Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: a love of all things tech, and previously on tech
Speaker 1: Stuff before we had the unintended break due to my
Speaker 1: lack of WiFi, I covered the founding of General Motors,
Speaker 1: which officially began as a company in nineteen o eight.
Speaker 1: I talked about how WILLIAMS. C. Durant, founder of GM,
Speaker 1: acquired companies like Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland, which was later known
Speaker 1: as Pontiac and Cadillac. I explained that his acquisition DASH
Speaker 1: made his investors nervous, to say the least, and how
Speaker 1: they responded by removing Durant as head of GM in
Speaker 1: nineteen ten, and then how Durant went and co founded
Speaker 1: a new car company called cheval Lay, bought up shares
Speaker 1: of General Motors with his earnings, got the backing of
Speaker 1: the DuPont family as well, and eventually returned to GM
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen. So today we're going to learn a
Speaker 1: bit more about the early days of GM, and then
Speaker 1: we'll cover some more of its evolution. Now, originally I
Speaker 1: had planned on just kind of covering a little bit
Speaker 1: more about the early history of GM and then skipping
Speaker 1: forward like nearly a century to talk about what led
Speaker 1: it to get into financial trouble in the two thousand's.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, there's a lot more interesting
Speaker 1: history and important stuff in the automotive industry and the
Speaker 1: the labor movement as well that took place in the
Speaker 1: early decades of General Motors. So we're gonna be sticking
Speaker 1: with a little longer than I had intended. Al Right,
Speaker 1: So one thing I won't be doing. I will not
Speaker 1: be covering every single car that was produced off of
Speaker 1: General Motors assembly lines. That would just be ludicrous. I
Speaker 1: might mention a couple of standouts, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go through each and every car making model. That
Speaker 1: would just it would be ludicrous. Now, one thing I
Speaker 1: did not go into detail in the last episode was
Speaker 1: to talk about what was going on at GM between
Speaker 1: nineteen ten and nineteen sixteen during Durant's first exile when
Speaker 1: he was off founding you know, or co founding Chevrolet
Speaker 1: and plotting his revenge, i mean return. Well, the banks
Speaker 1: helped keep the company afloat while the various acquired car
Speaker 1: companies were manufacturing automobiles, and even with all those acquisitions,
Speaker 1: General Motors was still well behind the Ford Motor Company
Speaker 1: when it came to the largest automakers in the United States.
Speaker 1: Ford was focused on producing one type of car, the
Speaker 1: Model T, and it would do so for another more
Speaker 1: than another decade. Now. A big thing to come out
Speaker 1: during Durant's first exile was the trick starter. This was
Speaker 1: a huge development, and it helps if we go back
Speaker 1: to something I talked about in the previous GM episode.
Speaker 1: So in that episode I described the four stroke process
Speaker 1: with car engines, in which a piston in a cylinder
Speaker 1: draws in air and gasoline in a little mixture, compresses
Speaker 1: that mixture. Then a spark plug strikes a spark that
Speaker 1: ignites that mixture, which pushes the piston outward and provides
Speaker 1: the energy needed to make the car move. And then
Speaker 1: the piston comes back up through the cylinder and pushes
Speaker 1: out the exhaust and the whole process starts again. But
Speaker 1: how does that process get started? I mean that once
Speaker 1: you get it going, it can sustain itself for as
Speaker 1: long as you have fuel and you're operating the engine.
Speaker 1: But how do you get it started in the first place. Well,
Speaker 1: these days, internal combustion engines have ignition starters that engage
Speaker 1: an electric motor to turn a flywheel. That fly wheel
Speaker 1: is in turn connected to the c inank shaft of
Speaker 1: the engine, and that electric motor provides the force needed
Speaker 1: to turn the crank shaft and get those pistons moving,
Speaker 1: and that starts that process of pulling in air and fuel,
Speaker 1: assuming you've got the throttle open and you can get
Speaker 1: the combustion cycle going that way. But in the early
Speaker 1: days that was not an option. So in the old
Speaker 1: old old days, the earliest automobiles had what was called
Speaker 1: a crank wheel, and the crank wheel connected to the
Speaker 1: crank shaft of the automobile, and the ones I've seen
Speaker 1: were horizontal wheels that were mounted on the engine, and
Speaker 1: the engine was typically mounted on the back of the vehicle.
Speaker 1: So giving the crank wheel a spin manually, as in,
Speaker 1: you know, actually gripping it with your hands and turning
Speaker 1: it in the correct direction would rotate the crank chaft.
Speaker 1: This was not necessarily easy to do. By the way,
Speaker 1: the piston in the cylinder is typically a single cylinder
Speaker 1: engine connects to the crank shaft, so as the crank
Speaker 1: shaft turns, it provides the the energy needed, the force
Speaker 1: needed rather to move the piston up and down, because
Speaker 1: the piston is connected to the crank shaft and that
Speaker 1: rotation uh motion of the crank shaft gets converted into
Speaker 1: the reciprocal motion of a piston going up and down
Speaker 1: inside the cylinder. So spinning the wheel at the right
Speaker 1: speed could get the crank shaft spinning and move the
Speaker 1: piston and start the process similar to what it described
Speaker 1: a second ago with the electric motor, except in this
Speaker 1: case you're doing it by hand. The piston begins to
Speaker 1: draw air into the cylinder, but that's obviously not enough
Speaker 1: for ignition. To ignite an engine, you also have to
Speaker 1: prime it a bit by allowing that mix of air
Speaker 1: and fuel into the piston. It can't just be air,
Speaker 1: or it would be like striking a match in a
Speaker 1: normal room. You don't get explosions, assuming you're not filling
Speaker 1: that room with you know, explosive fumes or something. So
Speaker 1: in order to do that, you do have to have
Speaker 1: the throttle open just a little bit, not necessarily all
Speaker 1: the way open, but a little open to allow fuel
Speaker 1: to go into the piston as well as air. You
Speaker 1: also typically would have something called the choke that you
Speaker 1: needed to open when. As the name suggests, the choke
Speaker 1: controls whether or not air can flow into the system
Speaker 1: through the carburetor. UH. These old vehicles had carburetors. This
Speaker 1: creates a mix that can then be ignited once you're
Speaker 1: ready to actually start the vehicle. So with the handbrake on,
Speaker 1: which is a very important step with these old cars,
Speaker 1: you would engage the method for the spark plugs to spark. UH.
