[HN Gopher] How Boeing Lost Its Way [video]
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How Boeing Lost Its Way [video]
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 56 points
Date : 2024-02-11 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| prithvi24 wrote:
| Wendover productions is always super insightful. thanks for
| sharing. Here is the YouTube link
| https://youtu.be/URoVKPVDKPU?si=HvieKCDqozaen-et
| waveBidder wrote:
| it's interesting seeing them partner with more traditional
| journalists for this one; kind of excited for them to move into
| deep dive news.
| dang wrote:
| Thanks - we changed the URL to that from
| https://nebula.tv/videos/wendover-how-boeing-lost-its-way.
| dylan604 wrote:
| why? what's the difference where the video plays from? why
| are you gung ho about promoting YT and all of the baggage
| that comes from its platform?
| dang wrote:
| Because when I look at the other URL, I see a popup saying
| to "sign up or sign in".
|
| The idea here is to have content that people can actually
| read or watch. We're not promoting anything beyond that.
| eastbound wrote:
| It describes how it used providers instead of internalization to
| push down on the prices.
|
| However, to anyone who might expect it, it doesn't tell that
| Boeing has fired 900 QAs out of 3000 back in 2021.
|
| This documentary is not as damning as Al Jezeera's documentary on
| the 2013 airframe mishaps: https://youtu.be/rvkEpstd9os
|
| Maybe it's a European bias, but I'd like to see more shame (and
| jail time) upon the Boeing management, down to the guy at the
| bottom who signed off the bolt work without even looking at the
| plane, which is criminal. But I'm fair, I'd also enjoy the
| management of Volkswagen going to jail, like that manager who
| went to holidays through a USA connection and was intercepted by
| the US border and is still rotting in jail.
| aktuel wrote:
| No one would have been jailed if VW were a US company.
| RajT88 wrote:
| A joke I heard somewhere:
|
| I will believe corporations are people when Texas puts one to
| death.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| New York may be about to...
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Boeing is one of the crown jewel flag carrying brands of US
| superiority, a major jobs provider across several states, and a
| huge defense supplier, nobody from Boeing is ever going to
| jail.
|
| Deals will be done behind closed doors on how to sort things
| out quietly and the show will go on.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _Boeing is one of the crown jewel brands of US superiority,
| and a huge defense supplier_
|
| It is precisely for that reason that people should be going
| to prison for fucking with it. Sending Boeing people to
| prison for fraud would protect the strategic value of Boeing,
| not threaten it. When a metallurgist was found to have
| fraudulently signed off on steel for US nuclear submarines,
| she was sent to prison for it. That's the way it _should_
| work at Boeing too, but unfortunately the short-term
| financial concerns are drowning out the long term strategic
| concerns.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Boeing is one of the crown jewel brands of US superiority
|
| _was_.
|
| That is definitely - at least for now - a thing of the past.
| I'm pretty sure they could regain that position if they
| really went for it but at the moment they are as much an
| asset as they are a liability. If they weren't _also_ that
| 'huge defense supplier' they would have been in far more
| trouble than they are and by rights they should be.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> the guy at the bottom who signed off the bolt work without
| even looking at the plane, which is criminal_
|
| Rumour is [1] bolt removal was entered in the tracking system
| as 'opening' the door rather than 'removing' the door and hence
| it didn't attract a re-inspection.
|
| [1] https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-
| installa...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I didn't know former McDonnell Douglas management not only took
| over Boeing, but also recapitulated their mistakes with the 717
| in the 787 [1].
|
| [1] https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-
| merg...
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| McDonald Douglas exec: "I know how we can cut cost by 30% and
| increase shareholder value"
|
| Boeing execs: "We're listening"
| p_l wrote:
| Remember that goals etc. for 787 were set when Phil Condit, a
| Boeing lifer, was still in charge.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Pay attention to the language - 'Boeing needed cash to assuage
| it's shareholders and executives'
|
| What does it mean? It presents Boeing as a 'separate' entity that
| has to throw a bone to shareholders and executives. But they are
| Boeing, they own it and run it. There is no separation.
|
| A more accurate way to describe it would be to say that the
| owners of Boeing decided to pillage the company and put money
| into their own pocket - sell factories and do share buybacks. Get
| rid of talent, etc. The exact same thing is happening across the
| board, in every company in the west, American railways, water
| companies in UK, and now it has come for us, it's happening in
| google and Microsoft.
|
| They are run by executives who know nothing about airplanes /
| engineering and don't give a shit.
|
| We are catering to financialisation and killing the real economy.
| The idea that when financial institutions make money that's the
| main thing in the economy will spell our doom.
|
| I recently saw a report from a financial institution that
| predicts that if climate change causes water shortages and
| farming losses, the impact on economy will be 5%. because the
| share of farming in the economy is about that much. They have
| little appreciation for knock on effects.
|
| The finance industry is not run by people who are smarter than
| the rest of us, it is run by people detached from reality who
| never pay the price of their mistakes, as happened in 2008
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _run by executives who know nothing about airplanes /
| engineering_
|
| Dennis Mullenberg and Jack Welch were pillaging executives and
| engineers. The myth of engineering management being inherently
| incorruptible is empirically misplaced.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Why does everyone rip on Jack Welch here? Was he ever a
| Boeing exec?
| life-and-quiet wrote:
| This is super important. It reminds me of the line from
| "Succession," when Brian Cox says, "The Ford Motor company is
| barely real. It's a shorthand for a set of financial
| interests."
|
| We use the word "Boeing" as if it is a real thing. In fact it
| is a set (as well as many subsets) of individuals pursuing a
| variety of goals.
|
| When we say "Boeing" quote "lost its way," maybe that is
| reasonable language for the entirety of the Boeing corporation.
