How A Carriage Salesman Accidentally Built America's Largest Automaker

Billy Durant spent $2,000 to incorporate General Motors in 1908. Within two years, the bankers who rescued the company from his over-leveraged acquisitions had marched him out the door. He was already building the replacement. At 70 something, broke, Durant was still planning to open 30 bowling alleys, the same number of companies he had once folded into General Motors. The gift never changed. It just ran out of room. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Man Behind the Bowling Alley Counter 1:24 The Carriage Salesman From Flint 3:48 The Man Who Hated Cars 4:39 Buick and the Plan Taking Shape 5:08 September 16, 1908: General Motors Incorporated 5:53 The Buying Never Stopped 7:00 1910: The Bankers Move In 8:01 What Pushing Durant Out Actually Did 8:56 Building Chevrolet as a Weapon 9:29 The Coldest Move in Early American Business 10:11 Back in the Boardroom by 1916 10:47 The Wrong Lesson 11:19 1920: The Post-War Collapse 11:42 $90 Million Against a Market 12:14 Gone for Good 12:56 Durant Motors and the Slow Fade 13:18 What Actually Took It From Him 13:56 Alfred Sloan and What the Company Actually Needed 15:06 The Pension Sloan Arranged 15:30 Back in Flint: The Bowling Alley 16:53 The Gift That Never Changed