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It's not necessarily terrible. Boeing obviously has a strong financial interest in safety. The Fight Club theory of managing an acceptable number of fatal mista
by matt4077 8y ago
It's not necessarily terrible. Boeing obviously has a strong financial interest in safety. The Fight Club theory of managing an acceptable number of fatal mistakes really doesn't hold for the airline industry, because their failures are large and public, because people are inherently afraid of air travel, and because the investigation of plane losses tend to produce far more definitive results than car crashes.
This investigation seems to be turning against Boeing. They will survive, but it almost definitely will cost them far more than whatever they saved by cutting corners. There will also be changes to the certification process, and non-US authorities will take a hard look. Any new incident would become an existential risk for Boeing.
It's important to remember that a company like Boeing isn't a single person. People working on the certification process would usually have incentives that differ from the company as a whole: they do not individually reap the benefits of cutting corners, but bear the brunt of any mistakes, including moral responsibility, possible criminal charges, and an end to their careers.
Such schemes are employed in many industries. Usually, corporate structures and cultures prevent the sort of top-down pressure that people imagine being at play here. Threatening your safety engineers (fire marshals, data protection officers, etc) with job loss for doing their job would result in whistleblowers and lawsuits. It will be interesting to see how exactly this failed at Boeing.
- tsherr 8y agoClearly, Boeing didn't have enough interest. The idea that self preservation should be enough to make companies "do the right thing" ignores the fact that if they cut corners, people die. If the CEO could be held criminally liable, that might work, but in this case the only downside for Boeing will likely be share price drops.
- honestoHeminway 8y agoIt's not necessarily terrible. The software industry obviously has a strong financial interest in avoiding tech debt. Surely any reasonable software company with the long view would invest in a solid architecture, well defined processes.. The insanity is hidden somewhere here. Peekaboo - there it is..