| But you can just as easily say, "How Boeing willfully
| endangered the lives of its passengers by cutting corners" if
| you're referring to the subset of individuals who command
| Boeing and created this set of incentives.
| cpursley wrote:
| MBA-thinking
| wqtz wrote:
| Is it possible for a hundred billion dollar company to hold
| constant stream of innovation that is not in big tech?
|
| From what I understand MBA-fication of innovation is
| inevitable. Innovation is funded by revenue and revenue is
| backed by sales. Sales is driven by "who you know" aka
| networking.
|
| Technical prowess will convince someone to buy your product,
| but networking gets you through the doors in the first.
| Inevitably you need MBAs to generate revenue. After a certain
| points MBA-fication creeps in to engineering decisions and
| innovation.
|
| From what I understand, innovation is largely fueled by chaos
| and risk. MBA fundamentally is about risk minimization and
| certainty. So, I can't blame Boeing, like I can't blame Intel,
| IBM, Ford, GM, General Electric, Phillips etc.
| a_paddy wrote:
| Surely sales is driven by producing the best product
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Sales are driven by convincing the most people (or the
| deepest pockets) to buy your product. It doesn't have to be
| the best, it has to be the best marketed.
| klodolph wrote:
| There are too many counterexamples.
|
| Normally I'll deep into the apologia and explain stuff like
| "why VHS is _actually_ better than Beta", which, yes, is
| something I believe. But I only have a limited stockpile of
| apologia for why the market chose correctly and gave us the
| better product. There is an unlimited supply of
| counterexamples, where an inferior product won out, even
| when you consider things like manufacturing cost.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I can't tell if this is sarcasm.
| detourdog wrote:
| A big difference I see is that Boeing is the consolidation of
| many different going entities. Each entity likely had subtley
| different goals.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| " _Fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value._ "
|
| The most mendacious and destructive idea to have ever been been
| conceived. Customers, employees and governments can screw
| themselves, only the wealthy matter. Propped up by the concept
| of a corporation as a legal entity with the same rights as a
| person, who happens to be a sociopath.
| grogenaut wrote:
| This is a common excuse or conspiracy theory if you live near Mac
| or Boeing plants, it may or may not be true.
|
| Boeing bought Mac in '97, over 25 years ago. That's a whole
| generation of employees. Coming from St. Louis I've been hearing
| Boeing folks blame Mac for their failures for years which is
| probably because few are left from Mac to disagree, and when Mac
| folks did complain it was when they were getting laid off around
| 99.
|
| It's been 25 years, these problems now are all of Boeing's
| makings, there is no Mac and hasn't been for a long time. Mac
| didn't make the MAX nor did it not bolt doors to planes. All of
| this is easily explained by general growth and stagnation of a
| company but conspiracies are more fun. None of this fixes the
| current issues.
| RajT88 wrote:
| This sounds like the story of the "Three Envelopes":
|
| https://kevinkruse.com/the-ceo-and-the-three-envelopes/
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Boeing bought Mac, but Mac's management and priorities infected
| Boeing. Maybe Boeing's old-school managers would have succumbed
| to Jack Welch's financialization scheme, lured by fat stacks of
| cash, but Mac's people certainly accelerated that process.
|
| You can convincingly argue that Mac _did_ make the MAX and Mac
| _did_ oversee a process where planes flew without doors bolted
| on, because Boeing no longer exists. It 's just Mac wearing
| Boeing's branding and facilites like a skin suit.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Fish rots from the head and this was a reverse takeover if
| there ever was one. Boeing not only lost its way, it lost its
| head.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Boeing has to redesign how they design planes (for example
| without outsourcing not just the manufacturing but also the
| design of various pieces as they are currently doing), then
| design a new plane that's safer and cheaper. They don't have the
| money to do that. A government bailout may be the only solution,
| because otherwise we'll be looking at an Airbus monopoly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't have the money to do that. A government bailout may
| be the only solution_
|
| On the condition of bankruptcy, sure. (This is how we did the
| auto bailouts.)
|
| In reality, we probably need a break-up (and recombination of
| spun-out factories). Keep the military contractor a monolith.
| But reinject competition into our civil aviation sector.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| There is competition-- they're just not American companies.
| It's an interesting conundrum. Will breaking up the civil
| part of Boeing help or hurt their ability to compete
| internationally?
|
| My sense is that a proper rebuild would lose them significant
| market share for a long time. I'm not sure the government
| will permit that. They're a significant part of the economy
| and nobody likes being in office when it contracts.
| thsksbd wrote:
| I think what people don't fully appreciate is that the US will
| never allow Boeing to go bankrupt. A ecosystem around it is too
| important for the military industry.
|
| Worst case scenario they'll order 200 of the worst assembled 737s
| as troop carriers. Hopefully they'll then just have them sit in
| an Arizona desert.
| atonse wrote:
| Boeing defense and Boeing commercial are (probably) separate
| entities.
|
| But I do agree in general that the US Gov would want there to
| be an American civilian aircraft manufacturer.
|
| Otherwise it's just Airbus, right?
| mooreds wrote:
| This odd lots episode, featuring the author of Flying Blind,
| might be of interest: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ocRb-WdbfcQ
| neverrroot wrote:
| One of the ways the "West" begins/is losing its way: don't
| prioritize the truth and don't focus on the truly important
| things. Think short term. It took them long to get to this point.
| mglz wrote:
| It's not the West as a whole, it's a specific group of MBA-
| types which hijacked many institutions. We know where the
| problem is coming from. We have enough people who want to do
| stuff like building planes properly. The next step is to make
| domain knowledge mandatory for leadership roles.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| What cultures do you think prioritize the truth?
| aaomidi wrote:
| This exact thing is playing out in big tech now.
|
| Capitalism doesn't learn its lessons.
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