He's definitely narcissistic. But that doesn't make him wrong. It suited the Japanese board very well to paint him as corrupt and get rid of him. Nissan's performance after that took a decidedly downward trajectory. Which is why the merger with Honda became a kind of hail-Mary strategy recently.
There was an interesting interview with him where he commented on the, then, still active negotiations about a possible merge of Nissan and Honda.
Very interesting to listen to. He identified that there was essentially no synergy between the two and that a merger doesn't really make sense for either company. They don't really complement each other. After the merger, you'd merely have two of each in a gigantic company that isn't performing great. Similar cars, going after similar buyer segments, competing EV strategies and related investments, etc. Except Honda is a bit better than Nissan. So, they'd be ending up inheriting a lot of problems whereas Nissan wouldn't really gain anything they don't already have.
The core issue is that Nissan in particular needs to adjust course and is not willing to do that. That's also the reason this deal is collapsing: Honda doesn't want to make Nissan their problem and Nissan is rejecting the notion that they need to change.
> He's definitely narcissistic. But that doesn't make him wrong.
If you’re right about narcissism, one of the issues there is an inability to realize that he can be wrong. “Maybe I’m wrong about this” literally cannot occur to the narcissist, their entire worldview is built around their being right and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong (and therefore an enemy).
There was an interesting interview with him where he commented on the, then, still active negotiations about a possible merge of Nissan and Honda.
Very interesting to listen to. He identified that there was essentially no synergy between the two and that a merger doesn't really make sense for either company. They don't really complement each other. After the merger, you'd merely have two of each in a gigantic company that isn't performing great. Similar cars, going after similar buyer segments, competing EV strategies and related investments, etc. Except Honda is a bit better than Nissan. So, they'd be ending up inheriting a lot of problems whereas Nissan wouldn't really gain anything they don't already have.
The core issue is that Nissan in particular needs to adjust course and is not willing to do that. That's also the reason this deal is collapsing: Honda doesn't want to make Nissan their problem and Nissan is rejecting the notion that they need to change.
Ghosn's analysis was pretty sharp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljewn28Korw