, the Premier called me, and he said, I got a problem.
[696] I said, well, he said, Channel Motors is closing.
[697] You know the car industry.
[698] I got inducted in the American Automotive Hall of Fame in 2018.
[699] So I said, yeah, give me a few days, give me a week, I'll bring forward something.
[700] At around that time, I had to go down, down a few times.
[701] I should say the Magna Head Office is an Aurora, which is about 21 minutes down to the 401th, right?
[702] So anyway, around that time, I had to go down down a few times.
[703] What used to take me half an hour from the outer ring to the inner rig to Bay Street, Now, if everything is fine, would take an hour, but it could take two hours.
[704] So I got stuck a few times, two hours, and I said, what a waste of human energy, what a waste of non -renewable energies, but most of all, what a, to inhale the carbon monoxide for two hours on the way in, two hours home, you know, I said, what damage that does do, to the health, to the well -being of people.
[705] So anyway, I went back to the workbench, okay.
[706] I should say Magna is a major coffee manufacturing company.
[707] We have one factory where we produce all the mini -cupers for the whole world.
[708] We shipped out of our factories right under the showrooms, right across the world.
[709] We developed the Austin Martin to repeat, you know, right from our factory.
[710] fact is shipped to the showrooms, a very unique car, no welding, no screwing.
[711] It was built like an airplane.
[712] It was glued together, right?
[713] But anyway, so I think I've done that for 60 years.
[714] I came to the conclusion, it's got to be a small electric car.
[715] I think we coined the phrase micro -mobility.
[716] And in loose terms, micro -mobility means you need, you've got to be able to park at least four of doors in a regular car parking spot to be more precise.
[717] They cannot be wider than three and a half feet, not longer than seven feet.
[718] And you can plug it in in any electrical outlet, one then wolf.
[719] And in a few hours, you can go 100 kilometers with it for less than a dollar.
[720] You can have a quick charging too.
[721] So it will change transportation.
[722] Its main purpose is to get people from your home to your workplace and back home.
[723] We also done an equivalent small pickup truck, which will do inner city merchandise delivery.
[724] And I should be in mass production about two, three months.
[725] The fact is just around we got the first prototype coming off the line.
[726] And it will change transportation for many reasons.
[727] The primary reason is there's only so much oil in the grounds.
[728] The reason why gasoline prices are relative cheap is the United States is utilizing 120 million tons of grain to convert it into ethanol to keep the gasoline price down.
[729] You can't do that for long because the next, wave will be, or the critical wave for society will be food shortages in the world, not triggered by the Ukraine.
[730] It would have come anyway, but will be accelerated quicker by what goes on the Ukraine, because the Ukraine is a major food producer.
[731] So the United States can't do that.
[732] So the gasoline prices will go up dramatically, I would say, will double in two, three years.
[733] But most of all, I predict in eight years, gasoline will be rationalized, will only be available for essential purposes.
[734] One of the essential purposes will be electric trucks, not electric, but me, gasoline trucks will hold the food from the farms to the cities because the grip power will not be there for large electric trucks.
[735] Or you will not solve the traffic chains because there is the grid power isn't there.
[736] It would take much time to, you might have to go with small atomic power stations, right?
[737] But that's a lot of thing here, right?
[738] But the grid system isn't there.
[739] I built the first hydrogen car with BMW, about 15 years ago.
[740] Yes, it works, but much more compass, much more expensive, much more expensive.
[741] and I see a small electric car, you know, that's the answer for now for the next 50, 100 years.
[742] Do you want to talk a little bit about what it looks like and what people can expect to see and experience when they use this particular vehicle?
[743] Okay, they're basically small, right?
[744] We, again, it's main purposes to go from your home to your home to you.
[745] your workplace and back home, okay?
[746] And that means we have stifled the speed at 32 kilometers per hour, right?
[747] So basically the insurance be so minimal or practically none because you can't do any damage.
[748] So, and two people can sit in a car and the people in the pickup truck.
[749] There's four people can sit and there.
[750] It could be a taxi.
[751] It could be a, you know, merchandise delivery vehicle.
[752] So, yeah, I think we have, we showed it on the Canadian Auto Show.
[753] We had the biggest lineups and thousands of people drove it.
[754] They got all enthusiastic about it.
[755] And the key question is, how do we got to get to get it?
[756] around.
[757] That's the key question.
[758] Right.
[759] Well, it looked like it looked like a kind of a hybrid between electric car and a motorcycle essentially.
[760] And you mentioned as well, you know, that many families have a conundrum where because there are two people working and they tend to work in different locations that they need two vehicles and one of the vehicles and both vehicles are very expensive and they're overdetermined for the purpose.
[761] People need a commuter vehicle essentially.
[762] as well as an ordinary vehicle to do all the other things they need to do with it.
[763] And your sense was that this vehicle would supply a low -cost alternative to people who primarily need transportation to work and back, and who would be using the vehicle, who would be using their other vehicle for primary purposes other than that?
[764] Does that seem about right?
[765] A few changes.
[766] When I look down the road, now usually call it the metal glass, there's a two -car garage, two cars, right?
[767] because the husband maybe went to work.
[768] In some cases, the wife do, but in many cases, the wife stayed home.
[769] She had kids, had to bring the kids to school or the shopping, et cetera, et cetera.
[770] So when I look down the road, I think I need a special permit for a large electric car, for a family that you could go to the cottage or that for special purpose, not for daily commute.