Speaker 1: Many early automobiles had a control kind of like a
Speaker 1: lever to advance the frequency of the spark plugs sparking,
Speaker 1: sometimes called a spark advance. Interesting thing is that because
Speaker 1: this was not an automated system, it wasn't all working together.
Speaker 1: You had to manually changed the spark advance. So once
Speaker 1: you've got an engine running, you would actually need to
Speaker 1: move the spark advance a bit to kind of find
Speaker 1: a sweet spot where the spark frequency is hitting it
Speaker 1: just the right point in the four stroke process. And
Speaker 1: you could tell you could just hear it in the
Speaker 1: engine when it hit that that sweet spot, because otherwise
Speaker 1: it was kind of chugging along and it did mean
Speaker 1: that you were actually manually adjusting how frequently the spark
Speaker 1: plugs were sparking. But where did the electricity come from
Speaker 1: to create those sparks. Well, again, in the early days,
Speaker 1: you were typically talking about a magneto, which isn't just
Speaker 1: a villainous mutant in the Marvel universe, although it's that too.
Speaker 1: A magneto works on the principles of electro magnetic interactions,
Speaker 1: something I've talked about a lot on episodes of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: A magneto is kind of like an electro magnet in reverse.
Speaker 1: But here's the gist. Let's say you take a conduct
Speaker 1: of material, typically we're talking about copper wire, and you
Speaker 1: wrap that copper wire around an iron core, and then
Speaker 1: you pass that copper wire around the core through a
Speaker 1: magnetic field. Well, passing it through that magnetic field would
Speaker 1: mean that the field would induce a current to flow
Speaker 1: through the copper wire, but this would only last a
Speaker 1: moment as the copper wire encountered this magnetic field, as
Speaker 1: long as there was some sort of fluctuation there. If
Speaker 1: you put copper wire into a magnetic field and then
Speaker 1: just let it stay, you sit in the stable magnetic
Speaker 1: field that flow of current would stop. You would have
Speaker 1: a kind of equilibrium. But if you were to change
Speaker 1: the magnetic field, if you were to create a fluctuating field,
Speaker 1: you could continue to induce current to flow in the
Speaker 1: copper wire and make it even change direction. Now, changing
Speaker 1: the magnetic field is not actually that hard. If you
Speaker 1: flip a magnet so that the north and south poles
Speaker 1: of the magnet change position over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: that's enough to do the trick. So if you have
Speaker 1: a spinning permanent magnet and you put that spinning permanent
Speaker 1: magnet next to a coil of copper wire wrapped around
Speaker 1: an iron core, you're going to induce an electric current
Speaker 1: to flow through that copper wire. So if you set
Speaker 1: up a system in which you either rotate a coil
Speaker 1: of wire between the poles of a permanent magnet, or
Speaker 1: you rotate magnets around a stationary coil of wire. There
Speaker 1: are systems that use one of the two ways and
Speaker 1: others that use the other way. But the system will
Speaker 1: subject that coil to a fluctuating magnetic field when the
Speaker 1: apparatus is in motion, and that induces current to flow
Speaker 1: through it. Now, ignition magnetos and early automobiles were a
Speaker 1: bit more complicated than this, just as a you know,
Speaker 1: kind of reverse electro magnet. That's because to create a
Speaker 1: spark you need a really high voltage. So the analogy
Speaker 1: everyone uses when they talk about voltage is with plumbing.
Speaker 1: Voltage is kind of like water press. Sure, a spark
Speaker 1: plug is essentially a pair of electrodes that are separated
Speaker 1: from one another with a little air gap in between them. Now,
Speaker 1: the voltage in a spark plug is high enough, meaning
Speaker 1: the electric potential between those two electrodes becomes great enough,
Speaker 1: there will be a brief electric arc connecting those two electrodes.
Speaker 1: That's the spark. So it's electricity that can travel a
Speaker 1: short distance through the air. You know, the air is
Speaker 1: not a really good conductor of electricity, which is honestly
Speaker 1: a pretty good thing. At least the air down where
Speaker 1: we live is not a good conductor of electricity. If
Speaker 1: you go out to the ionosphere, it's a different story.
Speaker 1: So you have to get the voltage high enough to
Speaker 1: allow this to happen. But if it's not high enough,
Speaker 1: then you don't get any spark. So your standard magneto
Speaker 1: actually doesn't produce enough voltage to do this all on
Speaker 1: its own. So to manage this, the ignition magneto first
Speaker 1: uses two coils of copper wiring. The first coil, or
Speaker 1: a primary coil, tends to be thicker copper wire wrapped
Speaker 1: around an iron core a certain number of times or turns.
Speaker 1: We call it turns of copper wire. So let's say
Speaker 1: it has just for the sake of argument, it's got
Speaker 1: ten turns, and the secondary coil is typically thinner copper
Speaker 1: wire that's wound many many many more times than the
Speaker 1: primary coil. So for the sake of this example, let's
Speaker 1: say it's got a thousand turns. So you have ten
Speaker 1: of the thicker copper wire and a thousand of the
Speaker 1: thinner one. Now, if you know about transformers, not the
Speaker 1: robots in disguise, but electrical transformers, this is all going
Speaker 1: to start to sound really familiar, because if you induce
Speaker 1: current to flow through one coil of a conductive wire
Speaker 1: wrapped around an iron core, you also create a magnetic field.
Speaker 1: This is an electro magnet. If you ever made one
Speaker 1: of these in school, I remember wrapping a piece of
Speaker 1: copper wire around uh an iron nail, for example, and
Speaker 1: then connecting the copper wire to a battery and then
Speaker 1: using the nail to pick up like iron filings and stuff.
