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Durant

How william c. Durant company had owned the market for selling trucks and utility vehicles

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The name, William C. Durant is attached not only with General Motors but also with companies like Buick and Chevrolet. The automobile industry has seen the growth of many large companies from scratch. And, General Motors Company is famous all over the world for the production of upscale cars, trucks, and most heavy commercial vehicles. William C. Durant co-founded General Motors with Frederic L. Smith. He is also the founder of Chevrolet and Frigidaire. In his career life, he created a series of automobile lines which now has become some of the largest business conglomerates. He also took control of the company Buick Motor which eventually came under General Motors.

William founded the company in 1911, but its history trails back to 1902.

About the founder

William was a very successful businessman. He was born in Boston to William Clark Durant and Rebecca Folger Crapo. He belonged to a very wealthy family but he didn’t complete his schooling. He started working at his grandfather’s lumberyard from a very young age. William started his carrier as a cigar salesman and eventually moved to sell carriages.

In 1886, William co-founded Flint Road Car Company with Josiah Dallas Dort. Within four years, the valuation of the company became $2 million. During the 1900s, a huge revolution started over horseless gasoline-powered carriages. William saw it as an opportunity to open a new automobile company that could change the entire future of this industry.

For the starters, he bought Buick and another small company with large debts. Durant already had money from Durant-Dort Carriage Company and his profit escalated after he bought Buick. So, this games him a strong base for founding General Motors. Durant dreamt about building a company that would produce independent marques and holds subsidiaries.

In the 1920s, Durant showed interest in buying stocks with the advice of one of his friends. He wanted to play the Wall Street market but the idea backfired and he went bankrupt by 1936. William also went through many family turmoils and the mysterious disappearance of his wife. He died at the age of 85 in New York City.

Early History of General Motors Company 

The history of General Motors started when the founding of the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company took place in 1902. After William founded GM he gradually took Rapid Motor under its control as well. In 1908, William also acquired Reliance Motor Car Company which helped in expanding GM. In 1909, General Motors Holding acquired Cartercar Company which William bought going against everyone’s decision. He also planned on buying Ford but the board members dismissed the decision.

He founded General Motors Truck Company in 1911. So, this new division along with Rapid and Reliance merged into one and started its production at Rapid Motor Plant 1 in Michigan. When the company started growing it had three main production units at Michigan, California, and Missouri respectively.

During World War II

GM’s truck division proved to be of immense benefit during the war. The trucks were so efficient that a 2-ton GMC truck drove from New York to San Francisco in 5 days and 30 minutes. The demand rose and GMC had to produce 600,000 trucks for the military.

Growth and Acquisitions 

In 1925, GM acquired Yellow Coach, a Chicago-based bus and taxicab manufacturer. GM changed its name to Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Company. The company also announced that all manufacturing will now take place under YT & CMC. This company remained as an affiliated subsidiary of GM until GM bought the remaining parts of the company in 1943. The company was then renamed as GMC Truck and Coach Division.

By this time, GM was successfully manufacturing vehicles in two plants. The bus production of GM came to an end in 1987. The reason why GM took leave from bus manufacturing was the rising competition between 1970 and 1980. GMC hopped into the next century after changing its branding name to GM from GMC.

GM raised a toast to 100 years of its founding celebration by releasing a book called The First 100 Years. By 2009, General Motors stopped the production of medium-duty commercial trucks. The company currently makes SUVs, vans, light-duty trucks, and pickup trucks. Some of the GM models that are still producing in the market are Sierra, Canyon, Savana, Yukon, Acadia, Terrain, etc.

Opel logo

THE RISE OF OPEL IN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

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The history of Opel dates back to the mid-1800s. For more than 150 years, it has served its customers throughout the entire world, except North America, UK, and Oceania. Adam Opel, a German businessman founded the company, Opel Automobile GmbH. Opel operated under the leadership of General Motors till 2017. In 2017, Groupe PSA, a French multinational company acquired Opel.

About Adam Opel 

Born into a family in Russelsheim in 1837, Adam was the son of Wilhelm. Adam’s father was a locksmith and he studied to become the same until he turned twenty. He received a travel pass in 1857 which permitted him to work as a locksmith. But, something else caught his interest when he moved to Paris. He started learning the new technology of the sewing machine and asked his brother to do the same.

