economy
April 12, 2026
Fiat vs Rimac and How AI Grew a Tomato
What really makes successful companies successful? A few days ago was Apple's 50th birthday (one of my all-time favorite companies) and Tony Fadell shared a picture of himself and the iPod team – Jobs, Ive, Schiller, and Rubinstein. That's the kind of picture that makes a young founder pause, tremble, and wish they could be a fly on the wall in such a room.
TL;DR
- Serbia's deal with Fiat is estimated to have cost taxpayers between 850 million and 1.25 billion euros over 16 years.
- In return for massive state subsidies and concessions, Fiat created 2,800 jobs with low salaries, leading to a need to import foreign labor.
- Mate Rimac's company, in contrast, has created over 2,500 jobs across five countries with competitive salaries, significant revenue, and exports technology to major automakers, costing Croatian taxpayers a fraction of Fiat's cost.
- Henry Ford's strategy of significantly increasing worker wages in 1914 led to increased productivity and sales, a lesson the author argues Fiat ignored.
- Serbia's secret state aid package for Fiat violates EU competition rules and is a major obstacle to its EU accession.
- The author questions Fiat's management decisions, contrasting their capital destruction with the efficiency and innovation seen in companies like Rimac and even a hypothetical AI manager.