[771] Okay, and do you have two or three you could actually get four small cars in there in a regular du car garage.
[772] And this is where cats see their friends or where the wife or the husband go shopping.
[773] So you to run around, right, to do things meet up with your friends and go to school or whatever, go to work.
[774] And just it's reliable transport at low cost.
[775] and no greenhouse gases.
[776] I would like to thank you very much for the time you spent today.
[777] I think it's very useful to explain to people.
[778] I think it's extremely useful to have explained to people.
[779] Jordan, I don't want to flatter you.
[780] You are gifted to bring out the inner workings of a lot of machinery, a lot of people.
[781] And that's, you know, as a technician, yes, I'd be able to transfer, reasonable well, but you have a gift to transmit it that it be easily understood by the people.
[782] So I'm delighted that I came.
[783] I'm delighted that I was invited.
[784] Well, it's so, what struck me in our conversations was the importance of disseminating your vision for fostering a generous productivity.
[785] You know, you created an enterprise that's distributed.
[786] You said that you've made millionaires out of many of your foreman, out of people who've rose to the position where they could run their own factories, you've given people the opportunity to have a tremendous amount of autonomy under your overarching authority and to bring out the best of them as they build their own factories and as they employ more and more people.
[787] And you've managed also to distribute that responsibility and opportunity all the way down to the workers.
[788] And, you know, it's absolutely obvious to me that there's never been a more effective machine for producing wealth than the free exchange capitalist system.
[789] The data on that are crystal clear.
[790] As soon as you stop countries from doing absolutely idiotic economic things and free up their population under a quasi -capitalist market, then everybody becomes richer.
[791] Then you have the emergent problem of inequality, and that's a problem.
[792] But, your system of distributed profits, given that it's honestly run, is a reasonable solution to that problem.
[793] And it's very good to hear you talk about how motivated you've been to build the company and to produce all the products you have, but also how much you've been able to motivate other people while being productive and solving the problem of unequal distribution.
[794] So thank you very much for bringing that to everyone's attention.
[795] I got it.
[796] I had a few more words.
[797] My motivation was never to be hungry anymore and live in dignity.
[798] And the reason is it's very important if a manager, let's say a magnanimator, wanted to make more money, he had to replace himself and has to open up another factory.
[799] So a manager could replace himself maybe 20, 30 or 50 times.
[800] And then he gets a cut from each factory where he made a contribution, a percentage of the profits.
[801] And this way, some of them, their yearly income maybe was 5 million or 10 million.
[802] So the more they made, the more the shareholders made, the more the workers were made.
[803] So we, when I said, it's so important that we have smaller companies that young kids got to see.
[804] I want to be able to do like Joe Brown.
[805] I want to make 50 million or 100 million.
[806] or like the football player, like the hockey player.
[807] We must give them the motivation, right?
[808] But let it be, right?
[809] Some people are quite happy with an X, X, X, X, X, let it be, let everybody, I love to be the little stuff, song, let it be, let everybody be, let everybody be, let everybody find downright the happiness.
[810] Thank you.
[811] My pleasure, man. To everybody watching and listening, thank you very much for your time and attention, the film crew up here in Northern Ontario.
[812] And down where Frank is, thank you for the flawless technical, the provision of flawless technical expertise on this front to the Daily Wire Plus for making these conversations possible.
[813] I'm going to continue talking to Mr. Frank Stronick for another half an hour on the Daily Wire Plus platform, a bastion of free speech in an increasingly sensorial world.
[814] And so if those of you who are watching and listening are inclined to devote your attention to that platform, that would be much appreciated and maybe increasingly necessary as the months unfold.
[815] I'm looking forward to coming and looking at your factory, Mr. Strannock.
[816] I think that would be very much fun.
[817] I love looking at industrial enterprises because, well, it's lovely to see that much concerted and harmonious effort working out to produce things that people actually need.
[818] I really wish you luck with your new vehicle.
[819] I hope that you've hit the market dead on and that people find this vehicle, you know, inexpensive, reliable and useful, like many of your other products have been.
[820] And so that would be a lovely thing to see.
[821] It would be great to see that happening in Canada because we lack a little entrepreneurial zing at the moment, and that's not as it should be.
[822] I didn't get in the most important message.
[823] What's my call my main name is?
[824] My main aim is I got about 10, 15 years ago, very heavily in the agriculture.
[825] The deep I got into it, the more I could see this chemistry, little jungle, you know, with all the pesticide and all the fungicide.
[826] So 95 % of the food eating comes from industrial farms.
[827] And industrial farms, you see, no more eagles fly away.
[828] There's no more pheasants.
[829] There's no more rabbits.
[830] We spray everything with fungicide and pesticides.
[831] It gets in the air.
[832] We breathe it, gets their water, we drink it, gets in the soil, we eat the food.
[833] And all the kids practice of allergies and stage two diabetics is on the ride.
[834] So my main aim is, my main goal is, I don't want to see any Canadian kid to go to school hungry.
[835] That means breakfast's got to be served.
[836] I don't want to see any Canadian kid to leave the school hungry.
[837] That means lunch is got to be served.
[838] And by law, it would state, it has to be organic.
[839] I got reasonable everything in, but there's lots more to where the public should know.
[840] Thank you.
[841] I enjoy being with you.
[842] My pleasure, man, and we'll meet in a couple of minutes on the daily wire side and then again in the future.
[843] And thanks again and everybody for watching and listening today.