In 1862, Adam returned to his hometown with a business idea to make his sewing machines. His uncle helped him set the business and eventually, his younger brother gave him an extra hand. In 1867, Adam decided to build a factory for the production but unfortunately, his father passed away. In the meantime, Adam married Sophie and he set up the Opel plant with the dowry he received.

The production increased rapidly and by 1899 more than half a million machines were produced. In 1911, a devastating fire destroyed the major portion of the plant. This is when Adam decided to drop the sewing machine production and move to bicycles and automobiles. Adam, Sophia, and their five sons devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the new business. They made way more profit than from selling sewing machines.

At the end of 1887, Opel becomes the best company for innovative designs of cycles in Germany. Adam died in 1895 much before his industry started producing automobiles. Sophie and her sons took over the business but experienced a lot of ups and downs. They sold the company to General Motors Corporation in 1929.

Before the first acquisition 

After Adam died, Sophie and her sons struggled very much to keep the company stable. They started making cars for the first time in 1898 with the help of Friedrich Lutzmann, a locksmith. He was in this industry for some time and the partnership led to the production of Opel’s first car in 1899. But, the designs of the car weren’t good enough to attract either investors or customers. So, Opel dissolved the partnership after a couple of years.

In 1901, the company came to a joint partnership with Automobiles Darracq France. The company started producing vehicles under the brand name Opel Darracq but the production ceased in 1907. After the fire, a new company was established. And, by 1920s Opel became German’s first company to pull out mass production in automobiles. In 1924, a new model, Laubfrosch was released and became a big hit. The company caught the sight of General Motors and by 1929 it acquired 80% of Opel which turned to 100% in 1931.

Post-acquisition and World War II

After the acquisition, a new plant was built in 1935 in Brandenburg. This year the company becomes the first German Company to produce 100,000 units in a single year. The first plant of Opel ranked seventh worldwide in terms of mass production. The automobile production came to a halt in 1940. And, within a couple of years, Opel was busy manufacturing aircraft parts and tanks.

During the post-war years, the second plant was transported to the Soviet Union. So, they built their first Opel Blitz Truck in the Russelsheim plant.

Present-day

Other than Opel, GM’s Vauxhall gave a very tough competition in the market as well. But, in the 1990s, it was Opel that brought major profit in the house. With this profit, GM started expanding its Asian market. But, the profits declined and the company almost sold out during the global financial crisis. To cut-off price and lay low, Opel closed its Belgium plant in 2010. In 2012, Opel announced a major partnership with PSA Peugeot Citroen where GM took 7% of the company’s share. This alliance was made to save around $2 billion in costs per year. But, the company was still running in loss, losing around $257 million in a year. In March 2017, PSA acquired Opel and Vauxhall for $2.2 billion. Next year, Opel made an income of €859 million. This was a big success for the company after a long time.

BUICK MOTOR

BUICK MOTOR COMPANY- A DIVISION OF THE AUTOMOBILE COMPANY, GENERAL MOTORS

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The automobile industry has got ample of multinational companies to lure us with exquisite vehicles. For more than 100 years, companies like Daimler, Volkswagen, General Motors, and many more are ruling the automobile sector. Buick Motor Company is also one of them which now operates as a division of General Motors.

The history of this company dates back to Motor dates back to late 1800. And, General Motors was established a few years after that. David Dunbar Buick founded Buick Motor Company in 1902 but before that he conducted several experiments with combustion engines. The main markets of the company include China, the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

About the founder

Born in Scotland, David moved to Detroit at a very young age. He didn’t get an opportunity to complete his schooling and started working for a plumbing company. In 1882, David and a partner took over the company. And, this was his first stepping stone. David proved himself as a great inventor and was engrossed in experimenting. The partnership didn’t work out well and the company was dissolved.

Eventually, he went from just making engines to a whole car. In 1902, he founded this Manufacturing Company. But, soon he ran out of the company and he only had a single designed car to show. So, he decided to take a loan from one of his friends and finally help the company run.

The company faltered at the beginning

In 1904, the company moved from Detroit to Flint. In the meantime, David left the company in 1906 and sold his stock. There was a shortage in the capital when the company brought William C. Durant as a major investor. Durant made the company one of the leading automobile production companies during the next few years. And, in a single year, the company produced 37 Buick automobiles. The number kept increasing and reached to 8,800 in 1908.

