The thing that angered me the most was Boeing refusing to admit responsibility and fighting the authorities that were grounding the plane. They knew people were dying and were willing to let more people die without remorse. In my mind that was a criminal action.

That kind of sociopathic behavior is natural outcome of business culture that is solely about maximizing shareholder value. I'm not sure what can be done to fix it.

First of all shareholder income should be taxed the same way as employment income. I think (at least in my country) it is absolutely disgusting that when you draw dividends from a business you pay less tax than if you were drawing a salary. If taxation was the same across the board, then there will be no incentive for shareholders to insist on extracting the value through dividends. The next thing is that in many cases shareholders are de-facto directors in terms of influence, this means they should also share the same liabilities and responsibilities. This should be a start to make it healthier.

>I'm not sure what can be done to fix it.

Regulations which require engineers or their union representatives to sit on the corporate board of directors.

(Such as in the deplorable communist countries Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, France and Denmark.)

Not sure why this is being downvoted, it doesn't seem that outrageous.

There's even precedence in the US for this approach: in the legal profession, only lawyers are permitted to own or to manage a law firm.

> Not sure why this is being downvoted

Because it mentioned unions is my guess.

Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. That’s a good point.

A lot can be done to fix things. Prompt prosecution against management, including manslaughter charges where applicable. This no longer "wink, wink, nudge nudge" stretching the rules that is prevalent. Hundreds have already lost their lives.

You can't simply acculturate businesses against it- they will slowly be replaced by other businesses headed by ruthless sociopathic maximizers of shareholder value.

This is the guaranteed outcome given this way of organizing commerce. Just as if you organized everyone into medieval guilds, we would replicate the behavior of medieval guilds.

>they will slowly be replaced by other businesses headed by ruthless sociopathic maximizers of shareholder value.

I dunno man, the culture came from McDonnell-Douglass which was actually purchased by engineer-centric-at-the-time Boeing. How this culture spread in Boeing ought to be some kind of HBS case study, except they wouldn't notice that it should be taken as a cautionary tale.

For those unfamiliar with the case: Boeing and McDonnell-Douglass actually merged, but the name stayed Boeing. It is often said in the industry that McDonnell-Douglass bought Boeing with Boeing's own money.

The company that today uses the name Boeing looks, acts, and quacks a lot more like 1970s-1995 MD did, than 1970s-1995 Boeing did.

And McDonnell-Douglass were/are true masters of building deadly aircraft.

My comment really didn't intend to rule out mergers, or even businesses changing by themselves. I'm just saying they inevitably end up that way, by replacement if necessary.

That device is a statement to a changing public mindset. Not a solution in itself. In a society where 40% of voters back a corrupt president even after a term where he focussed on enriching himself, I don't see the required readiness.

Ouch. Sharp observation.

There you go: https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2020-11-06-Boeing-Appoints-Jinn...

I worked with Jinnah before and he is great at shielding the engineers from executive. If hiring great execs is not movement of corporate mindset I don't know what is.

Looks like a good position. He did software for the SpaceX rockets and Dragon as well.

Airbus aircraft are generally smoother and quieter rides in my experience.

Airbus older planes have their own problem of fume events causing all sorts of serious sicknesses http://avherald.com/h?search_term=Fume+event&opt=0&dosearch=...

Same experience. When I was flying bi-weekly, I made sure most international flights were with Finnair because no Boeings there, for that reason. Mostly everything was worse on Boeings (most experience is with BA; 100s of flights). But the sound was the worst. Maybe this is how the planes are kitted out by the carrier and I had bad luck in that regard?

Funny, because I have had the opposite experience.

I don't know why this is downvoted. I happen to love flying on Boeings, especially the 747. I think that Boeings typically have a higher wing loading than Airbusses, which might be noisier but does handle turbulence better.

If the corporate mindset were to change, how would you know? What actions would convince you that they were putting safety first again?

Herein lies the problem with Boeing.

Trust takes a long time to build, and minutes to loose. Boeing knows that, that is how a pilot's license is issued and revoked as well. They gambled their Trust and lost, so now they are in a well-deserved decades-long Trust deficit.

...because Airbus' 100% subsidy from the French government did not cause parallel organization and incentive issues which bled into engineering and was responsible for similar preventable accidents in the company's history???