00:00here they met with representatives from the ford motor company who immediately placed an order for thirty thousand tires and since then the michelin brothers had become the sole supplier of tires for the ford motor company it seemed like they had made it
00:14but just a few months later andre fell seriously ill and passed away leaving the entire company in the hands of edward not only did he have to take over his brother's role but now he also had to find a way to replace the massive revenue stream they received from ford with no clear path forward he began cutting costs wherever he could eventually laying off thousands of employees in fact he would cut the work force so aggressively that only two hundred employees remained by nineteen o eight
00:44at the same time several of their competitors began producing synthetic rubber which was cheaper and higher quality than natural rubber and so with the company in shambles edouard decided to close down their factory and retire he had given up on the tire business but surprisingly right when it seemed like everything was going wrong
01:02michelin got a call from a mysterious figure named pierre samuel pierre samuel was an executive at a large holding company called pinot et pinot who specialized in buying struggling businesses and turning them around
01:16he told edouard that if he wanted to sell the michelin company he would personally buy the company and revive it so edward agreed to the deal and pierre samuel wasted no time getting started he immediately hired back all the employees that edward had let go and began investing heavily in research and development
01:35within a few years he had successfully expanded the company into several different sectors including hotels banks and insurance companies by nineteen fourteen the company had gone public on the stock market and was known as michelin et
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