7 ms·

To be clear, the "Safety Review" was particularly about ensuring that both companies had a drug-free workplace. One company's CEO smoked weed on camera and the

by gok 7y ago

To be clear, the "Safety Review" was particularly about ensuring that both companies had a drug-free workplace. One company's CEO smoked weed on camera and the other's did not, so you can imagine why one might get a different level of examination.

mrunkel 7y ago
The idea that what a CEO does on his own time would somehow reflect on a drug-free workplace is pretty farfetched. Is the CEO of Boeing a teetotaler? If not, should we launch an investigation? There might very well be drinking in the workplace.
- Faark 7y ago
  You don't think the behavior of a CEO can reflect company values? And I'm not surprised they make less effort verifying that for a longtime aerospace contractor and instead focus on the rocket startup that had a bit of a PR mishap. Would have preferred this to not be an issue at all, but not sure this was an option after this kind of public event. Hope it doesn't unnecessarily push sending humans to the ISS further back.
  - spamizbad 7y ago
    Boomer norms aside, is smoking weed really that bad compared to say, a CEO who likes to drink socially? It's not like he was caught hotboxing in his model 3 before his workday started.
    - eloff 7y ago
      It's funny how alcohol is objectively the far more dangerous and destructive drug, yet weed gets treated more harshly. Disclaimer I drink but don't smoke, so if anything I'm biased against my point.
      - rtkwe 7y ago
        Alcohol had a very long history and entrenched industry behind it where (as far as I know) weed didn't have any thing of the sort. Old shitty things that people are used to often get overlooked and a big enough portion of the population were already drinkers so when there was a push to prohibit alcohol similar to weed there was a bigger push back.
        eloff 7y ago
        Yeah, I agree that's the reason. Alcohol is common place enough that people don't even regard it as a drug. And it goes back thousands of years, so it's long been part of society. Still it's a blatant example of how illogical us humans are.
        rtkwe 7y ago
        To be a bit fairer back when weed was demonized then scheduled alcohol was going through a similar attack. It was just way more popular than marijuana which was mainly introduced as a recreational weed in the beginning of the 20th century according to this PBS [0] piece. [0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron.html https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron...
      - CharlesColeman 7y ago
        > It's funny how alcohol is objectively the far more dangerous and destructive drug, yet weed gets treated more harshly. There's also the angle that weed is federally illegal, so smoking it demonstrates an attitude that compliance with rules is optional and subject to personal judgement. Someone with that attitude is probably more likely to choose to not comply with security procedures or secrecy commitments.
        eloff 7y ago
        There's probably something to that.
        blamarvt 7y ago
    - dfxm12 7y ago
      Considering the context of weed being illegal according to the US federal government and the fact that we're talking about a review from a US federal government agency, yes.
      - z3ncyberpunk 7y ago
        Which just shows how backwards the Federal government is
      - hef19898 7y ago
        Maybe totally unjustified, like the problem LGBT people had back the day, with regards to any security clearance. But as of now it is like that, so yeah kind of "normal". If general audits regarding EHS and security would be done to different standards things would be different all together. EDIT: Regarding the maybe, replace that with "NIL". In my opinion a lot of the security concerns are coming from blackmail risks. In turn a lot of blackmail risk comes from the clearance process itself, so a home made issue Just where do you draw the line? Tricky question.
  - paganel 7y ago
    What does smoking weed have to do anything with any “values”?
