23 ms·

I can't believe such a large company would cheat like that. I think there must be more to this. Maybe a rogue employee?

barkingcat 11y ago
More like a Rogue CEO and Board. Decisions of this magnitude going over so many years likely were made by the people at the top. Recall that VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech resigned earlier this year http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/25/uk-volkswagen-ceo-chairman-idUKKBN0NG0N920150425 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/25/uk-volkswagen-ceo-c... The board was quoted: "The members of the steering committee came to a consensus that, in the light of the past weeks, the mutual trust necessary for successful cooperation was no longer there" What likely happened was that the EPA filed suit against VW in April, and in uncovering the evidence needed to support the suit, VW chair Ferdinand knew that he needed to go in order to let VW continue to be a company. Or, Ferdinand could have been the ethical one and blew the whistle. Either way, let out the stink. Corporations aren't nearly the kind of flawless entities you think they are.
- baakss 11y ago
  Corporations aren't flawless, but it definitely isn't a given that the people at the top have any clue what is going on with their software either. I can think of two instances that I've personally seen very similar to the referenced story where someone in middle to middle-upper management made the call, and only 1-2 devs/analysts had any idea what was done. If anything that should go to show the lack of sophistication a lot of these projects have. There often is no project manager, no code reviews, and a messy codebase where snippets of very unethical logic can hide for years.
omginternets 11y ago
Poe's Law is in full effect, here...
jandrese 11y ago
A large corporation...acting unethically? Say it ain't so! This is why regulations exist in the first place, because you can't trust companies to act ethnically on their own. Their job is to maximize profit, and the invisible hand only works on money.
- cozzyd 11y ago
  > because you can't trust companies to act ethnically on their own Indeed, this doesn't sound very German
seiji 11y ago
I can't believe such a large company would cheat like that. Companies, at the time when "company" was still being defined, used to do anything to exploit people and kill the environment just so their owners got a return on investment. Only through the past 100 years of laws, regulations, and cultural refinement have corporations overtly stopped so many abuses of power. Some of the refinement is purely psychological manipulation as well ("Clean Coal!") and companies are still doing awful things to individuals, societies, and the world at large. Our current generation is blind to many of these abuses because we grew up inside the bubble of "friendly companies." Friendly companies know they have to maintain their image. Friendly companies know they must hide their evil deeds from law/regulation because public relations now matters more than beating people with sticks to increase their productive output (because companies are immortal after all, you can't have the public turning on you).
javert 11y ago
You would think that they would be smart enough to only cheat when they won't get caught. Here, they got caught, so they were being stupid. You don't expect big, successful companies to be stupid (after all, they spend a ton of money to get the best CEOs they can).
ams6110 11y ago
GM knowingly declined to fix the safety problems with their ignition switches. This really killed people, not just violated some arbitrary local emissions number.
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  You are so right. GM didn't just kill a few people, they killed over 120 people: General Motors agreed to pay $900 million as part of a Justice Department investigation into its failure to fix a deadly ignition switch defect blamed for more than 120 deaths. That is a shockingly high number. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/17/gm-justice-department-ignition-switch-defect-settlement/32545959/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/17/gm-justi...

More like a Rogue CEO and Board. Decisions of this magnitude going over so many years likely were made by the people at the top. Recall that VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech resigned earlier this year http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/25/uk-volkswagen-ceo-chairman-idUKKBN0NG0N920150425 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/25/uk-volkswagen-ceo-c... The board was quoted: "The members of the steering committee came to a consensus that, in the light of the past weeks, the mutual trust necessary for successful cooperation was no longer there" What likely happened was that the EPA filed suit against VW in April, and in uncovering the evidence needed to support the suit, VW chair Ferdinand knew that he needed to go in order to let VW continue to be a company. Or, Ferdinand could have been the ethical one and blew the whistle. Either way, let out the stink. Corporations aren't nearly the kind of flawless entities you think they are.

baakss 11y ago
Corporations aren't flawless, but it definitely isn't a given that the people at the top have any clue what is going on with their software either. I can think of two instances that I've personally seen very similar to the referenced story where someone in middle to middle-upper management made the call, and only 1-2 devs/analysts had any idea what was done. If anything that should go to show the lack of sophistication a lot of these projects have. There often is no project manager, no code reviews, and a messy codebase where snippets of very unethical logic can hide for years.

omginternets 11y ago

Poe's Law is in full effect, here...

jandrese 11y ago

A large corporation...acting unethically? Say it ain't so! This is why regulations exist in the first place, because you can't trust companies to act ethnically on their own. Their job is to maximize profit, and the invisible hand only works on money.

cozzyd 11y ago
> because you can't trust companies to act ethnically on their own Indeed, this doesn't sound very German

seiji 11y ago

I can't believe such a large company would cheat like that. Companies, at the time when "company" was still being defined, used to do anything to exploit people and kill the environment just so their owners got a return on investment. Only through the past 100 years of laws, regulations, and cultural refinement have corporations overtly stopped so many abuses of power. Some of the refinement is purely psychological manipulation as well ("Clean Coal!") and companies are still doing awful things to individuals, societies, and the world at large. Our current generation is blind to many of these abuses because we grew up inside the bubble of "friendly companies." Friendly companies know they have to maintain their image. Friendly companies know they must hide their evil deeds from law/regulation because public relations now matters more than beating people with sticks to increase their productive output (because companies are immortal after all, you can't have the public turning on you).

javert 11y ago

You would think that they would be smart enough to only cheat when they won't get caught. Here, they got caught, so they were being stupid. You don't expect big, successful companies to be stupid (after all, they spend a ton of money to get the best CEOs they can).

ams6110 11y ago

GM knowingly declined to fix the safety problems with their ignition switches. This really killed people, not just violated some arbitrary local emissions number.

PhantomGremlin 11y ago
You are so right. GM didn't just kill a few people, they killed over 120 people: General Motors agreed to pay $900 million as part of a Justice Department investigation into its failure to fix a deadly ignition switch defect blamed for more than 120 deaths. That is a shockingly high number. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/17/gm-justice-department-ignition-switch-defect-settlement/32545959/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/17/gm-justi...