Speaker 1: That's your basic electro magnets. So, in other words, just
Speaker 1: as a magnetic field induces current to flow through a conductor,
Speaker 1: current flowing through a conductor produces a magnetic field. So
Speaker 1: let's say you're using alternating current, being the direction of
Speaker 1: the current changes many times a second through a coil
Speaker 1: of copper wire wrapped around an iron core. The changing
Speaker 1: direction of the current also means the polls of the
Speaker 1: magnetic field are switching many times a second as well,
Speaker 1: So you're creating a fluctuating magnetic field by using alternating
Speaker 1: current through a coil of wire. If you were to
Speaker 1: bring a second coil of copper wire within that fluctuating
Speaker 1: magnetic field that was generated by current flowing through the
Speaker 1: primary coil of copper wire, then that magnetic field will
Speaker 1: induce electric current to flow through the secondary coil. There
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be any connection between the two copper
Speaker 1: wires in this case, so you've got electric current flowing
Speaker 1: through primary coil or coil number one. You bring coil
Speaker 1: number two close enough to be within the magnetic field
Speaker 1: that's generated as a result, Now you're going to have
Speaker 1: a current flowing through coil number two because of induction.
Speaker 1: What's more, the ratio of the number of turns or
Speaker 1: coils between the primary and the secondary coil determines the
Speaker 1: change in voltage from one to the other. The thickness
Speaker 1: of the conductor wire also matters, but we're just gonna
Speaker 1: focus on turns for now. So if the secondary coil
Speaker 1: has more turns than the primary coil, the voltage in
Speaker 1: that secondary coil will be stepped up compared to the
Speaker 1: primary coil, So you can increase the voltage this way.
Speaker 1: That's what transformers do. They change the voltage of transmission
Speaker 1: by using these different coils. But if the secondary coil
Speaker 1: has fewer turns than the primary coil does, the voltage
Speaker 1: gets stepped down. So trans rumors are why the world
Speaker 1: adapted to alternating current for the purposes of transmitting electricity
Speaker 1: great distances. You could use a transformer to boost the
Speaker 1: voltage way up and thus push the electricity much further
Speaker 1: out from the point of generation, and then once it
Speaker 1: got to where it needed to be, you could step
Speaker 1: down the voltage using another transformer and then feed that
Speaker 1: electricity into homes. And businesses. But I'm getting off track
Speaker 1: and I know it, and I'm sorry for our purposes.
Speaker 1: This pairing of windings meant that there was a step
Speaker 1: up effect going on with ignition magnetos. But there are
Speaker 1: also a couple of other components at play, with a
Speaker 1: control unit that consists of a breaker and a capacitor.
Speaker 1: That's the job of this control unit to disrupt the
Speaker 1: magnetic field and to channel the electric current from the
Speaker 1: magneto to the spark plug. The capacitor is kind of
Speaker 1: like a temporary storage for electric charge. It releases an
Speaker 1: electric charge all at once, unlike a battery, which is
Speaker 1: a constant, steady source of electric charge as long as
Speaker 1: the battery still has you know, electrochemicals reactions going on
Speaker 1: inside of it. Capacitors are used for all sorts of purposes,
Speaker 1: like the flash bulb and a classic camera flash. Also,
Speaker 1: I should mention that capacitors can hold onto electric charge
Speaker 1: even if the device that they're part of isn't attached
Speaker 1: to a battery or plugged in or whatever. That's why
Speaker 1: you should never just bust up an old CRT television set.
Speaker 1: You could get a serious shock because of capacitors in there.
Speaker 1: Now to get the whole operation of spark plugs and
Speaker 1: magnetos would really take a long time for me to
Speaker 1: describe in detail. It's complicated by the fact that this
Speaker 1: is obviously an audio podcast. I can't really illustrate what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. But the important thing to remember is
Speaker 1: that with this system there wasn't necessarily a need for
Speaker 1: a battery, although many early cars would also have batteries.
Speaker 1: The magneto ignition is used in lots of stuff today,
Speaker 1: including power and lawnmowers, so it's not like it's an
Speaker 1: obsolete technology now. A rotor connected to the engine provided
Speaker 1: the rotational force to operate the magneto, so turning a
Speaker 1: crank wheel or a crank handle would mean the magneto
Speaker 1: would spin as well as you know the piston going
Speaker 1: up and down. So with enough voltage built up and
Speaker 1: the engine primed, the spark plugs could spark and get
Speaker 1: things going. Later vehicles replaced the crank wheel with a
Speaker 1: hand crank that one would insert into the vehicle, typically
Speaker 1: near the front of the automobile. It engaged with the
Speaker 1: crankshaft and served the same purpose as the older crank wheels.
Speaker 1: Both types of manual starters had major drawbacks. For one,
Speaker 1: they required a good deal work and could be pretty
Speaker 1: exhausting for those who weren't, you know, all musk lely
Speaker 1: and stuff. If you've ever tried to start a stubborn
Speaker 1: poll start lawnmower, you kind of know the feeling of
Speaker 1: trying to get one of those to turn over and engage.
Speaker 1: For another, Sometimes engines kick back, and that kind of
Speaker 1: means that the rank shaft immediately turns in the opposite
Speaker 1: direction with a very sudden and powerful motion. This could
Speaker 1: happen if the fuel mixture in the cylinder ignited before
Speaker 1: the piston had reached the top of its stroke, which
Speaker 1: is a classic backfire situation. The piston goes down and
Speaker 1: reverses the rotational direction of the crank shaft. It's like
Speaker 1: it suddenly got thrown into reverse. And that would mean
Speaker 1: that suddenly that very heavy hand crank that someone had
Speaker 1: been turning a particular direction changes direction and could potentially
Speaker 1: injure the person doing the cranking, like you could break
Speaker 1: a risk that way. Another drawback was that until engineers
Speaker 1: started building in systems that would disconnect the crank from
Speaker 1: the crank shaft upon ignition, started engine might start spinning
Speaker 1: that hand crank pretty darn quickly once things got going.