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      Like CharlesColeman pointed out (and was duly downvoted for) Musk's behavior suggested a cavalier approach to rule-following that made some people in government nervous, and not coincidentally handed a lot of free rhetorical ammo to the competition. Yes, it's a stupid thing to judge someone on, and yes, our space program was built by people unafraid to bend the rules and take risks where warranted. But if you expect the bureaucracy to behave out of accordance with its nature, you are bound to be disappointed.
    - detaro 7y ago
      The value of "willing to follow rules set by the federal government even if they seem pointless", which I assume is an important value for a federal security review.
- wil421 7y ago
  If you have a federal clearance or your company requires it to do business you can’t smoke weed. If you were to tell the investigators you smoke legal weed they wouldn’t care, you’d get denied.
- fargle 7y ago
  Culture starts at the top. Company A: weed smoking 3-commas idiot upstart with habitual lying tendencies. Company B: cultured and serious businessmen with habitual lying tendencies.
magashna 7y ago
Why? It's not like Elon is proposing hemp based rocket parts.
- aeturnum 7y ago
  Imagine if Elon wasn't smoking pot, but mentioned he was just drinking a ton of coffee to work longer hours. Boss works 18 hours a day, which suggests that his workers might want to do the same. Employees also stop sleeping, make mistakes, suffer health problems leading to more mistakes, rockets crash. The idea is that behavior at the top sets an informal company policy. There have been a lot of articles about how Enron can be understood as a culture problem [1]. I think it's less about pot per-se, and more about the cultural signals of the boss thinking it's a good idea to be recorded committing a federal crime[2]. Does that set a standard that breaking rules is ok if they're dumb rules? Does anyone at SpaceX think that safety requirements are dumb? It's worth saying that a lot of the reporting around Boeing's recent failures have been chocked up to culture change[3]. [1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=enron+culture+of+corruption&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=enr... [2] Though I think it is very dumb, smoking pot is still a federal crime. [3] https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773675393/boeings-cultural-shift https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773675393/boeings-cultural-sh...
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I assume then that Boeing's corporate culture that ended up killing hundreds of people on the MAX will cause NASA to lean towards SpaceX for launch capabilities in the future? I at least know where Musk stands; one will never be able to be certain if Boeing's internal culture is fixed (back to prioritizing safety over profits). But a little bit of weed on the Joe Rogan podcast, and that's the hill to die on.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > I assume then that Boeing's corporate culture that ended up killing hundreds of people on the MAX will cause NASA to lean towards SpaceX for launch capabilities in the future? > ... > But a little bit of weed on the Joe Rogan podcast, and that's the hill to die on. The safety reviews were ordered in November 2018 [1]. The 737 MAX groundings started in March 2019 [2]. The 737 MAX fiasco is irrelevant to this series of safety reviews, but as the OP article states, Boeing may be subject to future reviews triggered by its own actions. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/elon-musk-nasa-spacex-commercial-crew-safety-review/576997/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/elon-mus... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#Groundings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#Grou...
RylFaDuke 7y ago
Even back then there was atleast some consens he most likely didnt really smoke it but just took it out of being polite.
C14L 7y ago
> smoked weed on camera Or, to be more precise, he took one puff and didn't even inhale it. In a place where it is legal. Pretty absurd. Just like the entire worldwide "War on Drugs".

