Dragos Maciuca on transforming Ford: middle managers near retirement resist change, but the C-suite backs startup-style innovation. Safety-critical systems need exhaustive testing; software areas like infotainment can iterate fast. He personally recruited startups at first, now they approach Ford directly, creating a new filtering problem.
Questions this video answers
Initially, Maciuca spent the first year actively reaching out to startups using his network to educate them about automotive opportunities. After establishing the program, startups and venture capital firms now approach Ford, leading to an influx of inbound interest that now requires filtering.
Chapters
At this point?
Yeah.
So I would say from the very top, so to be brutally honest, the very top, the C-level suite and one level below that, we get tremendous support. And I think what they've— the fact that they want to expand it in such a short time, it's proof that we are pleasing them and that we're doing the right thing. So it's not just It's not just talk. We literally feel the support. And I think we're doing what they want. And honestly, part of what they want us to do is— they made it very clear— make us feel uncomfortable. So we're not just— we're trying to change the whole culture. So it's not always an easy relationship. I mean, a lot of times it's confrontational. A lot of times there are very frank discussions. But even after those discussions, they still like the changes that we want to see happen. So we have the top layer we're good with. The bottom layer, you have young energetic people that love it, they get it, they are technologists, they absolutely love to work with us, they— it's fantastic. The real problem, and everybody knows it, everybody admits it, is that middle layer of management that's horrible to penetrate, they want things to stay the way they've been for 25, 30 years, they are 5 years from retirement, they don't want to mess things up. They are seeing change coming and they get scared. I mean, imagine that you are an expert in tuning an engine and you see the writing on the wall that electric cars are coming and what the skills that we really need is battery experts, is not someone who understands fuel economy. You feel threatened, right? So it's somehow is— to some extent it's natural. But even within that, we're finding pockets of people who get it, they want to work with us, but it's— no, I mean, it's definitely going to be a challenging, I think, 5 years until we really are established and we stand on our own 2 feet and We're not special just because we're new. We're special because we bring in this awesome technology.
Changing dynamics.
Yeah, it's going to be tough. No, absolutely. But as I said, they made it very clear that if we don't make them feel uncomfortable, we're not doing our job. So we've been making them very uncomfortable.
I hear you very clear and loud with your Michigan and over here, because Silicon Valley, that's what it's known for— fail fast, succeed fast, and go with the 200 miles an hour speed.
Yeah.
While Michigan is, of course, conservative, go do the right thing.
Right. And, you know, just to give them some excuses, one, it's not Just mentioning, like, when I was at BMW, I had the exact same frustrations. And I thought it was a German-American thing. It's not. It's Silicon Valley versus a traditional company.
Yeah.
2, there are areas where really they do need to be slow and very decisive on how they make the decisions. Again, going back to safety, to engines, transmissions. wheels, things that can kill people, things that can get you in trouble either with the government or just ethically. So, and in those cases you don't have time to do a minimum viable product. We already did an MVP and that was the Model T.
Mm-hmm.
We're at the point where people expect to get in the car on day one, start it and it starts. They expect the brakes to work. Those things you have to figure out every single corner case, every single T has to be crossed and I dotted. The problem is that then you take that mentality to things that you can move fast and you can release them with some bugs and that's where you need to change the dynamics because the concept of releasing an infotainment system that's not fully vetted, it's foreign to them. But if you have over-the-air updates and you've tested it, let's say you feel 95% confident, It's that last 5% that costs you double, and it's probably the last 1% that costs you quadruple. So it's okay to release it with some bugs. And if you— I've said those words in Michigan, and you should have seen their faces. I mean, they cringed. They didn't want to hear it. But if you have over-the-air updates, and it's something that's not safety critical, you can now release things a lot quicker. And if you find a bug, you just release another update. That's fine. But yeah, that— it's going to be hard to change that. I was told I have only about 2 minutes left.
Quick question. So in the context of working with startups, probably a very simple question, how much is it that is Ford reaching out to startups and how much is it startups reaching out to Ford with the technologies?
So honestly, the first year I spent it mostly me reaching out using my network, Expanding it, letting people know why we're here, what we want, what is automotive, 'cause that's the other thing. Most people think, again, automotive industry, they think mechanical engineering, bending metal. It's becoming a lot broader than that. So it's materials, it's software, it's sensors, it's a lot of things. So it was basically me reaching out to them and bringing them in. Now I think we primed the pump enough where they're reaching to us. VCs are starting to understand what we need. They're carving parts of their portfolio and once a quarter or so I pretty much have a review with most of them going through their portfolio figuring out what companies they have. So it's becoming almost overwhelming the other way where now I'm going to need help to filter through all the companies that come to us. Whereas in the beginning it was me reaching out and convincing them to come talk to us.
So the research— there's a platform for startups to How do you reach out to folks? Or is it just a coincidence that—
Well, I mean, yeah, you can just— we have a website and you can reach through that. But a lot of it— don't underestimate the value of the network in the Valley, because a lot of really cool companies that I found were by chance. But that's the thing, is people go like, well, can we make it systematic instead of luck? It's like, well, not really. And the luck, you sort of form your own luck by going to events like this, by networking, by making sure you interact with the right people. You create the necessary environment for these chance encounters to happen. And the more you create those chance encounters to happen, the more of them will happen. So it's almost like you're creating luck rather than thinking that it's just, you know, Great. Thank you.
