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How would you say their cultures compliment each other? I would be interested to hear more concrete, and especially how it ends up when you mix them.

French engineers were known for their willingness to embrace advanced, high-risk technologies to gain a decisive advantage in the aerospace market.

French influence drove Airbus's early focus on understanding customer needs and adapting to market requirements. Early on, the company adopted English as its working language and U.S. measurements to appeal to a wider range of airline customers.

German engineers brought a reputation for meticulous attention to detail, efficiency, and robust industrial processes, ensuring reliable and high-quality production.

Germany's strong engineering foundation provided the technical discipline needed to standardize components and organize the complex cross-border manufacturing process.

Yes. Also the way how internal collaboration works. A lot of focus on relationship building and pre-alignments vs a content-first approach („people will accept it if it’s just correct enough“). In any real-world situation that matters it will always take a bit of both

> Early on, the company adopted English as its working language and U.S. measurements to appeal to a wider range of airline customers.

Airbus uses US measurements - i.e., not the metric system?

They use SAE nuts and bolts. "Society of Automotive Engineers and refers to the system of inch-based fasteners used primarily in North America"

Is that the standard in the airline industry? For example, does Embraer use SAE too? Lockheed (I thought the US military used metric)?

Dunno. My info's from https://www.reddit.com/r/aviationmaintenance/comments/botlch...

Update - google says Embraer uses SAE. Apparently Airbus helicopters are metric though.

I'm speechless

There was that problem with CAD software on the A380: German teams used CATIA version 4, while French had upgraded to version 5, resulting in incompatibilities.

"By late autumn, a team of around 200 German mechanics was in Toulouse along with several hundred kilometers of electrical cables to be installed in the first planes. But after weeks of painstakingly threading thousands of veins of copper and aluminum wire around the walls and floor panels of the airframes, the teams had run into a maddening snag: the cables were too short.

"The wiring wasn't following the expected routing through the fuselage, so when we got to the end they weren't long enough to meet up with the connectors on the next section," said one German mechanic, who said he arrived in Toulouse in early 2005. He asked not to be identified out of fear that he might lose his job. "The calculations were wrong," he said. "Everything had to be ripped out and replaced from scratch." --- nytimes https://archive.vn/uLIqa#selection-603.204-617.419

Mistakes happen on large, highly complex projects involving multiple teams in multiple locations ?

Colour me surprised !

What’s your source for that? It reads like a cliché, especially when you know about the arguably stronger engineering background in France when it comes to aerospace.

Seconding this, I'm Dutch and I still struggle to see how they'd complement each other.

Well that's just because you hate both the French and the Germans ;)

In France we're creative but sloppy, in Germany they care about the process too much but they don't deviate from plans. It's nice to have both: what's the point of following the plan if the entire project is pointless ? French people would challenge early and often, while germans would implement correctly and to the letter.

I really feel we complement each other, each time I work with germans they fix my tendency to be quick and dirty and I push them to accelerate and take shortcuts when they make sense.

Ah, I see! That's cool.

That started before airbus. People forget that Aerospatiale (a founder of airbus) was a partner in Concord (aka Concorde). That is where cross-boarder aerospace really got started. Many saw such partnerships as key to keeping Europe together politically. Without Concorde-Airbus, europe might have looked very different.

Your note on politics is interesting because my anecdotal experience was quite different.

I worked at an Airbus offshoot in Silicon Valley and my visit to Toulouse for a bunch of meetings with the teams working on new tech and AI things were somewhat shocking.

The amount of sniping in meetings, and the amount of post-meeting behind the back sniping was somewhat shocking.

This was somewhat mirrored to a lesser extent even in our videoconf meetings and other collaborations.

It left me wondering how a group of people who seem to think so poorly of each other and work so dysfunctionally could actually come together to build some of the most amazing machines on earth (because modern airliners truly are such things).

The best take I could come up with was "Maybe all the adversity and mistrust means the end up building things that survive intense scrutiny."

That level of sniping also means that groupthink can't happen, which is a major problem at Boeing: nobody wanted to speak up about obvious problems, and those that did saw their careers ended.

It’s fair to describe Boeing’s problems as being caused by Boeing now being actually McDonnell Douglas. It’s only called Boeing because MD had a terrible reputation.

Maybe the real reason is more related to Price’s law/Pareto’s principle, loosely meaning that 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. In other words, in large companies most perons do not contribute much, at least not at the same time.

Maybe, yeah.

And it's also quite possible that my view (which was across a slice of new-technology stuff hosted by the "innovation" arm) was skewed, and things aren't the same elsewhere in the company.

I just remember being shocked by the negativity.

Was that country political politics or office politics politics?

Office politics, I guess, though it was kind of tinged since the offices were in different countries, but it still was Airbus-level, not nation-level, I guess.

While there is some amount of sniping and banter everywhere whenever Americans and French will have different ways of expressing " this is 90% great" or "this is only 10% usable"

Americans might praise a bad solution one moment (for politeness) and turn their back on you the other while French will say "this is ok" while they are deeply enjoying it

IDK, I'm French, and worked in the US and I can't say my perception of the US way of working generally matches yours.