by gok 7y ago

mrunkel 7y ago

The idea that what a CEO does on his own time would somehow reflect on a drug-free workplace is pretty farfetched. Is the CEO of Boeing a teetotaler? If not, should we launch an investigation? There might very well be drinking in the workplace.

Faark 7y ago
You don't think the behavior of a CEO can reflect company values? And I'm not surprised they make less effort verifying that for a longtime aerospace contractor and instead focus on the rocket startup that had a bit of a PR mishap. Would have preferred this to not be an issue at all, but not sure this was an option after this kind of public event. Hope it doesn't unnecessarily push sending humans to the ISS further back.
- spamizbad 7y ago
  Boomer norms aside, is smoking weed really that bad compared to say, a CEO who likes to drink socially? It's not like he was caught hotboxing in his model 3 before his workday started.
  - eloff 7y ago
    It's funny how alcohol is objectively the far more dangerous and destructive drug, yet weed gets treated more harshly. Disclaimer I drink but don't smoke, so if anything I'm biased against my point.
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      Alcohol had a very long history and entrenched industry behind it where (as far as I know) weed didn't have any thing of the sort. Old shitty things that people are used to often get overlooked and a big enough portion of the population were already drinkers so when there was a push to prohibit alcohol similar to weed there was a bigger push back.
      - eloff 7y ago
        Yeah, I agree that's the reason. Alcohol is common place enough that people don't even regard it as a drug. And it goes back thousands of years, so it's long been part of society. Still it's a blatant example of how illogical us humans are.
        rtkwe 7y ago
        To be a bit fairer back when weed was demonized then scheduled alcohol was going through a similar attack. It was just way more popular than marijuana which was mainly introduced as a recreational weed in the beginning of the 20th century according to this PBS [0] piece. [0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron.html https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron...
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > It's funny how alcohol is objectively the far more dangerous and destructive drug, yet weed gets treated more harshly. There's also the angle that weed is federally illegal, so smoking it demonstrates an attitude that compliance with rules is optional and subject to personal judgement. Someone with that attitude is probably more likely to choose to not comply with security procedures or secrecy commitments.
      - eloff 7y ago
        There's probably something to that.
      - blamarvt 7y ago
  - dfxm12 7y ago
    Considering the context of weed being illegal according to the US federal government and the fact that we're talking about a review from a US federal government agency, yes.
    - z3ncyberpunk 7y ago
      Which just shows how backwards the Federal government is
    - hef19898 7y ago
      Maybe totally unjustified, like the problem LGBT people had back the day, with regards to any security clearance. But as of now it is like that, so yeah kind of "normal". If general audits regarding EHS and security would be done to different standards things would be different all together. EDIT: Regarding the maybe, replace that with "NIL". In my opinion a lot of the security concerns are coming from blackmail risks. In turn a lot of blackmail risk comes from the clearance process itself, so a home made issue Just where do you draw the line? Tricky question.
- paganel 7y ago
  What does smoking weed have to do anything with any “values”?
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    Like CharlesColeman pointed out (and was duly downvoted for) Musk's behavior suggested a cavalier approach to rule-following that made some people in government nervous, and not coincidentally handed a lot of free rhetorical ammo to the competition. Yes, it's a stupid thing to judge someone on, and yes, our space program was built by people unafraid to bend the rules and take risks where warranted. But if you expect the bureaucracy to behave out of accordance with its nature, you are bound to be disappointed.
  - detaro 7y ago
    The value of "willing to follow rules set by the federal government even if they seem pointless", which I assume is an important value for a federal security review.
wil421 7y ago
If you have a federal clearance or your company requires it to do business you can’t smoke weed. If you were to tell the investigators you smoke legal weed they wouldn’t care, you’d get denied.
fargle 7y ago
Culture starts at the top. Company A: weed smoking 3-commas idiot upstart with habitual lying tendencies. Company B: cultured and serious businessmen with habitual lying tendencies.

magashna 7y ago

Why? It's not like Elon is proposing hemp based rocket parts.

aeturnum 7y ago
Imagine if Elon wasn't smoking pot, but mentioned he was just drinking a ton of coffee to work longer hours. Boss works 18 hours a day, which suggests that his workers might want to do the same. Employees also stop sleeping, make mistakes, suffer health problems leading to more mistakes, rockets crash. The idea is that behavior at the top sets an informal company policy. There have been a lot of articles about how Enron can be understood as a culture problem [1]. I think it's less about pot per-se, and more about the cultural signals of the boss thinking it's a good idea to be recorded committing a federal crime[2]. Does that set a standard that breaking rules is ok if they're dumb rules? Does anyone at SpaceX think that safety requirements are dumb? It's worth saying that a lot of the reporting around Boeing's recent failures have been chocked up to culture change[3]. [1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=enron+culture+of+corruption&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=enr... [2] Though I think it is very dumb, smoking pot is still a federal crime. [3] https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773675393/boeings-cultural-shift https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773675393/boeings-cultural-sh...
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  I assume then that Boeing's corporate culture that ended up killing hundreds of people on the MAX will cause NASA to lean towards SpaceX for launch capabilities in the future? I at least know where Musk stands; one will never be able to be certain if Boeing's internal culture is fixed (back to prioritizing safety over profits). But a little bit of weed on the Joe Rogan podcast, and that's the hill to die on.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > I assume then that Boeing's corporate culture that ended up killing hundreds of people on the MAX will cause NASA to lean towards SpaceX for launch capabilities in the future? > ... > But a little bit of weed on the Joe Rogan podcast, and that's the hill to die on. The safety reviews were ordered in November 2018 [1]. The 737 MAX groundings started in March 2019 [2]. The 737 MAX fiasco is irrelevant to this series of safety reviews, but as the OP article states, Boeing may be subject to future reviews triggered by its own actions. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/elon-musk-nasa-spacex-commercial-crew-safety-review/576997/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/elon-mus... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#Groundings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#Grou...

RylFaDuke 7y ago

Even back then there was atleast some consens he most likely didnt really smoke it but just took it out of being polite.

C14L 7y ago

> smoked weed on camera Or, to be more precise, he took one puff and didn't even inhale it. In a place where it is legal. Pretty absurd. Just like the entire worldwide "War on Drugs".