Like this guy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg
Turned down for the Boeing CEO position, went to Ford and carried them through the Great recession as one of the big 3 auto makers that did not need a govt bailout.
I'd say call him back, but he's probably enjoying retirement by now.
Cultural change goes much deeper than changing the CEO. Boeing might not be salvageable on the cheap side. Decapitating the company at levels 1-4 may not even be enough. It may require acknowledging that changing the flight envelope and software-patching it was a mistake.
This is a major can of worms on itself. This means a plane redesign, 6-8 years delay, and probably another round of WTO-unfriendly subsidy.
The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove.
In truth, there is no evidence for the claim. Jack Welch was as much an engineer as an asshole.
Quite possible, and what's really ironic is that Grove's successor, Craig Barrett (who helped start the company with Grove), also an engineer, was a terrible CEO. He was the one who made a bunch of bad moves: P4/Netburst + RAMBUS, Itanic, refusing to adopt amd64 or make their own x64-64 ISA before AMD, etc. The company did poorly under his leadership and only turned around when his successor, Paul Otellini (an accountant IIRC) took over and moved to the "Core" CPU architecture.
Someone with an engineering background and a pinch of Vlad the Impaler;)
If you approve of Elon as a leader, he is basically the embodiment of “you do not need to be an engineer to run a highly technical company”
A look at Tesla build quality, or that ridiculous demo where the Cybertruck window smashed are just two things that immediately come to mind to cast doubt on Musk’s commitment to engineering. I think he’s a big picture guy, I absolutely think issues like those we're seeing with Boeing could happen under his watch.
Edit: airlines don't build planes
To me, it is the way of looking at the world that attempts to transform intractable real-world problems into tractable ones by translating them into the battle-tested model(s) of your field. For example, the RLC model of circuits is certainly not able to express all of EM physics but it sure is easy to solve problems in (although, I only did the degree, maybe working engineers dip back down into physics more often).
Anyway it isn’t obvious how Musk has that mindset, he seems obsessed with innovation rather than tradition, and he seems to have styled himself as some kind of polymath tech guy rather than an expert in any particular field.
Your point about transforming intractability is cogent and I think we agree. To your last point about polymath tactics, you're right to a degree, but you can also watch Everyday Astronaut's SpaceX factory tour and realize that it's far more than a basic understanding, which is probably a big part of SpaceX's wild success.
If the anecdotes are accurate, and based on your own description, it seems Elon Musk is a CEO who makes an effort to thoroughly grasp the products his company develops. That's commendable. This doesn't necessarily make him even a small-e engineer, even in the context of the broader definitions used today. It certainly doesn't make him "someone of engineering lineage," as the original comment implied was essential for Boeing's success, or even "someone with an engineering background" like the comment I replied to.
It's also certainly not clear that Elon has an engineering-first mindset, nor that that would even be helpful for many of the businesses he runs. I can think of plenty of examples of Elon putting business above all else plenty of times, and I don't mean that as a dig: It's often the smart move for the monetary gain of all involved.
And just to be clear, this not a commentary at all on about whether Elon would be effective in running Boeing. To be blunt: I don't care about that conversation.
> It's also certainly not clear that Elon has an engineering-first mindset
If A, then B.
Struggle with definitions all we want, Boeing needs a dose of Musk's attitude towards engineering and manufacturing. It is the most important thing they do, and I don't think the C-suite understands that. That's the most distilled version of what I'm saying. Musk is the best recent example of this attitude, but Henry Ford is an excellent older example.
If Elon's thoroughly understands the products his companies develop, he has an engineering-first mindset? That logic would also apply to many CEOs we wouldn't consider "engineering-first" CEOs.
> Struggle with definitions all we want,
For me, this is the only discussion. My focus is not at all on whether Elon would be a good fit for Boeing. I don't give a shit about that conversation.
That's a personal attack. Talking about failures of planning in mass manufacturing, backlash due to public statements, and casual behavior about publicly traded companies and information related to them, those would be material criticisms that we can discuss civilly.
The claims of racism and inheriting some amount of money from a debunked emerald mine conspiracy aren't helpful on their own.
> debunked
Kind of? His dad was originally making the claim but is now saying something different.
> conspiracy
You have a weird definition of conspiracy.
There is zero evidence that Elon profited off the emerald mine his dad bought shares in, and the allegation is that he conspired to hide that money somehow. It's a normal definition of conspiracy.
They both have obvious consequences in a leadership position. Obvious consequences are enough.
> There is zero evidence that Elon profited off the emerald mine his dad bought shares in, and the allegation is that he conspired to hide that money somehow. It's a normal definition of conspiracy.
1. I have never heard this "hiding money" part of it so I don't think that's the crux of it.
2. "Some guy hid his own money" is not a conspiracy. This is baffling.
Obvious potential consequences are not enough. This is the richest man in the world, surely you have an example.
It's hard for someone outside a company to point to a direct consequence of racism in the company leadership. That doesn't make it not-bad for the leadership to be racist.
Surely you're not saying it's okay to discriminate as CEO if you make enough money.
And if you want a consequence of being thin-skinned, uh, anything to do with twitter? Half his interactions with the SEC?
What is PE?
If it's not Elon, it will probably be Airbus, and there is a chance that the US feds will want someone more America-based instead.