I've never worked in France so I can't compare there.

If we talk about the same „innovation“ offshoot, it happened right after I left the company. I think the cultural change that the top leadership at that time wanted to push was just too much to not cause a backlash. A new CTO who was perceived as an outsider, a somewhat implied message that the Silicon Valley’s way of working was superior to the company‘s traditional approach, and the internal realization that Airbus started to lag behind leading to the typical defensive behaviors. Curious how the culture evolved since then

I left A^3 (or Acubed, groan) 5 years ago, to relocate overseas, so I don't know how it's been since. There was definitely a bit of a "Silicon Valley knows best" attitude that I didn't buy into (because the people I met at Airbus were pretty damn sharp ... while I felt very overpaid, but anyway).

There was always some talk of maneuvering around other groups who wanted our project or wanted to beat us to the punch or whatever, which felt a bit pointlessly unproductive to me, so I did my best to ignore it and try to just deliver.

I did get to meet some cool people, though, including Grazia Vittadini, so I can't complain.

> I don’t think Airbus could have happened as a purely French or German project

Cf Arianespace.

Well they had a good run in 80s and 90s now they are massively behind competition and being kept alive by government payouts (to be fair much like France itself..)

France is being kept alive by paying itself? Makes no sense.

Also arianespace group has 60% of their revenue from the development of the m51 nuclear launcher, the rocket thing is their side show and a way to subsidize our nuclear launcher development not the other way around.

Also ag studied a reusable launcher in the early 2000s and found it not viable economically, because it wasn't, to make it work space x had to have massive government subsidies in guaranteed launch AND starlink which was essentially let our own investors and the dod feed the finance of space x until it's viable. Which is a good strategy mind you, but as a result pointing the finger at ag being supported by government funding as if it was a bad sign is rather absurd.

> France is being kept alive by paying itself? Makes no sense.

For the past 18 years at least, France has been trapped in an economic stagnation driven by terrible economic policies (as if trying to outcompete eastern Europe on cost wasn't a great idea). The only thing that keeps the economist from collapsing entirely is the perpetual stimulus from public spending using foreign loans. (This also will probably stop being sufficient soon since the governing party seems to be obsessed by the idea of reducing public spending instead of fixing their economic policy).

Well I would disagree with that and laugh at the fact that this exact analysis has been published by The Economist and similar for the past 50 years, in fact for the first time France unemployment numbers have gone below the numbers they climbed to in the 90s, and in 2020 for the first time since the turn of the century our deficit was reaching a point allowing our debt to start lowering instead of climbing, and was stopped by a combination of both covid and then the energy crisis and the cover offered to french people.

We do have issues and for the past 3 years they've been amplified by our political standoff (parliament cut in three third and none agree to work with the others), but the core of our economic woes is from pensions.

You forgot to mention that in 2020 currencies were devalued through severe QE, which means it is easier in 2025 to pay back 2M EUR than it was in 2020

Inflation != currency devaluation and France had a pretty tame inflation compared to many of its neighbors (significantly less than Belgium for instance), which again is a good illustration that inflation has nothing to do with the money supply or the value of a currency, no matter how prevalent this myth is.

> Inflation != currency devaluation

Neither which is the same as expanding the monetary base (debasement if you want to be spicy).

An economy with a shrinking money supply can experience inflation and devaluation relative to other currencies. An economy with a growing money supply can experience deflation and a strong currency.

> Neither which is the same as expanding the monetary base (debasement if you want to be spicy).

“debasement” proper is also something else.

> An economy with a shrinking money supply can experience inflation and devaluation relative to other currencies. An economy with a growing money supply can experience deflation and a strong currency.

Yes. And an economy with a growing money supply can experience inflation and having a strong currency at the same time (see what happened to the US and the US Dollar in the first half of 2022).

Check the money supply during COVID, it was insane.

Check the money supply after the financial crisis, it was insane too and the inflation remained below target for a decade.

Covid induced inflation has nothing to do with the money supply and all to do with supply chain disruption.

> was insane too

Not even remotely close to 2020-21 though.

M2 supply increased by the same proportion between Feb and June 2020 as between 2009 and 2013.

By 2021 it had increased by same % as 2009 to 2015.

> and all to do with supply chain disruption

Not massive inflation in asset prices. All that money had to go somewhere, so stocks are now significantly overvalued and housing is unaffordable.

> Not even remotely close to 2020-21 though

Yes it has, and you show it right below:

> By 2021 it had increased by same % as 2009 to 2015.

It increased faster but the money supply variation was in the same ballpark, when the CPI evolution definitely wasn't (you can compare CPI between 2009 and 2015 and 2019-2021 you'll see that there's no link between inflation and the money supply).

> Not massive inflation in asset prices. All that money had to go somewhere, so stocks are now significantly overvalued and housing is unaffordable.

This has nothing to do with “inflation” (which, by definition is the evolution of CPI).

