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Comment by pinewurst | Hacker News Reader

Note the same McD management ended up in charge of Boeing after their merger.

Seems Douglas was a cursed company. It was on a brink of bankruptcy, was acquired by McDonnel, which went to almost bankruptcy itself, and now it is happening to Boeing.

Who will be the next victim?

The United States of America.

United Launch Alliance

And it's already happening, see the Vulcan and CST programs.

Starliner (I assume that's what you mean by CST) is pure Boeing, not ULA. It's also worth mentioning that ULA's probably about to be sold [1]; the three potential buyers are Blue Origin, the private equity fund Cerberus [2], and the aerospace contractor Textron.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/sale-of-united-launch-...

[2] https://www.wsj.com/business/billionaires-compete-to-own-spa...

Blue Origin is a textbook example of big aerospace contractor incompetence inheritance by design. Bezos made them the anti-SpaceX.

They haven't exactly covered themselves in glory so far, but I'm curious if there'll be any major change now that Bob Smith is no longer CEO.

20 years sans orbit has to be blamed on more than Bob Smith. :)

This seems like the eventual subject of a business case study in how dysfunctional corporate cultures can lay somewhat dormant in a company, and then infect the other parties in a merger.

The article even calls management's decisions "necessary or right" because they might lose their jobs. But you know what hit me hardest in that article? That the top highlight (a few minutes ago at least) was this sentence

> In the end, it would have been less expensive for McDonnell Douglas if they had just fixed the planes.

Again a fixation on money. As if that isn't the root cause.

Fixation with money would lead to the conclusion that it is imperative to fix the planes to avoid costly lawsuits, upset clients, and loss of reputation and ultimately, bankruptcy.

There is absolutely no money fixation.

And upon further examination, you can see there is no money fixation because the emoloyees lack clear long-term thinking. Its all robots obsessed with CYA, promotions, and turft wars instead of focusing on making money, and what makes money long term for the company

I don't see the contradiction. CYA is driven by shareholders pressing the board, the board distributing the pressure to divisions, division heads distributing that to middle management, middle management distributing that onto assembly and sales teams, and everyone keeping their heads down. We don't call it bean counting for nothing.

> promotions

I.e. money.

Perhaps I can be clearer. This is in contrast to managing a company based on e.g. ethics and longevity. The question whether or not it is cheaper to sacrifice lives because of litigation and reputation loss should never come up.

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