Speaker 1: Engineers did develop safety systems to disengage the handle from
Speaker 1: the crank shaft upon starting an engine. But the development
Speaker 1: of an electric starter, where all this work shifted over
Speaker 1: to an electric mode her made the hand crank stuff
Speaker 1: moot over time, but did take a while. A lot
Speaker 1: of early cars actually had both an electric starter and
Speaker 1: a backup hand crank system in case the electric starter
Speaker 1: wasn't working. Also, I should mention that while GM began
Speaker 1: introducing cars with electric starters in nineteen twelve, the invention
Speaker 1: of the electric starter predated GM's use of it. Still,
Speaker 1: the design GM created would lead to a second Dwar
Speaker 1: trophy for pushing the automotive industry forward. If you listen
Speaker 1: to my first episode, you know the company had previously
Speaker 1: earned one for having interchangeable parts. Now, that's a lot
Speaker 1: about starters, and we've only just begun. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a bit more about what happened as William
Speaker 1: Durant made his return to General Motors. But first let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. All right, we're back, So, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the previous GM episode, William Durant's investor
Speaker 1: didn't like how Durant was spending truckloads of cash buying
Speaker 1: up various car companies to become part of GM, and
Speaker 1: thus amassing a huge amount of debt in the process.
Speaker 1: Depending on the source. GMS holding company ended up bringing
Speaker 1: in between twenty and thirty companies in just those first
Speaker 1: two years. But buying stuff costs money, and Durant was
Speaker 1: spending cash he didn't actually have then, not for the
Speaker 1: first time. His pre automobile carriage business kind of started
Speaker 1: out the same way, so he had a method, is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. The company had accrued somewhere around a
Speaker 1: million dollars of debt in nineteen ten, which would be
Speaker 1: closer to about twenty eight million dollars of debt in
Speaker 1: today's money once we had just for inflation. So he
Speaker 1: gets the boot. The banks essentially take over GM for
Speaker 1: the time being. And I talked about last time about
Speaker 1: how Durant co founded the Chevrolet car company. He used
Speaker 1: that wealth that he built up to buy shares of
Speaker 1: General Motors, and he essentially bought his way back into
Speaker 1: the company around nineteen fifteen or nineteen six exteen. Now
Speaker 1: I get wishy washy with the dates, because different sources
Speaker 1: have slightly different accounts of this, and I have no
Speaker 1: magical way of deciding which one is the most accurate,
Speaker 1: so I like to give ranges. In that case, the
Speaker 1: company reorganized and reincorporated. It became General Motors Corporation. At
Speaker 1: that point. Durant oversaw the acquisition of Chevrolet into General
Speaker 1: Motors a couple of years later, and sure enough it
Speaker 1: was right back into acquisitions for Durant, which meant accruing
Speaker 1: more debt again. See William C. Durant was a man
Speaker 1: who could really learn from his mistakes because he could
Speaker 1: repeat them almost exactly. I stole that joke, by the way,
Speaker 1: from Peter Cook. In nineteen seventeen, the United States entered
Speaker 1: World War One. Of course, back then people didn't call
Speaker 1: it World War One. They called it the Great War,
Speaker 1: because to name something part one before there's a part
Speaker 1: two is a bit fatalistic, though accurate. In this case, GM,
Speaker 1: like many companies in the States, began to produce material
Speaker 1: for war efforts, so they were supporting the war effort
Speaker 1: for the United States. Now, according to the Encyclopedia of Detroit,
Speaker 1: around of all of GM's truck production was dedicated to
Speaker 1: wartime production. Despite this guaranteed revenue, things weren't going so
Speaker 1: great over at General Motors. Durant, as I had mentioned,
Speaker 1: received support from the DuPont family and his efforts to
Speaker 1: regain control of General Motors. The DuPonts made their fortune
Speaker 1: a century earlier in the gunpowder business, which was really booming,
Speaker 1: had explosive growth thanks to the Civil War. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: those were gunpowder punts. But by nine this support from
Speaker 1: the DuPonts had waned, and I assumed they had come
Speaker 1: to the same conclusion as Durant's previous investors, that Durant
Speaker 1: was overreaching his capabilities and the capabilities of the company
Speaker 1: with these various acquisitions, and that maybe he was not
Speaker 1: the responsible type that should oversee the operations of a company.
Speaker 1: And so in nineteen twenty Durant was kicked out of
Speaker 1: General Motors again. So the guy who founded the company
Speaker 1: got removed from it twice. Now we'll stick with Durant
Speaker 1: just a bit longer. His story is an interesting one.
Speaker 1: He went on to found a new company. Some sources
Speaker 1: say he did it the day after he got the
Speaker 1: boot from GM, but others give a little bit more
Speaker 1: time between his getting sacked and him picking himself back
Speaker 1: up again. The new company was called Durant Motors. While
Speaker 1: he was able to clause way back with the success
Speaker 1: of Chevrolet earlier, the same could not be said of
Speaker 1: Durant Motors. He had some initial interest because he had
Speaker 1: really built a name for himself in the automotive industry.
Speaker 1: But while Durant Motors produced several cars, I don't think
Speaker 1: you would call any of them a household name today.
Speaker 1: There was the Flint, the Star, which was also known
Speaker 1: as the Rugby, and the Durant, as well as a
Speaker 1: couple of others that Durant's engineers kind of design but
Speaker 1: never actually put into production. The company did manufacture cars,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a company on paper, and there are
Speaker 1: collectors out there who owned some of these very rare vehicles.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't to last. The market at this point
Speaker 1: was already too competitive, anchored by Ford, and of course
Speaker 1: Durant's old company, General Motors by n Durant Motors was insolvent.
