ENLIGHTENED SELF-INTEREST
The following excerpt is taken from Lee Iacocca’s autobiography, Iacocca, pgs. 314-315: Shortly after I joined Chrysler, I flew over to Japan for a series of meetings with the top people at Mitsubishi Motors. Back in 1971, Chrysler had purchased 15 percent of Mitsubishi and arranged to import some of their excellent small cars under the Dodge and Chrysler names. We’ve been partners ever since. The talks were held in the shrine city of Kyoto. During one of the breaks, I went out for a walk with Dr. Tomio Kubo, the dynamic chairman of Mitsubishi. As we strolled through the private shrines and temple gardens of the city, I asked my new friend why his company had built its great engine plant in this peaceful and rural environment. Kubo laughed and replied: “Actually, our Kyoto factory started out as Japan’s major aircraft plant. This is where we built our bombers during the war.” “But why here,” I asked, “in the middle of…
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