Growth of Buick

The profit made from Buick rose exponentially which helped Durant to found the Mega Corporation, General Motors in 1908. Many new models of the company came up eventually. Some of them are Buick Model 10 Runabout (1910), Buick D-35 Roadster (1917), Buick Model 67 sedan (1932), etc. Since Durant was running both General Motors and Buick; he wanted to control the expenditure of resources. So, the company used a platform called GM A platform (a shared platform with four other companies).

By the 1920s, the company started selling 80% of its vehicles in China. Many new engines came up after World War II. The production of Buick’s vehicles resumed in 1945, after three years of contributing to the war. In 1947, the company launched a new model, Buick Super and next year it offered Dynaflow Automatic Transmission. Buick’s one of the most famous models, Buick Special received the award, Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1962. In 1966, the foundation of the Buick Club of America took place. It is a non-profit organization to preserve the vehicles of the Buick Motor Division. Both new models and sales kept escalating very fast. In 1978, the company broke its record by selling 795,316 vehicles. This number turned to 915,336 at the end of 1985. In 1988, the company became the official car of the U.S Olympic Team.

With the arrival of a new century, the production of many models discontinued. Some of them are Roadmaster sedan and wagon. In 1999, Buick was listed second among 37 international brands in the automobile industry.

A new century 

The arrival of 2000 witnessed a diversified model of Buick. The company noticed that the SUV models were getting popular in the market. This gave him the idea to redesign LeSabre and started building it on GM’s G platform. In 2009, Buick came into a joint partnership with Jaguar to increase growth in the United States. Recently, Buick has replaced the Regal sedan with a new model which was especially for the North American market. Many new models are going to launch this year which include the Encore GX compact crossover, the Enclave mid-size crossover, station wagon, and many more. The main market of Buick is currently in China and North America. In 2016, Buick sold around 1.1 million vehicles in China. The other markets are Mexico, South Korea, Israel, and New Zealand.

alfa romeo

Nicola Romeo – A Person Who Marked The Beginning Of Alfa Romeo Automobiles

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Italian entrepreneur and businessman Nicola Romeo is recognized for his several miscellaneous businesses and start-ups. Well, Alfa Romeo Automobiles is one of those companies. The same firm whose models are well-known for challenging in several car races including Grand Prix motor racing. In fact, it has a huge success in Motorsports since its beginning. In 1915, the firm handover to Nicola Romeo and after that Alfa Romeo witnessed the next level of success. 

Nicola Romeo – Mastermind behind Alfa Romeo Automobiles success

He is one of the finest businessmen to remember who share great contribution in shaping the automobile industry. Rather than this, he owned many other companies. Includes, CEMSA, Nicola Romeo Co, etc. As well, he was a senator in the 18th Legislature of the Kingdom of Italy. Let’s have a look at the life journey of N. Romeo, a person who marked the beginning of Italy’s leading company.

Personal Life

He was born on 28 April 1876 in Magreglio. Romeo married to Portugal based pianist and Opera singer, Angelina Valadin in 1905. Maurizio, Edoardo, Piera, Elena, Nicholas, Giulietta, and Irene are their children.

Education and Early business

Nicola attended Politecnico di Napoli for studying engineering. Presently, the same college is known as Universita Degli Studi di Napoli Federico II. After working for some time, he earned another degree in electrical engineering in Belgium. Thereafter, he returned his homeland and tried luck in entrepreneurship. Romeo started a firm related to the mining industry called Ing. Nicola Romeo e Co. The firm is specially manufactured pieces of machinery and devices needed for the mining industry. 

Acquisition of Alfa Romeo Automobiles

The first start-up of Nicola showed him great success in a short period. After that, he never looked back and focused on expanding his business further. In the end, he acquired a car manufacturing firm “A.L.F.A.” in 1915. It was Milan based automobile firm that later on renamed as ALFA Romeo. Apparently, he renamed the firm by attaching his last name. 

The backstory of foundation

It is an Italian car manufacturing firm established at the beginning of the 20th century. Alexandre Darracq, a Frenchman set up the firm with a simple car manufacturing unit. Later on, the firm started designing new cars. On 24th June 1910, this firm is merged in Milan based automobile firm and then rises with a new name called A.L.F.A. (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili). Since then, the firm started sports car manufacturing and later on involved in car racing. After that, when Nicola acquired the firm, it re-named as Alfa Romeo. 

