#265: Liberty Ships –
Snippet Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [Seaside Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple. And Stephen just told me we’re going to talk about Henry Kaiser. Stephen Semple: Yes, sir. Dave Young: And that’s not … I’m thinking of the German leader in World War I. Stephen Semple: Not Wilhelm. Dave Young: That was Wilhelm Kaiser. Stephen Semple: Yes. Dave Young: Must be one of his great nephews or something. Stephen Semple: Maybe. Dave Young: Who knows? Stephen Semple: Who knows? Maybe. That’s always a possibility. I did not look into that to see where his background was from. Didn’t do a 23orMe test or anything like that. Dave Young: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s hear about him. Stephen Semple: So when I came across this, I came across this story. I sort of enjoy a bunch of World War II history and things like that. I came across this story as part of World War II history. But to me, it was really interesting and I think there was a lesson to be learned there, especially when we consider a little bit of Henry Kaiser’s background. So let’s talk about that a little bit. He was born in 1882 and he was a massively influential entrepreneur in American history. He started with almost nothing, never went to college, and he became famous for building massive infrastructure projects. So for example, some of the projects he did, his companies helped build the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, major highways, bridges, things along that lines. Here’s where things get interesting. When the United States entered World War II, Germany was not concerned about the United States entry into the war. Even though the United States had all sorts of production capabilities, all sorts of people, all sorts of food, the analysis at the time, which turned out to be true, the analysis at the time was the speed at which the United States could manufacture cargo ships was slower than the speed at which they could be sunk by German U-boats. Dave Young: Okay, that’s interesting math. Stephen Semple: So when the United States entered the war, basically Germany was like, “The United States is an island onto itself because we can sink these ships as fast as they can build them. And so yes, some stuff will make it over, but it’s not going to be this huge buildup.” And their analysis showed even the build more shipyards, and it took nine years or something like that for somebody to become skilled at shipbuilding, it was going to take a long time for that to ramp up. All right? Dave Young: All right. Yeah. Stephen […]
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