Piech looks back: Former VW CEO's autobiography contains some surprises, but no blockbusters
By WIM OUDE WEERNINK
Automotive News Europe
Former Volkswagen CEO Ferdinand Piech has packed several surprises into his long-awaited biography. Piech, who retired this year, offers glimpses into career paths not taken, revealing that he once envisioned life in Japan as a Honda engineer.
phie, published in German this month, was ghost-written by Austrian journalist Herbert Volker. In keeping with Piech's strong passion for leichtbau - lightweight construction - it is a book of relatively few words: pages, plus 90 photographs. An English translation is being considered.
In it, Piech refrains from detailed dialogues and makes no direct accusations. He also downplays his position as a member of the Porsche-Piech family dynasty.
"Of course I am proud of my grandfather (Ferdinand Porsche). But I never felt it my mission to uphold his greatness, nor could I do anything about media suggestions that I suffered from an inferiority complex," he writes.
Piech joined Porsche in He was named head of r&d in and technical director in , and was the father of the Porsche rac
Ferdinand Piech: A short history of the man who transformed Volkswagen
According to Bild and Handelsblatt, Piech and his wife were dining at a restaurant in Bavaria when he collapsed. He was rushed to hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Piech is survived by his 12 children, whom he had with four different women.
Born on April 17, in Vienna, Piech's father Anton was a lawyer. His mother, Louise, was the daughter of Ferdinand Porsche, founder of the sports car maker and designer of the original Volkswagen Beetle.
Porsche
After obtaining his engineering degree from the University of Zurich, Piech joined Porsche in There he ordered the wet-sump flat-six engine being developed for the yet-to-released — later rechristened the — to be redesigned as a dry-sump motor so it could be used for racing.
In his autobiography Piech stated:
“First and foremost I always saw myself as a product person, and relied on gut instinct for market demand. Business and politics never distracted me from the core of our mission: to develop and make attractive cars."
Using his gut instinct, Piech successfully convinced the company to spend two-thirds of its budget
Hinweis: Bis zum Zeitpunkt von Ferdinand Piëchs Tod hatte der VW-Patriarch selbst stets von zwölf eigenen Kindern gesprochen - der Artikel gibt diesen Kenntnisstand wieder. Mittlerweile hat seine frühere Lebensgefährtin Marlene Porsche das Geheimnis zum Kind gelüftet.
"Etwa ein Dutzend. So genau weiß man das nicht." Zu Lebzeiten hatte sich Ferdinand Piëch selbst über die Zahl seiner Kinder lustig gemacht. Da passt es ins Bild, dass Piëchs Witwe Ursula in ihrer Erklärung zum Tod des Automanagers von dreizehn Kindern spricht - bislang war man, auch nach einer eidesstattlichen Versicherung Piëchs in einem Prozess, stets von zwölf Sprösslingen ausgegangen.
Zwei Ehen, zwei "Connections" (Piëch über Piëch), zwölf zwischen und geborene Nachkommen, dazu reichlich Neffen, Nichten und Enkel - so hatten Medien bislang den Stammbaum des VW-Patriarchen gezeichnet. Fünf Kinder hat der Patriarch mit seiner ersten Frau Corina von Planta, zwei mit Marlene Porsche, zwei, die "einer anderen Connection entstammen" und drei mit seiner letzten Frau Ursula, die einst als Gouvernante für die Familie arbeitete.
Bei Volkswagen und Porsche, wo der Clan traditionell Schlüsselstellen besetz
Ferdinand Karl Piëch: A Psychobiography of a Ruthless Manager and Ingenious Engineer
Introduction
The so-called dark side of personalities have gained interest in interdisciplinary research during the past decades (Paulhus and Williams, ; Kaufman, ; Czarna and Zajas, ). The idea of the dark personality was initially proposed by Paulhus and Williams (). They highlighted the dark triad of personalities, consisting of narcissism (entitled self-importance), Machiavellianism (strategic exploitation and deceit) and psychopathy (callousness and cynicism). Since then, several studies have linked negative personality traits to both positive and negative psychosocial outcomes (e.g., Kaiser et al., ). As a result, the focus of the dark sides of the personality are no longer merely directed at criminals and psychopaths as this dark triad can, to a certain degree, be found in each and every individual (Paulhus and Williams, ).
During the past two decades research has explored different aspects of dark personality traits (Paulhus and Williams, ; Kaufman, ; Czarna and Zajas, ). Most of this research contributes to a more in-depth exploration of the dark patterns of thoughts, emotions an
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