Bill Ford and the Fortune 500 connect with entrepreneurs

• GM's new CEO Whitacre: Uncompromising

  "When Ed Whitacre decides, it's not negotiable. If he decides against you, you're done."

  --Coca-Cola (KO) exec Wendy Clark, about General Motors' (GM) new CEO, whom she worked for when he headed AT&T (ATT). Today, the GM board ousted CEO Fritz Henderson, who was in the post just eight months, and installed Whitacre, GM's chairman, as the new chief executive.

  No doubt, Whitacre had a key role in the power shift.

  And hearing MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Dec 1, 2009 6:11 PM ET
  Posted in: AT&T, auto industry, CEOs, Coca-Cola, Ed Whitacre, General Motors, GM, Postcards, Power Shift, Wendy Clark

• Power Point: See opportunity, not fear

  "The future of transportation will be a blend of things like Zipcar, public transportation, and private car ownership. Not only do I not fear that, but I think it's a great opportunity for us to participate in the changing nature of car ownership."

  -- Bill Ford, Ford's (F) executive chairman, in the "The Best New Idea in Business," Fortune's cover story about Zipcar. Writer Paul Keegan tells how the nine-year-old car-sharing service MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Aug 31, 2009 6:37 PM ET
  Posted in: auto industry, Ford, Postcards, Power Point, zipcar

• The new boss at Old GM

  by Patricia Sellers

  You might call Al Koch the world's biggest trash collector. As bankrupt General Motors (GM) splits into two parts -- New GM, containing Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC, and Old GM, containing designated bad assets such as Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, Saab -- Koch is the hired gun who's supposed to create value from that latter lot.

  Bringing "New GM" out of bankruptcy will be difficult enough. Why would anyone MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Jun 1, 2009 2:41 PM ET
  Posted in: AlixPartners, auto industry, Brands, CEOs, consumer goods, economy, Eddie Lampert, General Motors, GM, investing, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Postcards, Power Shift, retail, Sears

• Saving sick companies

  "How to find a job." That's the cover story in the new Fortune, out this week.

  Here's one place to find a job: Workout firms that help companies in trouble. Fred Crawford, the CEO of AlixPartners, came by Fortune's offices late last week and talked about his buoyant business. "We have 850 people, and we've been growing 20% to 30% a year for the past decade. We think that's sustainable."

  The elite MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 31, 2009 2:55 PM ET
  Posted in: AlixPartners, auto industry, banks, CEOs, consumer goods, economy, finance, Fred Crawford, investing, management, Postcards, retail, Wall Street

• Power Point: Let's ride!

  We love this ad:

  "You can file our obituary where the sun don't shine. It's times like these that raise the important questions. Do you cower, or do you live free. Do you succumb to fear and doubt, or do you seize the throttle and give it a fearless twist forward. From where we sit in the saddle, we see American companies and good old American ingenuity wrenching the life back MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Mar 30, 2009 6:46 PM ET
  Posted in: auto industry, economy, General Motors, GM, Harley-Davidson, HOG, Postcards, Power Point, Rick Wagoner

• We will survive!

  Barack Obama's hair is turning gray. The New York Times reported the other day that a President typically ages two years for every year in the job. Thank goodness our new President is only 47 years old. The way things are going right now, I suspect he'll age twice as fast as other Presidents.

  We learned this week that things are worse than we thought. General Electric (GE) CEO Jeff Immelt, MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 6, 2009 1:02 PM ET
  Posted in: Andy Serwer, auto industry, banks, CEOs, Citigroup, economy, FORTUNE MPWomen, GE, General Electric, General Motors, Jeff Immelt, Obama, Postcards, Power Shift, stock market, unemployment, Vikram Pandit, Wall Street, Washington

• This week: California on the edge

  I was in California this past week and I'm happy to report that the Golden State did not fall into the Pacific Ocean.

  It seemed it might, as inches of rain drenched Silicon Valley and the state government fought off insolvency. What a disaster California is right now, even after the legislature yesterday approved a plan to close a $42 billion budget deficit and end the "fiscal emergency" that the action-hero MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Feb 20, 2009 1:51 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Arnold Schwarzenegger, auto industry, banks, California, CEOs, Cisco, Citigroup, Doris Drucker, economy, Facebook, finance, General Motors, Geoff Colvin, Hewlett-Packard, management, MBA, Oracle, Peter Drucker, politics, Postcards, Silicon Valley, technology, unemployment, Washington

• A vacation you can't refuse

  By Jessica Shambora

  It's Christmas week, always a quiet time at workplaces across the country. But this holiday is anything but typical. The quiet will stretch way beyond Christmas at many offices and factories this year.

  No surprise, the Big Three automakers are temporarily shutting North American plants, in numbers correlating to their varying degrees of peril. Chrysler closed all 30 of its plants for a month. General Motors (GM) followed suit MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Dec 22, 2008 3:27 PM ET
  Posted in: auto industry, autos, break, Christmas, Chrysler, Cisco, Dell, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, holiday, management, Nokia, Postcards, shutdown, Silicon Valley, time off, Toyota, vacation, Whirlpool

• Power Point: Sacrifice and hang on

  "You think I would have gone through what I did the last two months if I didn't want to stay?"

  -- General Motors (GM) chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, reiterating today that he's determined to keep his job. In exchange for a $13.4 billion rescue package (which will come from the government's $700 bllion TARP fund aimed at banks and Wall Street firms), executives at GM and Chrysler agreed to limits MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Dec 19, 2008 6:39 PM ET
  Posted in: auto industry, autos, bailout, Chrysler, F, Ford, General Motors, GM, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Postcards, Power Point, Rick Wagoner, Washington