I met John Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, the week he got his first funding check (October, ‘07). He was just ahead of me at HBS. We met when Prof. Lakhani picked 4-5 of his students to meet Doc Searls, one of the foremost experts on open source software. I enjoyed Searls’ talk, but it looks like it had more of an impact on John.
I remember that night that John was absolutely positive that he was about to build a big, American car company from out of nothing, and the way he described it, it sounded totally realistic.
I’ve seen him in the press a few times since then, and every time his name pops up, he’s made more and more amazing progress, and he gets even better and better at public speaking.
If you have 9 minutes, watch this talk, and know that this isn’t hypothetical. He’s really building real cars, and selling them, and his company’s growing like a weed.
