There's a moment where a company stops being a company.
It becomes something people recognize without thinking about it. Something they trust without questioning it. Something they feel like they have a stake in.
Ford Motor Company is one of those companies.
It never just made products.
It shaped what movement means.
What freedom means.
What America feels like.
And for over a hundred and twenty two years, that meaning has been built slowly. Lug nut by lug nut. Mile by mile.
Without most people ever noticing how it happened.
Something People Feel.
Ford isn't just an American company. It's something people project meaning onto. And something that, over time, has helped shape it.
Now someone has to step inside that.
Todd Simmons.
In a role that didn't exist before last year.
Before that, he spent years leading design at IBM. He's used to systems. Structure. Things that make sense.
Now he's inside something people feel.
You're not designing something new. You're stepping into something people already feel like they own.
That's the job.
Leland Maschmeyer asks him what it actually feels like to step into Ford.
"I've been asked a lot, so how's it going so far… I would say it's totally different and exactly the same as my last experience."
"Ford is almost exactly half the age of America… where did the expression 'made in America' come from, if not from Ford? But at the same time, Fords have made America."
There's something circular in that.
A company shaped by the country. A country shaped by the company.
And then he gets to the answer.
He doesn't talk about design. He talks about a drive.
The Drive.
"I got a clear answer yesterday. So I was in Aspen yesterday morning and I drove the 3 hours on I-70 East, through Glenwood Canyon, to get to Denver, to fly to Austin. And every answer to that question was on that drive."
"Every answer about what Ford means to America… driving the 10 miles, I guess, through Glenwood Canyon… was a stretch of roadwork that was an architectural gem… that didn't exist before Ford came along."
This is what he pays attention to.
"But as I was driving, I was like, I've always been obsessed with this. I'm a systems designer, and there is no greater design artifact existing in the world, to me, than the U.S. highway system. It is incredible."
"I love every touch point. I love the construction barriers. I love that orange of that cone. I love the earth-moving equipment it takes to make a road. I love the survey teams and exactly the curve that it's safe to take in a drive. And so I was kind of equating that to kind of what my job is like right now. Design is like an engine. Thousands of moving parts. Everything has a job in the system. But the goal is just to drive straight down the road."
That's how Todd sees it. The product is part of it. The system makes it work. To make something that works so well it feels like it was always there.
Design is like an engine. Thousands of moving parts. Everything has a job in the system. But the goal is just to drive straight down the road.
No More Boring Products.
But the system isn't static. It's being pushed.
"You know, a CEO that's just like no more boring products. Period. You will not find a Ford sedan in the product lineup right now…"
Everything now has to fit somewhere specific.
Thrill.
Build.
Adventure.
And the way the company learns is just as physical.
"Racing… I've come to learn at Ford is literally R&D… we learn everything from racing and bring it back to our consumer products."
The system feeds itself.
Which makes the scale hard to ignore.
The F-150 isn't just a truck.
If it stood on its own, it would be one of the biggest businesses in the country.
And people don't just drive it. They build their lives around it.
So you're not just changing something. You're stepping into something that already means a lot to people. And trying to evolve it without losing what made it matter in the first place.
And that's where it gets complicated.
Because systems like this don't move easily.
"If you're a company that's responsible for creating what we know now as an assembly line… it can make you a little rigid about the process."
Everything has a way it's supposed to happen.
"There's an absolute process to it."
You can change things. But not everything.
"You can, as a designer, go in and just fix it… but if you do that a thousand times, you'll never get to the things that really matter."
So you choose.
"It's like a brown bear and the salmon are spawning… you only need like four… thousands are going by… you can't eat all the salmon."
Earn the Right to Change It.
Which is where restraint shows up. Not as a limitation. As a system.
"You don't get credit for being creative if you don't have consistency… what most big organizations want is consistency. And that equals efficiency."
I think of efficiency as a way to redistribute creative energy… decide what about a brand is going to be fixed and familiar… 80% consistent, 20% creative… now you have a lot of rope you can play with.
Because nothing in a system like this exists on its own.
And the job isn't to redesign it.
It's to understand how it works.
And earn the right to change it.
Most people skip that part.