Speaker 1: Durant himself was pretty much bankrupt by that time because
Speaker 1: he lost all of his fortune in the fallout of
Speaker 1: the stock market crash in nineteen nine, one of the
Speaker 1: events that precipitated the Great Depression. The story goes that
Speaker 1: after the stock market crashed, he poured even more money
Speaker 1: into the stock market in an effort to try and
Speaker 1: bolster Americans confidence in the stock market, but such a
Speaker 1: move proved to be unwise. He declared bankruptcy in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty six. New York Times said that his fortune was
Speaker 1: estimated at one twenty million dollars at its height before
Speaker 1: the crash. That would be close to two billion dollars
Speaker 1: in today's money, and he was left with around two
Speaker 1: d and fifty dollars afterward. Yikes. Durant's former colleagues at
Speaker 1: General Motors, including his replacement, Alfred P. Sloan, whom will
Speaker 1: talk about a lot later in this episode, arranged for
Speaker 1: Durant to receive a pension from General Motors, which helped
Speaker 1: support him and his wife. In nineteen forty, Durant opened
Speaker 1: up a bowling alley in Flint in Michigan. He envisioned
Speaker 1: a world in which people would be enjoying prosperity and
Speaker 1: looking for diversions, and he was right. It would take
Speaker 1: a few more years after World War Two was over,
Speaker 1: but the nineteen fifties and sixties proved him right, but
Speaker 1: just a few years after he opened the Bowling Alley,
Speaker 1: he had a debilitating stroke that left him partially paralyzed
Speaker 1: and his health declined. He passed away in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: seven at the age of eighty five. But let's get
Speaker 1: back to General Motors. I figured we can finish up
Speaker 1: the section of the episode with the major things that
Speaker 1: happened to GM once it settled down after Durance Era
Speaker 1: I mentioned Alfred P. Sloan became Durant's replacement, so it's
Speaker 1: a good time to learn more about him a let's
Speaker 1: be generous. A complicated figure in General Motors history, as
Speaker 1: will become clear in this episode. Sloan was born in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five. He was the son of a businessman
Speaker 1: who imported coffee and tea to the United States. He
Speaker 1: grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He attended m I
Speaker 1: T and he earned a degree in electrical engineering. He
Speaker 1: ran his first company, called Hyatt Roller Bearing Company, when
Speaker 1: he was twenty six years old, so not that long
Speaker 1: after graduating. It did help that his father had purchased
Speaker 1: a major stake in Hyatt Roller Bearing company. The automotive
Speaker 1: industry was a really big source of revenue for hyatt
Speaker 1: roller bearing cars need bearings. After all, Oldsmobile was a
Speaker 1: big early customer, and during one of Durant's acquisition runs
Speaker 1: when he was head of General Motors, GM would actually
Speaker 1: scoop up the hyatt roller bearing companies. Not all the
Speaker 1: companies that GM bought were car companies, some of them
Speaker 1: were manufacturing parts that cars used. Durant wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of holistic approach to owning all the different parts to
Speaker 1: have it be, you know, one big company, and that
Speaker 1: is how Sloan transitioned over to working for General Motors.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighteen, Sloan became part of the executive committee.
Speaker 1: He was a vice president at General Motors by nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: and when Durant was shown the door, Sloan would end
Speaker 1: up becoming the operating vice president for the entire company,
Speaker 1: and by n three he was the president and CEO
Speaker 1: of General Motors. Now Durant had spent most of his
Speaker 1: time acquiring companies to be part of General Motors, the
Speaker 1: early era of Sloan's leadership focused on shaping these various
Speaker 1: pieces into an organized business. He made five distinct automobile divisions, Cadillac, Buick, Oakland, Oldsmobile,
Speaker 1: and Chevrolet. Now, the idea was that each division would
Speaker 1: cater to a different subsection of the automotive market, with
Speaker 1: various car lines offering a variety of features and price points.
Speaker 1: So the goal was to target every potential car customer,
Speaker 1: from those who had more modest means to purchase a vehicle,
Speaker 1: all the way up to the upper crust who are
Speaker 1: interested in a luxurious car experience. So from the least
Speaker 1: to the most expensive those car brands would go Chevrolet
Speaker 1: at the bottom end, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Buick, and then Cadillac,
Speaker 1: so the Caddy was the most luxurious of the bunch,
Speaker 1: and Sloan granted each division a lot of autonomy to
Speaker 1: produce and sell cars in a way that made competitive sense.
Speaker 1: So it was in some ways a decentralized approach to
Speaker 1: production and marketing, which helped GM get a firmer foothold
Speaker 1: in the market in general, But it also meant that
Speaker 1: the car lines began to drift apart from each other
Speaker 1: over time. There were bigger price gaps between say, the
Speaker 1: entry model Chevrolets and then the Oakland line, like there
Speaker 1: was a bigger jump between Chevrolet and Oakland than was intended,
Speaker 1: and uh that gap represented lost customers. So GM then
Speaker 1: introduced some new car brands or car lines to occupy
Speaker 1: the gaps. These were called companion makes. So one of
Speaker 1: these was the make Pontiac. This occupied a price point
Speaker 1: between Chevrolet and Oakland. It was technically a companion to
Speaker 1: the Oakland brand. The companion to Oldsmobile was called Viking,
Speaker 1: Buick's companion was the Marquette, and Cadillac got the LaSalle line. Now,
Speaker 1: out of all of those, the Pontiac line was the
Speaker 1: only companion make that lasted beyond the nineteen forties. It
Speaker 1: was distinct from all the other lines of cars. All
Speaker 1: the rest got phased out, and Pontiac actually was selling
Speaker 1: better than Oakland's the other companion like the the original
Speaker 1: line of cars, so GM eventually decided that Pontiac would
Speaker 1: replace the Oakland line of vehicles. So then your five
Speaker 1: major brands under General Motors where Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick,
Speaker 1: and Cadillac. But let's backtrack just to touch Sloan's reorganization
Speaker 1: efforts paid off big time. General Motors itself had some
Speaker 1: guiding principles that applied to all five of the main
Speaker 1: automotive divisions, and there was a substantial corporate office at
Speaker 1: GM that oversaw the whole thing, but each branch still
Speaker 1: had a decent amount of autonomy to respond nimbly to
Speaker 1: changes in the market. Sloan also did not shy away
Speaker 1: from acquisitions entirely either, though he didn't show the same
Speaker 1: sort of relentless pursuit as Durant did. Sloan was head
Speaker 1: of GM when the company acquired an English company called
Speaker 1: Vauxhall in nineteen twenty five. That's spelled v a u
Speaker 1: x h a l L. Originally I thought it was
Speaker 1: gonna be vox Hall, but then I remembered, hey, wait,
Speaker 1: we're talking English here. It's gotta be Vauxhall, And sure enough,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. Out of all the companies that
Speaker 1: were part of GM at that time, Vauxhall had the
Speaker 1: longest history. It was older than any other part of
Speaker 1: General Motors. It started out as a steam engine and
Speaker 1: pump company founded by a guy named Alexander Wilson way
Speaker 1: back in eighteen fifty seven. Their main business at the
Speaker 1: time had been in producing engines for small boats and pumps.
