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Many people don’t know that Bostonian William Crapo (Billy) Durant founded General Motors, and if you ever go to the old General Motors Building in Detroit, you will see his initials emblazoned on the coat of arms in the eaves of the building. Durant was the visionary who crashed together the Buick, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, and Cadillac companies, just to name a few. Due to his financial aggressiveness he controlled but then lost GM twice and it was finally taken over by Alfred Sloan, who built it into the world’s most successful enterprise of its day.