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Comment by clouddrover | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think you need an engineer as CEO for that.

You need a CEO who actually understands the business. If your business is building planes and your CEO has never built a plane, then your business will inevitably have problems because the CEO fundamentally doesn't understand the business.

It won't happen immediately but a slow rot will set in. The CEO won't pay attention to the details because he never understood the details in the first place.

Optus recently had a major network outage. Part of the reason why that happened is they picked a CEO with no telecommunications background. She fundamentally didn't understand the business she was in:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/07/tech/australia-optus-netw...

She's since quit as Optus CEO in an "I don't want to fix my own mess" move. She doesn't seem to have paid that much attention to Optus anyway:

https://www.afr.com/rear-window/optus-a-part-time-gig-for-ce...

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So what exactly would the CEO have to have done to "build planes"? Some wiring? Screwing in things? Ordered parts? Quality tested a component? Why not the need to also piloting a plane to understand how it works? What specific part imbues the required understanding?

What if CEO build other things than planes?

To actually have done something and contributed to designing and producing aircraft. To actually have an aeronautical engineering background. That's the business Boeing is in.

Putting inexpert people in positions of authority is guaranteed to damage a business, as Boeing is now finding out.

In the anstract, do you think civilian control of the military is wrong then, too?

Should experts always be in control everywhere or are there limits?

Civilians don't run the military. The military experts run the military. That's a good thing.

And the military doesn't run the government. That's also a good thing.

The only way your analogy works is if you think it's a good idea to appoint generals and admirals who have no military experience. I hope you don't.

In most Western countries the most senior person in command is a civilian, not a general or admiral (and there are civilians in various other positions, too).

Answer what has been put to you: Do you think people with no military experience should be generals and admirals?

I don't see that as the right analogy, because the highest command authority already is with a civilian.

Anyway, why not under certain circumstances? Already now there are differences between countries what is run by the military and what isn't.

> Anyway, why not under certain circumstances?

Because someone with no military experience is inexpert. They don't know what they're doing.

In the military a lack of expertise is very likely to result in people dying unnecessarily.

So when currently in country A something is done by the military and in country B by civilians, only country A has it right?

The US army corps of engineers being in charge of levees isn't the only way, for example. A lot of generals don't fight wars. And those who do, are under civilian supervision.

Civilians control but don't manage the military. They control it, in the sense of setting the goals, but they don't generally manage things after that.

The equivalent here would be the customers.

The military likely would be more effective with generals in charge, yes.

There are downsides to that, which is why we don't do it. You can judge for yourself if those same downsides apply to Boeing.

I think that goes to the heart of it: I am not sure generals would necessarily be better at achieving the political objectives of what the military is for.

In the same way, I couldn't say if Boing would need something more closer to a priest or a technocrat.

You need two types of experience: deep and abstract.

You need the deep experience of having worked inside the beaurocracy of a huge effort on some tiny piece of the project.

You need the abstract experience of having built a smaller, less complicated version of an entire plane yourself. Think RC model plane here. And yes you should be at least an RC pilot.

With both of those experiences you will be able to extrapolate very closely everything you need to know to be succesful in establishing an engineering culture.

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