How Boeing Put Profits over Planes | Hacker News Reader

How Boeing Put Profits over Planes

vox.com

37 pointspm9013 comments

> Experts say that the root of Boeing’s present troubles is a longstanding culture issue. Over the years, the company’s top decision-makers went from detail-oriented engineers to slick suits with MBAs.

Same story as a million other places, but a million other places don't have people's lives depending on their hardware (and software). I (vainly, naively) hope the decision makers are held to account for their failures and class actions from families of the 346 people who have died as a result of management-directed shortcuts set a precedent that's a resounding multi-decade influential disincentive.

Great barb at the end:

“The big criticism is that they’re solely focused on finance, but they’re not even good at that,”

Anyone who has worked for Boeing over the past couple decades will regale you with stories of profit over plane. We're seeing that play out in tech right now. Google is extracting profit over innovation, Amazon is putting profit over quality, Facebook is putting profit over safety and mental health.

Where are the execs who have any long term aspirations or vision?

And you now discover why affirmative actions are in focus of all of this people: it costs nothing, has no effect, and looks so good

There’s a reason “enshittification” has become an almost mainstream term. I don’t know what’s happened in the last few years but it seems like every company under the sun is dumping quality for profit.

I have only ever heard "enshittification" parroted around this circle (HN) and some tech Youtubers with any regular frequency, and that's not for a lack of exposure to animosity.

Folks here have a very bad habit of thinking themselves the world, I've come to notice.

Also, product quality going down over time might as well be a law of nature. It's been around since long before you or I were even born.

I’ve seen the term on all sorts of Reddit subs (not just tech ones). Granted there’s probably some overlap.

https://www.google.com/search?q=enshittification

Working at SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and X :)

Sorry, i don’t get it - i thought boeings profits are tanking? So what exactly did they put over planes?

They put profit over planes.

But they're MBA culture. They suck at everything. Including making profit.

The fact that finance is kept secret really, really helps with hiding the complete idiocy the management class tends to have.

This is simply how capitalism works. It’s run by humans who can pretend (market) they care about lives, but the math and shareholder roi promises indicate otherwise.

Until industry related to health, safety, and other facets (educ, housing, mass transit, etc) are publicly run and regulated, and not for-profit-capitalist, this story will keep happening. It’s going to take enough death lining up before the public realizes these shareholders should be held criminally responsible.

I know that share value is what drives the enshittification. But realistically, what's the role of a regular shareholder in the management decisions? How do they control or even influence such decisions? How do you become criminally liable of management decisions if you buy their share expecting its value to grow? Pardon my naivety. I'm ignorant and curious about the power dynamics at play here.

>influence

Price. The changes tacitly indicate approval/disapproval.

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