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Comment by spectramax | Hacker News Reader

All airlines should cancel MAX orders. After watching the CEO defend their position in the Q2 shareholder’s meeting, he killed the reputation of Boeing from investors, people and customers. Boeing deserves nothing but financial punishment and consequences of the people that died in the two crashes.

Edit: Link to the meeting https://youtube.com/watch?v=xOQmQpKHVWA

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This completely unrealistic. CEOs will always defend the company. That is their job.

It was not written that he was defending the company, but depending their position. Not the same.

Definitely. However, managing public relations and the image of the company, maintaining customer relationships is also CEO’s job.

Defend in what sense?

In defending what made the company great, or just the share price?

And he failed at it, since he lost the confidence of the room after he spoke.

There are many strategies you can choose from to defend your company. Not just "we're cool guys".

A Japanese CEO crying and bowing in silence is defending the company and the brand.

This is defending the short term stock value and nothing else.

Why? The crying is obviously fake. It's just a cultural gimmick like USA's "I apologize if anyone felt hurt by what they thought we did." Crocodile tears and calisthenics don't bring back the dead or prevent future deaths.

Fake or not, it’s the symbol of total and unconditional responsibility towards their customers, not their shareholders.

Unfortunately the rest of us do not live in a culture where this is a valid course of action and like I said, criticizing a CEO for not doing it is unrealistic.

Our media is much more attack based, stock value much more tied to positive media coverage and legal proceedings against the company much more likely.

How do you know it is fake?

Their job is to maximize shareholder value. Which could certainly be accomplished in some cases by forthrightly admitting to wrongdoing. The problem is that almost invariably this action immediately precedes said CEO deciding to spend more time with his/her family.

Forthrightly admitting to wrongdoing might impact the lawsuits.

Their job is to maximize shareholder value.

This is false. A CEO's job is to run the company. The Board's job is to protect a shareholder's investment, which does not mean maximizing it.

The lie that a CEO's job is to maximize shareholder's value didn't become a popular meme until CEOs were suddenly awarded large stock compensation grants during the Reagan era, and is entirely about CEOs maximizing their personal holdings to the detriment of every other shareholder.

This is wrong. CEOs have wide latitude to decide how to maximize value, and how to measure value, but that is still their job.

CEOs raiding short term coffers is a different issue.

OK sure, but over what time frame should shareholder value be maximized? A quarter, a year, several years? The strategies might look quite different.

CEOs job is to protect reputation of the company. There are times when honestly owning your mistakes is better for reputation than pathetic attempts to save face.

And what should they buy instead? See my longer comment about that.

C919s? Here is china’s big chance I guess.

Yes, this is really giving new competitors an opening. But of course, adding a completely new supplier to your fleet is a large step for any airline and will take some time and effort to implement.

The poster was being sarcastic. There is almost zero chance that Boeing loses [US] orders to a Chinese manufacturer. The tariffs in that sector are too high, and the trust in Chinese manufacturing is too low.

Even switching from Boeing to Airbus is not likely. As you point out, switching a new supplier is a large step, and too large for many airlines to make.

China uses western avionics and jet turbines, so there isn’t much difference between it and a 737 or 320. But they don’t win out in fuel efficiency, so they probably won’t do that great outside of China and belt road countries.

Su95 sukhoi superjet also uses western avionics and is 50% owned by a western company and is competitive with comparable western models. It's still very much a failure though mostly because of supply chain economics

The other issue is if the US government doesn't want people using Huawei devices, they're probably not going to like people buying Chinese planes.

This is why the 737 MAX has to return to flight at basically any cost. It is the only US offering in that market segment, by the only US manufacturer left.

US airlines would probably be very jittery buying a Chinese place, given the current trade war with China.

For other countries, it could be a way in, especially because of the backlog on the A320. But it does mean a large investment in training and parts logistics. It would make more sense for a country that wanted to score political points with China.

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