What did Will Durant, the founder of General Motors do when his bankers took his company away from him?

Only a fool takes a venture away from its founding entrepreneur. It’s something like taking a baby away from its mother.

William Crapo Durant put together General Motors by talking a series of hard-headed automotive entrepreneurs into trading his essentially worthless stock for his company. He was terrific in selling dreams but a disaster as a manager.

Will DUrant

So, what did Will Durant do when his bankers took his company when it ran out of money?

He found a young automotive entrepreneur and backed him into building a very successful company that competed directly with Ford. It was so successful that Durant was able to take the company public and pump its stock price up to the point where he could buy slightly more than half of the outstanding stock of General Motors.

Then he threw the bankers out.

By the way, the name of the automotive entrepreneur he backed was Gaston Chevrolet.

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