The firm under N. Romeo’s direction

In 1921, the firm manufactured the first sports car with the unique Alfa Romeo badge on it. Specifically, the badge was “1921 Torpedo 20/30 HP”. After that, Alfa Romeo became a reputed name in the automobile industry. Several years firm deliver the best models that were elegant as well, safe. The year 1927, unfortunately, turned out as a black year for the firm. In fact, the firm was very near to bankruptcy. Because the firm wasn’t got any good investors for a long time. After that, Nicola had to deceased from the firm due to members of the boards. 

Later life

In the 18th Legislature of the Kingdom of Italy, Nicola served as a senator. However, he died at the age of 62 in 1938. His contribution to the automobile industry especially in race car manufacturing is admirable. As well, Naples, the third-largest city in Italy dedicated a street to his memories known as Via Nicola Romeo. 

Company’s Later Successes

Since the beginning, the firm is well-known for its unique Iconic car designs. Later on, many other designs got famous counting 1955 Giulietta Spider which was the first mass-produced car of the firm. Thereafter, another model Giulietta SZ became hit. It also won 1.3-liter class FIA Sports Car Championships for two years. Alfa Romeo Carabo is also one of the iconic designs of the firm. Apart from unique designs, the firm is well-known for its legendary racing team. Considering the need for race cars, the firm not only focused on innovation but also delivered innovative models. In 1931, the Alfa Romeo’s innovative model 8C 2300 won Italy’s first prize at Le Mans. Moreover, the successes continued and in 1950, Alfa Romeo’s first win at Formula-1 World Championship. The firm that started in the early 20th century remains famous among the buyers for decades. Five years ago, the firm unveiled its new badge that matches the new era’s requirements

Frida Polli

Frida Polli Proves People Can Be Biased But Algorithms Aren’t

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As we are already witnessing the application of AI in this fast-moving world, programs can never perform in a biased way. Though humans make many imperfect decisions, not able to become a better judge is a disapproving quality. But, machines cannot judge people. You can never make them lie. And, this is the entire point of applying AI-based algorithm to hire people. Frida Polli, a neuroscientist opened here start-up, Pymetrics to help companies hire people in a better way. We believe it or not that sometimes our personal feeling or sixth sense clouds are judgments. But, one cannot let this harm his or her recruiting operation. So, many companies are using the platform of Pymetrics to hire best-fitted profiles for any job. Frida established the company in 2012. It is an initiative to democratize the hiring practice using ethical AI and behavioral data. The company is based in New York City.

About Frida Polli

Frida went to Dartmouth College and acquired her bachelor’s degree in English (Post-baccalaureate premedical studies). In 2001, she went to Suffolk University and graduated in 2007 with a Ph.D. in Neuropsychology. Later, she went to Harvard Business School and acquired her MBA. Before going for her Ph.D. she was a Research Assistant at Boston University School of Medicine. She was also a Doctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Before graduating from Suffolk University, she was an intern at Harvard Medical School. She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT for three years. In 2012, she founded Pymetrics and currently serves as its CEO.

Why entering into start-up culture?

Being a research scholar, Frida went to some of the most prominent universities in the world. She has an experience of more than ten years in the field of neuroscience. But, something always bugged her about its application. Though she liked her field of research, she wanted to do more than just working in the lab. Frida wanted to apply her research ideas in the practical world. So, she applied for Harvard Business School. But, initially, she had no idea in which field she wants to start her entrepreneurial journey. Frida followed her intuition.

During her two years at Harvard, she faced this problem of recruiting. She and other fellow students carried out many types of research. It included examining individuals, their personalities and tallying possible outcomes. Frida realized that this is an inefficient way of hiring people and thus got the idea of her start-up.

Building Pymetrics 

The team of Pymetrics is much diversified. It has hired employees starting from data scientists to policy analysts. After Frida came to Harvard Business School, she planned her start-up. So, many things happened eventually once it started rolling. Frida said since the platform is based on Behavioral data she needed to hire engineers and data scientists. A general body has to be established for every company. This led to the hiring of a general counsel.

Expansion

Though Pymetrics is a US-based company, it decided to expand abroad. One of the biggest reasons for this is pursuing companies that are the hotspot of Fortune 500 companies. So, Frida decided to expand its business to London, Singapore, and Australia. Some of the biggest companies that use the platform of Pymetrics are Unilever, LinkedIn, and Accenture.

The base idea of Pymetrics

When a human analyzes another human, we tend to be biased without us being aware of it. The main goal of Pymetrics is to eradicate this from the hiring sector. But, apart from this Pymetrics also lets you know what job you are better suited for. In Pymetrics, there is no one single algorithm for every job possibility. So, if you are not qualified enough for one position, you are open to trying other options. Pymetrics build an individual algorithm for individual job opportunities.

