Daily Inspiration Quote by Ferdinand Piech

"If you fire people, you fire customers" is corporate arithmetic delivered like a threat: reduce headcount and you’re not just cutting cost, you’re amputating demand. Piech isn’t talking about feelings or workplace morale. He’s talking about a system where employees are also a company’s first market, its loudest ambassadors, and often its most credible sales force. The line works because it collapses the tidy separation executives like to maintain between “internal” labor decisions and “external” consumer outcomes. Layoffs are framed as spreadsheet hygiene; Piech reframes them as brand vandalism.

The subtext is classically European industrial: the factory, the engineering office, the dealer network all form a social ecosystem. Fire a few thousand, and you don’t just lose output. You lose the neighborhood purchasing power that keeps dealerships busy, the pride that keeps workers defending quality, the informal problem-solving that prevents defects, delays, and reputational hits. Customers sense when a company is in slash-and-burn mode; products get timid, service gets thinner, and trust leaks out.

Context matters: Piech came from the world of automobiles, where “design” isn’t aesthetics alone but integration - supply chains, craftsmanship, after-sales service, and the myth of durability. In that arena, layoffs can signal desperation, and desperation is contagious. The quote’s intent is a warning to leaders who treat labor as a variable cost: you can optimize a firm right out of its customer base.