The thing about the max is the deaths were directly observable and obvious. The problem with Spectre/Meltdown is they might have been exploited for years, leadi

The thing about the max is the deaths were directly observable and obvious. The problem with Spectre/Meltdown is they might have been exploited for years, leading to wars/economic harm that the general public will never be able to tie back to Intel. On the balance of probabilities I think the Max debacle ended up doing more harm, but IMO Intel (and AMD/ARM to a lesser extent) did get off easy because of the extremely technical nature of the issue. Edit: I also agree that the max issue has a much more direct Executive Directive -> Harm line to draw. I don't think the Intel CEO went down to engineering and said anything comparable to "create a new version of a plane that needs no new training while having completely new larger more efficient engines, even if that's physically impossible"