Why AI is helpful?

This can be clarified with a small example. Let’s say we don’t want to be biassed towards hiring. What if a company needs to immediately hire 50 employees and you end up receiving more than 1000 responses? In this case, most of the resumes are left unturned due to a shortage of timing and inadequate human labor. So, the best candidate might have been the one from the left out pile. But, when it comes to Pymetrics, the platform does all the work for the company. This way it becomes more perfect and time-efficient as well.

LaunchDarkly

LaunchDarkly One of the best Feature Management Platform co-founded by Edith Harbaugh

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Technology advancement is unstoppable and it is mapping all sectors including feature management. Due to altering technology, there are many challenges in the field of feature management that deals with modern software development. While when it comes to feature management platform LaunchDarkly is dominant in this field. Currently, the firm is assisting several leading software companies to build better software solutions in less time. Also, it serves 100 billion-plus feature flags on a daily basis. The company is working to deduct the risk of the software development cycle. 

Basically, the firm handles the complete feature lifecycle, starting from the concept to launch to the value of their clients. Because of the best management, LaunchDarkly is rise as a dominant feature management platform. In 2014, Edith Harbaugh and J. Kodumal set up the company. Today, it is serving more than 200 billion feature flags per day.

About LaunchDarkly 

The Oakland based feature Management Company worked to deploy code at any time. With LaunchDarkly it is possible even if a feature is not ready to be released to the audience. It is well-known as a company that powering the best software products. Additionally, the company raised 78 Million dollar funding in series A, B, and C. As well, LaunchDarkly is a partner with leading companies including Redpoint, Vertex, Threshold, Uncork, and Bloomberg. 

As per Cloud 100’s rising stars, the firm is honored as one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies. 

The Backstory of foundation

LaunchDarkly platform came into reality based on two different directions. One is Lean Startup, based on the idea to break features into smaller fragments. Then these features can represent to the customers and asking them for feedback. Another one was continuous deployment. That time, co-founder Edith was working in the field of project management. While another founder Jhon was working in the engineering field. They realized, that small and medium-size companies are far away from feature management for their business. 

When they research, they came up with the answer that these firms could not afford their own platform for feature management as the other IT giants. Like Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and many other big firms could build own feature management platform. But there is a need to do something for small and medium-sized firms. And so, they end up with one platform called LaunchDarkly, merging two ideas into a single platform. 

What LaunchDarkly do?

In the digital world full of competition, every company is based on software. However, it is needed to have fast and proper control over it. LaunchDarkly assists the companies in feature management in the launch, starting from the concept to maintain value. The firm has the best team that assists in controlling the complete feature life cycle as mention earlier. 

For this, the company uses a streaming architecture to serve feature flags in microseconds and this all flags are served locally.

Edith Harbaugh- LaunchDarkly’s co-founder and present CEO

She is the CEO of the company which is a leading feature management platform all over the planet. However, she is working in the field of product management for more than 10 years. The Oakland based company worked under her policies. In 2014, she successfully co-founded the firm with Jhon. Apart from that, she worked at Tripit in Product and Management. Also, her contribution to exploring EasyBloom’s business is considerable. Moreover, she worked as a Product Manager at Vignette. As well, Edith is the host of podcasts called To Be continuous. On this platform, she informs people about continuous delivery and software development. 

Educational Background

Harbaugh attended Harvey Mudd College for studying engineering in Bachelor of Science. Also, she attended Pomona College for pursuing a degree in Economics. She named several patents on her name in the field of portal deployment.  

John Kodumal- Co-founder and CTO

He is LaunchDarkly’s present CTO as well, the co-founder of the company. Before that, he worked as a development manager at Atlassian. As well, he served at Coverity as an architect. Coming to his education, Jhon attended UC Berkeley for his Ph.D. Jhon attended Harvey Mudd College to study BS. 

Bottom Line

Presently, several leading companies including CircleCI, AppDirect, as well GoPro uses LaunchDarkly for feature management. The company stands out from other competitors because of its best service. As well, the firm gives the option of feature management for small and medium firms that could not build own platform for this. In the present scenario, the company is serving more than 20 billion features with subscription control that is a long term too. However, recently the firm raised funding of 78 million dollar funding in series A, B, and C. Also, many leading companies are ready to invest in the LaunchDarkly.