And the solution to this problem is actually quite simple: tax the rich (who got their free central bank money from nothing in exchange).

> This has nothing to do with “inflation” (which, by definition is the evolution of CPI).

Housing is part of the CPI. And no, the “inflation” is not be definition equivalent to CPI inflation.

> you'll see that there's no link between inflation and the money supply).

Making conclusions like that from a single datapoint is not particularly scientific.

> Well I would disagree with that and laugh at the fact that this exact analysis has been published by The Economist and similar for the past 50 years

I'd be happy to live in a timeline where the Economist criticizes the bullshit that “supply chain economics” is, but if you paid attention you'd be aware that it's not really their editorial line.

> fact for the first time France unemployment numbers have gone below the numbers they climbed to in the 90s

You should thank the boomers for retiring, not the economic policy. (By the way, employment went up in pretty much all of Europe for the 2010-2020 period while the economy stagnated in most places but the east)

> We do have issues and for the past 3 years they've been amplified by our political standoff (parliament cut in three third and none agree to work with the others

Standoff caused exactly by the government dogmatic stand over their failed economic policy …

> but the core of our economic woes is from pensions.

It is not, this is government narrative. The “pension problem” is merely an economic activity problem. When the real wages go down (which is did in France since 2017) while pensions are inflation adjusted, obviously the share of income that goes through pensions increases but that's not a “pensions problem” it's a wage issue (and economy health issue).

In fact, public spending per capita is in the middle of what remwins of the EU15 (just above all other Mediterranean countries and below all the others). The reason why the spendings per capita ratio is too high is not because the spendings are too high, but because the GDP is far too low due to inept policies.

> France is being kept alive by paying itself? Makes no sense.

Yes, by borrowing. Any meaningful reforms seems infeasible due to social and political reasons.

> Also arianespace group has 60% of their revenue from the development of the m51 nuclear launcher

Yes, so we agree its hardly much more than a government military contractor making its money from legacy products and not some sort of an innovative company.

I wouldn't exactly call the world's fastest ballistic missile (Mach 25!) a legacy product...

That kind of delta-v makes it almost an orbital launcher.

It's just an orbital launch vehicle. Something the US can produce by dozens per day it needed. Whereas the French have a stockpile which is no more than 50 with a production rate of maybe 1 or 2 per month.

The US one is slower...

SpaceX had to sue the government to launch for them.

Anything about guaranteed launch is an outright lie. Not ignorance.

For those who don't know, the DOD didn't finance SpaceX or Starlink or reusability.

This claim is total nonsense that started as Russian propaganda.

You'll notice the DOD refused to finance Starlink in Ukraine when they were asked to.

So much for subsidies.

SpaceX was all customer and investor funded.

Starlink was funded by Google and Fidelity.

Reusability was funded via income.

Ariane is the provider with subsidies. In the past it was ULA.

NASA once offered the UK to launch its satellites almost for free. That offer was rescinded as soon as the UK abandoned its national space program. [1]

From a European perspective, it’s impossible to look at the current situation and believe it would be the same without Ariane 6, even if Ariane 6 itself isn’t particularly competitive. Sovereign access to space is invaluable. Once you lose it, you hand an extraordinary amount of leverage to the White House. And make no mistake: that leverage will be used, whatever the color of the administration.

[1] https://curious-droid.com/323/black-arrow-lipstick-rocket-br...

Yes, that’s not the point I was trying to make, though. But in a way Arianespace doesn’t really need to innovate or compete because because they’ll always have funding due to these legitimate strategic reasons

I have met many former Airbus engineers and former Airbus contractors. Every single time I have heard nothing but bad things about the company.

Sure, selection bias, but everything I heard is exactly what I would expect from a large corporation, split across a continent at its worst. Long, tedious decision processes which are completely opaque together with a culture, where management sees it as their responsibility to create a large bureocratic processes to navigate the extremely challenging landscape, where culture and geography clash. Mind you these are complaints from people still working in Aerospace.

In general I have always had terrible experience the more diverse and intercultural Teams got. The best teams I experienced are homogeneous, ideally only including people from a small geographic region, with very similar sensibilities. Even inside a nation regional sensibilities can be a challenge.

Super sorry that these have been your experiences. Working for a very different company now, I again ended up in a highly international setting and - with good leadership - it can be incredibly enriching (the company is the result of several global mergers). Unfortunately, the way it works in many companies nowadays, the only situation where teams experience working with other countries are in settings that are imbalanced from the start (e.g., after offshoring)

Dealing with offshoring was very tedious, as you now have even more layers. Digital only communication, time differences, etc.

But in person is also very bad. I never was part of a well functioning multi cultural team. And every homogenous team I have been in was well functioning. At this point I will actively seek out employment in teams where I am only among native speakers and as far as possible only among natives.

>Super sorry

What are you sorry about? I quit the job, partly because I couldn't stand having half a dozen different communication barriers.

>it can be incredibly enriching

I have never found a single positive aspect. None of the multi cultural teams have "enriched" me in any way, most often they made me dislike the other cultures.