Speaker 1: Wilson found that it was hard to make a real
Speaker 1: profit in this business, and his company, then called the
Speaker 1: Alexander Wilson and Company, went bankrupt in eighteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: Wilson had actually left the company the previous year, but
Speaker 1: the business emerged from bankrupts. It was restructured into Vauxhall
Speaker 1: iron Works Company, and the new leader, Fred Hodges, was
Speaker 1: an automobile enthusiast, and he began to move the company
Speaker 1: away from producing steam engines, which was what they had
Speaker 1: been doing, and toward producing internal combustion engines, and eventually
Speaker 1: he led the company to making its first automobiles in
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century. In nineteen o seven, the company
Speaker 1: changed names again and officially became Vauxhall Motors. At first,
Speaker 1: Vauxhall mostly made luxury cars that only the wealthy among
Speaker 1: the UK could could afford, and after World War One
Speaker 1: the UK economy was in a pretty sad state. Vauxhall
Speaker 1: consequently found itself in a tough financial situation and when
Speaker 1: GM came along in nineteen twenty five with an offer
Speaker 1: Vauxhall couldn't really refuse. In return, GM got a stronger
Speaker 1: presence in the UK, where the Ford motor company had
Speaker 1: been establishing a presence for around a deck eight. Vauxhall
Speaker 1: changed strategies and began making economy priced cars priced at
Speaker 1: levels that made the Vauxell brand more than competitive against Ford.
Speaker 1: The story of Vauxhall itself is really darn interesting all
Speaker 1: in its own right, but I'll have to save that
Speaker 1: for another episode. Instead, I'm going to do the almost
Speaker 1: criminal thing by jumping ahead and saying that Vauxhall and
Speaker 1: another car company that I'm going to talk about after
Speaker 1: the break called Opal would be part of General Motors
Speaker 1: until twenty seventeen, at which point GM sold the divisions
Speaker 1: off to another company called p S, a group formerly
Speaker 1: known as Peugeot Citron. But for decades Vauxhall would be
Speaker 1: part of GM's European division. The UK company would have
Speaker 1: many of its own ups and downs, including a really
Speaker 1: long period in which Vauxell wasn't really manufacturing passenger cars
Speaker 1: at all. Rather, they were importing cars that have been
Speaker 1: manufactured in other countries like Germany or Australia and then
Speaker 1: effectively slapping a Vauxhall badge on them to make them
Speaker 1: Vauxhall vehicles. But as I said, that's a story that
Speaker 1: should have its own podcast. Now, when we come back,
Speaker 1: i'll talk about the other European company that joined GM
Speaker 1: and a big milestone for General Motors, as well as
Speaker 1: some pretty major controversies. But before I get to that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. By all standards, ninety nine
Speaker 1: was a big year. That was the year that the
Speaker 1: stock market crashed and many companies around the world would
Speaker 1: not survive the turmoil that followed. General Motors was in
Speaker 1: better shape than a lot of other companies, though some
Speaker 1: divisions within GM were struggling more than others. Vauxhall, for example,
Speaker 1: might have gone under entirely if it had not been
Speaker 1: for the fact that GM had acquired the company just
Speaker 1: a few years earlier. But was also when two other
Speaker 1: big things happened for GM. One was that for the
Speaker 1: first time, General Motors took over the number one American
Speaker 1: auto manufacturer spot from the Ford Motor Company and then
Speaker 1: would hold onto it for decades. But let's illustrate the
Speaker 1: difference between Ford and GM. At the time, GM was
Speaker 1: a company that owned and operated five different major makes,
Speaker 1: and each vehicle was aimed at different slices of the
Speaker 1: overall market. Forward, by contrast, was making the model T
Speaker 1: from nineteen o eight until nineteen twenty seven. Ford also
Speaker 1: made trucks starting in nineteen seventeen, and it had also
Speaker 1: acquired the Lincoln car brand in nineteen twenty two, which
Speaker 1: was purchased from Henry Leland, who if you listen to
Speaker 1: the last episode, you know had previously worked with GM,
Speaker 1: but under the Ford brand. If it was a passenger
Speaker 1: car from Ford, it was a Model T at least
Speaker 1: until nineteen seven, that's when the company introduced the Model A.
Speaker 1: The company actually shut down all the manufacturing facilities of
Speaker 1: Ford for six months to retool the manufacturing process in
Speaker 1: order to start churning out model as instead of Model TS.
Speaker 1: So Ford was focused on mass production of a single
Speaker 1: model of car to appeal to a broad market, whereas
Speaker 1: GM was taking a more segmented approach to the market. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in ninety nine, GM surpassed the Ford Motor Company, And
Speaker 1: the other big thing that happened in nineteen nine was
Speaker 1: that GM acquired a German automotive company called Opal o
Speaker 1: pe L. Opal and Vauxhall would become almost like sister
Speaker 1: companies over time, and the Opal story is also a
Speaker 1: really interesting one. Maybe maybe I'll make a podcast about Vauxhall,
Speaker 1: and I'll pair it with OPAL in the future because
Speaker 1: those two companies have a very intertwined history together. But
Speaker 1: one major departure for OPAL comes to us courtesy of
Speaker 1: a conflict called World War Two. I'll cover that more
Speaker 1: extensively in just a bit, because, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: that story and GM's part in it, is really complicated.
Speaker 1: But after the devastation of World War Two, I mean,
Speaker 1: opal's manufacturing facilities were pretty much wiped out through the
Speaker 1: bombing of Germany, and then subsequently some of those manufacturing
Speaker 1: facilities were located in regions that became East Germany and
Speaker 1: thus outside the administration of General Motors. But GM would
Speaker 1: rebuild OPAL and over time it returned to being an
Speaker 1: important component in GM's European strategy. But as I mentioned
Speaker 1: with Vauxhall, Opel would also ultimately change hands to the
Speaker 1: p s A Group in two thousands seventeen. And I'll
Speaker 1: save all the details for that other podcast sometime in
Speaker 1: the future. Let's get back to General Motors history. Alfred Sloan,
Speaker 1: while excellent at streamlining processes and increasing efficiency and lowering
Speaker 1: costs and maximizing profits, wasn't nearly so attentive towards the
Speaker 1: more people oriented parts of running a business. In fact,
Speaker 1: the outright opposed workers organizing and forming unions. He saw
Speaker 1: unions as kind of a hit on profits and that
Speaker 1: just didn't sit well with the extremely profit oriented capitalist.
