Bloomberg Originals
1 HN recommender · recommended in 4 months, 2020–2021
21:23 · 2.2M views · Mar 12, 2020
A Bloomberg documentary on how Boeing's failures around the 737 Max crashes followed a shift in company culture and cost-cutting. It covers the grounding, the stock drop and questions about the company's future.
Cited as a source for Boeing's post-merger cultural decline and the undermining of its engineers.
4 comments from Hacker News
Bloomberg Quicktake (which is one of the few news outlet Youtube channels I recommend) did a good 20 minutes piece on Boeing's internal cultural demise [1]. [1] this video
I've written about this before, in relation to the 737 MAX, I'll just post it verbatim: --- In 1997, Boeing merged with McDonnel Douglas. This led to some changes in management, and as a result, culture[1, 8:20]. McDonnel Douglas CEO, Harry Stonecipher, became the COO of Boeing. Stonecipher brought with him a cost-cutting sensibility, which was at odds with the engineering culture at the company [1, 9:00]. The culture change is best conveyed through two actions made by Boeing top management: • Pierson being told ”The military isn’t a profit making organization” by Program Manager Scott Campbell after raising the point that the conditions at the Renton factory would not be acceptable in the military [2] • Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg calling Donald Trump, the president of the United States, two days after the second crash to assure him that the plane is safe, apparently trying to persuade him to pull some strings Here is a longer timeline of disruptive events, bad fortune, and questionable behavior: • In 1998, Boeing committed corporate espionage against Lockheed Martin • Relocation of Boeing headquarters from Seattle to Chicago in 2001 • Multiple canceled projects: e.g. The Sonic Cruiser • Boeing lost its market leader position to Airbus in 2003 • An espionage/insider agent scandal in 2003 caused CEO Phil Condit to resign. Harry Stonecipher stepped in as CEO • Stonecipher was soon forced to resign due to a relationship with another executive • In the 2010’s, thousands of high
I think the MBAs are just the tool/symptom of the problem. The problem is Wall St, why do we need it? Why are companies so bothered about stock prices? Why do companies have to put a show for them? Let them learn the trade and understand the value that is offered by a business. Short-terms gains at the expense of long-term losses is a fact that has to controlled by the board of directors and the ridiculous salaries of CEOs has to be stopped. A rule must be put in place that the shares they gain cannot be used during their tenure and only used 2-5 yrs after leaving the post. Founders bring in an MBA to run the company is like parents bringing in a Consultant to raise the children. You can never expect anyone else to care of the kids as much as their own parents. I think that Google lost its way due to Eric Schmidt. Considering that [Page was forced out in 2001]( [LINK] ), he was away too long and Eric did his MBA-shit and screwed up the company. Page should have returned as CEO in 5 years instead of 10 yrs, it was too late by then. Now Google is Evil. I feel that if someone like Page was leading Google and all the tech giants where lead by nerds like Satya Nadella & Sundar Pichai. PRISM & attack on encryption would not have been too strong. We need more founders like Elon Musk & Jack Dorsey. I hope someone like Sergey Brin advices the WhiteHouse on tech-business while Steve Woz or Richard Stallman advices on tech-ethics. Mark Zuckerberg is a disaster, so is Bill Gates, Peter T
Boeing has been repeatedly undermining its engineers and has been finding way to cut costs, that has killed hundreds so far. They just settled in a court case a few days ago. And you wonder why I don't want to fly Boeing? Source: this video [LINK] And the cars are in my control. I can choose the best possible car I can afford, I can drive responsibly. I can use public transport whenever I can. Planes may be statistically safer, but when companies cut costs to undermine people's lives, they deserve to pay for it.