Ford CEO’s podcast lands some high-profile guests
DETROIT – Ford CEO Jim Farley is bringing back his “Drive” podcast for a new season.
Farley has a fresh lineup of weekly guests, starting with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN correspondent and son of the first female engineer at Ford Motor Company. The first episode, which debuts Wednesday, will be available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube. Upcoming guests include singer Kelly Clarkson and late-night host Jimmy Fallon.
The full lineup has not been released because Farley is still taping, Ford told the Detroit Free Press.
When Spotify first approached Ford in 2021 about the idea of launching a series with a business leader, Farley didn’t like the idea. He said he didn’t want to be that boring business leader guy.
So he took a whole different approach, talking about life and car memories rather than business tips.
The pilot project, recorded between the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022, aired exclusively on Spotify. Season 1 routinely ranked in Spotify’s Top 50 Business podcasts, reaching as high as the Top 10 out of 996 shows, Ford spokesman Dan Barbossa told the Free Press. That was part of the inspiration for Farley continuing the project, because it’s finding an audience, Barbossa said.
The Top 3 most listened to episodes (in order) featured football legend Tom Brady, actor Dax Shepard and lateshow host Jimmy Kimmel.
“Cars say a lot about who we are,” Farley said in his Season 2 teaser. “They kind of represent what you stand for, whether you’re explicit about it or whether it’s a bit of a secret. This season on ‘Drive,’ I’m going to talk to all sorts of different people.”
Nothing about the project is scripted.
On weekends and during his off hours, Farley has taped the podcast from a conference room in Dearborn, Michigan, at Ford World Headquarters, working with a production crew to record the series of interviews. Farley is not getting paid by Spotify and his guests aren’t compensated either, Barbossa said. Farley has said he does the show to learn more about successful people and what drives their passions. The show includes no paid advertisements.
When Farley talked to Gupta about what it was like growing up in Michigan, he tells how his parents met after his mother’s car broke down.
“My friends would go to my parents for dating advice when I was growing up,” Gupta said in the podcast. “When you have a mom like my mom, there’s nothing that you don’t potentially strive for, I guess. It doesn’t mean you get everything. Don’t get me wrong. But why wouldn’t you do that? Try that. Yeah, just go for it. Why not? You know, that was always her sort of approach. And so the brakes were off ...”
When Farley talked to Clarkson, she talks about struggling to buy her first car and why it was important.
“You know, my first car I ever bought for myself was a Ford Explorer Sport. And I felt like, I mean, it was way too much for me to be buying. It’s my first car, but I did it all by myself. And, um, I had like three jobs,” she said. “It ... just represented freedom and opportunity.”