Speaker 1: He also opposed movements like FDR's New Deal program, and
Speaker 1: he campaigned against it, at least by providing a significant
Speaker 1: amount of money to organizations that opposed the New Deal.
Speaker 1: And that's putting this in very mild terms. Some of
Speaker 1: the organizations that Sloan helped fund in some cases, uh,
Speaker 1: he even helped found a couple. Some of these were
Speaker 1: anti Roosevelt and embraced some truly despicable philosophies, all in
Speaker 1: an effort to undermine Roosevelt's authority and to try to
Speaker 1: defeat him in the nineteen six election. So we're talking
Speaker 1: about some organizations that championed racism, corded the ku Klux Klan,
Speaker 1: they had some really anti Semitic messaging and more like
Speaker 1: really awful stuff. Now, whether Sloan himself subscribed to these
Speaker 1: same philosophies or he just thought of them as means
Speaker 1: to an end is unclear to me. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: it really makes that much difference, because just supporting those
Speaker 1: kinds of organizations, particularly by providing significant funds, can lead
Speaker 1: to immeasurable harm. The group's failed in their main purpose
Speaker 1: because Roosevelt won re election in nineteen thirty six by
Speaker 1: a landslide BacT. Some historians suggest that it was in
Speaker 1: part thanks to groups like the American Liberty League, which
Speaker 1: was funded by elite members of American society, including Sloan.
Speaker 1: That was partly their impact that helped Roosevelt win. By
Speaker 1: standing in as a sort of you know, antagonist, Roosevelt
Speaker 1: could point at them and say, two citizens, this is
Speaker 1: what I'm fighting against. Are these elite, wealthy people who
Speaker 1: don't have the same problems that you have. In nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty six, the brand new United Automobile Workers Union played
Speaker 1: a major part in some historic workers strikes at several
Speaker 1: GM manufacturing facilities in the United States, many of which
Speaker 1: were in Flint, Michigan. In fact, the most famous of
Speaker 1: the strikes occurred in Flint. Now, just the organizing process alone,
Speaker 1: way before any strikes happened, just that was difficult. He
Speaker 1: was reportedly employing lots of folks to act as as
Speaker 1: essentially spies to find out what was going on. But
Speaker 1: ultimately the organizers were able to actually meet with enough
Speaker 1: workers to form an alliance and they carried out labor
Speaker 1: strikes in late nineteen thirty six that stretched into February
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty seven, and these were sit down strikes.
Speaker 1: So with to sit down strike employees occupied the manufacturing plans.
Speaker 1: They didn't pick it outside the facility. Instead, they essentially
Speaker 1: took control of the factories and kept management and thus
Speaker 1: strike breakers out of the buildings. It was kind of
Speaker 1: like being sieged by an army. The strikes were met
Speaker 1: with force from Flint police officers. At least initially, that
Speaker 1: was not a big surprise because General Motors was was
Speaker 1: in pretty deep with local politics in Flint, Michigan. But
Speaker 1: the strikers persevered and the governor of Michigan stepped in
Speaker 1: and mediated the dispute, and that ended with General Motors
Speaker 1: recognizing the U a W as the representative union for
Speaker 1: General Motors employees. In subsequent strikes, the union was able
Speaker 1: to negotiate better conditions for General Motors employees, including a
Speaker 1: wage hike, though the deal reached was below what the
Speaker 1: union originally was aiming for and Sloan must have hated
Speaker 1: every second of it. Sloan also became chairman of General
Speaker 1: Motors in nineteen thirty seven. He stayed on as CEO,
Speaker 1: but replacing him as president of the company was a
Speaker 1: man named William Knudsen, who was originally from Holland. As
Speaker 1: I recalled, Knudson was only president of GM for three years.
Speaker 1: He stepped down in nineteen forty. I'll talk about more
Speaker 1: of that in a second. He was replaced by Charles E. Wilson.
Speaker 1: And then there's the matter of World War Two, which
Speaker 1: gets super duper complicated. For one thing, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different accounts as to what was actually going
Speaker 1: on leading into World War Two regarding GMS various interests.
Speaker 1: Remember they owned Opal in Germany, and just for the
Speaker 1: sake of full disclosure, I don't really know where the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter actually rests. But one way to
Speaker 1: look at this is that General Motors would effectively manufacture
Speaker 1: material for both sides of World War Two, the Allies
Speaker 1: and the Access Powers. Though the company has repeatedly denied
Speaker 1: that it really had any say in the matter as
Speaker 1: far as the Access Powers are concerned, how true that
Speaker 1: is is a serious matter of debate. Based on what
Speaker 1: I've seen, it definitely appears as though Sloan was happy
Speaker 1: to profit off of GM's interests in Germany until it
Speaker 1: became politically impossible or at least impractical for the company
Speaker 1: to keep doing it. Here are some facts about the matter.
Speaker 1: Around ninety nine, General Motors senior executive James Mooney received
Speaker 1: a medal from the German government ak the Nazis for
Speaker 1: distinguished service to the Reich. That distinguished service was the
Speaker 1: production of stuff like military vehicles and engines for planes,
Speaker 1: many of which were being made in OPAL factories. While
Speaker 1: Sloan would write in his memoirs that GMS for stilities
Speaker 1: in Germany were nationalized, that is, the German government took
Speaker 1: over those facilities and General Motors leadership was removed. There's
Speaker 1: a distinct lack of paperwork that shows that this was
Speaker 1: in fact the case, and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: historians who argue that GM was much more involved, at
Speaker 1: least in a managerial capacity, Like they were aware of
Speaker 1: what was happening and we're still profiting from it to
Speaker 1: some extent, but they took great strides to hide their involvement.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the truth is I can tell
Speaker 1: you that there are people on both sides of the
Speaker 1: issue who argue passionately for their side. GM did build
Speaker 1: plants in Germany leading up to World War Two, but
Speaker 1: after the rise of Hitler, I mean that did happen.
Speaker 1: There was one that was built in Brandenburg that ended
Speaker 1: up producing trucks that were used by German forces in
Speaker 1: the invasions of both Poland and France. It leads some
Speaker 1: investigators to suggest that without General Motors businesses in Germany,
Speaker 1: Hitler would have been unable to carry out the rapid
Speaker 1: Blitz style warfare that gave him an early advantage in
Speaker 1: World War Two. GM did business in Germany rather than
Speaker 1: divest itself of its German interests, which really, when you
Speaker 1: get down to it, does mean the General Motors efforts
Speaker 1: helped Germany during those early days of World War Two.
Speaker 1: Now again, General Motors maintains that all executives stepped down
Speaker 1: once war broke out in nineteen thirty nine, but The
Speaker 1: Washington Post published a lengthy article in nineteen that disputes this,
Speaker 1: at least to a point. As late as nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: an American lawyer was overseeing General Motors interests in Germany,
Speaker 1: and the bad stuff doesn't stop there. The manufacturing facilities
Speaker 1: in Germany benefited from forced labor. If you listen to
Speaker 1: my episodes about Volkswagen, you heard me talk about the
Speaker 1: use of forced labor with that company, while the American
Speaker 1: owned companies in Germany, like Ford and GM subsidiaries, also
Speaker 1: made use of forced labor. Meanwhile, back in America, both
Speaker 1: GM and Ford initially resisted calls from the US government
Speaker 1: to produce war material for the Allied powers. GM told
Speaker 1: shareholders that its assembly lines weren't adaptable to manufacturing stuff
Speaker 1: like tanks and airplanes. Now, eventually the policies that these
Speaker 1: companies changed. Knudsen, for example, when he was president of GM,
Speaker 1: really wanted to support the American effort. They felt a
Speaker 1: great sense of duty to the country where he had
Speaker 1: found opportunity to succeed. So he defied Sloan's wishes and
Speaker 1: committed General Motors towards the war effort, and GM would
Speaker 1: end up producing tons of stuff for the American military.
Speaker 1: But looking back on the history, it's definitely a dark
Speaker 1: stain on corporate identity. Right. An American company that was
Speaker 1: making equipment for Nazis leading up to World War Two,
Speaker 1: and depending on some accounts, continuing to do so until
Speaker 1: at least nineteen forty one, when the United States entered
Speaker 1: the war. Was also the company that was resisting demands
Speaker 1: to do the same thing back home in the United States.
Speaker 1: As for Knudson, he left General Motors in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: to join the US government as chairman of the Office
Speaker 1: of Production Management. That job, by the way, paid one
Speaker 1: dollar per year, so you could literally see where his
Speaker 1: loyalties lie. By mid nineteen forty, General Motors was in
Speaker 1: full production mode, and by nineteen forty two all of
Speaker 1: the company's manufacturing facilities were geared towards producing for the
Speaker 1: war effort. They were no longer producing vehicles for civilians
Speaker 1: for the Allies. That is, that's what they were doing
Speaker 1: for the Allies. According to The Guardian, General Motors ultimately
Speaker 1: supplied around twelve billion dollars worth of materials for Allies,
Speaker 1: which included tanks, trucks and airplanes. On a side note,
Speaker 1: I just want to say it's very odd to do
Speaker 1: research about all this because when you look at like
Speaker 1: the first round of websites that give history about General Motors,
Speaker 1: most of them kind of skip over World War Two entirely,
Speaker 1: or maybe devote a sentence to what the company did.
Speaker 1: It's like they say nine GM becomes the number one
Speaker 1: automaker in the US, and then they jump to the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and say that General Motors thrives in a
Speaker 1: booming American economy. So I guess the complicated stuff in
Speaker 1: the middle is pretty hard to summarize while also remaining,
Speaker 1: you know, intellectually honest. And as I mentioned, I'm certain
Speaker 1: I don't have access to the full story, and it's
Speaker 1: impossible for me to judge how complicit General Motors may
Speaker 1: or may not have been regarding the rise of the
Speaker 1: Nazi powers in Germany. But it looks like they were
Speaker 1: at least somewhat complicit in the early days, which is heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy stuff. But that wraps up this chapter of General
Speaker 1: Motors history. I didn't plan on doing this many episodes
Speaker 1: about GM, but as I said, the company's history is
Speaker 1: really fascinating, not just from a technological standpoint, but also political, social,
Speaker 1: cultural standpoints and more. And many of the things we
Speaker 1: saw around this era of GM's history would end up
Speaker 1: shaping the automotive industry in the world in general. Forever.
Speaker 1: For example, one thing that happened under Sloan's leadership was
Speaker 1: the approach to restyling brands of cars every year. Because
Speaker 1: in the old old days, you know, companies would just
Speaker 1: design a car and stick with that design year after year,
Speaker 1: which was easy enough to do. Factories had been optimized
Speaker 1: to mass produce a specific style of vehicle. That's why
Speaker 1: Ford made the Model T for nearly two decades. But
Speaker 1: under Sloan's leadership, General Motors began to not just offer
Speaker 1: different makes of cars for different types of customers, they
Speaker 1: also changed the styling of each line of cars year
Speaker 1: after year. This created another way to attract customers. New
Speaker 1: cars looked new, not just because they were shiny and clean,
Speaker 1: but because the style of the car was different from
Speaker 1: the cars that had come out the year before. And
Speaker 1: now this is standard in the automotive world. We take
Speaker 1: it for granted. Every year we get treated to the
Speaker 1: next year's models. I'll keep going down the path of
Speaker 1: General Motors history in our next full episode. My plan
Speaker 1: is really sincerely to close it out at that point,
Speaker 1: to make Part three the end of General Motors story
Speaker 1: so far. But there are a lot of big things
Speaker 1: we'll need to talk about from controversial decisions to bankruptcy
Speaker 1: to bail out and beyond, but we're gonna save that
Speaker 1: for the next time. In the meantime, if you have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. Maybe there's another big company you would
Speaker 1: like to know the history about and how they became influential,
Speaker 1: Or maybe there's just a technology you've always wanted to know.
Speaker 1: How does this work? And does it mean let me no?
Speaker 1: Reach out to me on Twitter. The handle is text
Speaker 1: stuff h s W and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Yeah. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.