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Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back. An engineering company run by a longt

• BoxFour 3y ago
  Like this guy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • BenoitP 3y ago
    I've read that he was the token engineer in the see of accountants, MBAs and consultants. Cultural change goes much deeper than changing the CEO. Boeing might not be salvageable on the cheap side. Decapitating the company at levels 1-4 may not even be enough. It may require acknowledging that changing the flight envelope and software-patching it was a mistake. This is a major can of worms on itself. This means a plane redesign, 6-8 years delay, and probably another round of WTO-unfriendly subsidy.
    • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > I've read that he was the token engineer in the see of accountants, MBAs and consultants The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove. In truth, there is no evidence for the claim. Jack Welch was as much an engineer as an asshole.
      • bee_rider 3y ago
        Interesting that Grove’s company would go on to provide some of the best evidence that putting an engineer at the wheel is no magic bullet.
      • galleywest200 3y ago
        It is not about them being better leaders, but the engineer (hopefully) considering the efficacy of their design over bean counting.
        • shiroiuma 3y ago
          Having an engineer as CEO can get you dumb decisions like thinking the Pentium4 Netburst architecture and dependency on expensive RAMBUS memory is a great idea.
      • shiroiuma 3y ago
        >The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove. Quite possible, and what's really ironic is that Grove's successor, Craig Barrett (who helped start the company with Grove), also an engineer, was a terrible CEO. He was the one who made a bunch of bad moves: P4/Netburst + RAMBUS, Itanic, refusing to adopt amd64 or make their own x64-64 ISA before AMD, etc. The company did poorly under his leadership and only turned around when his successor, Paul Otellini (an accountant IIRC) took over and moved to the "Core" CPU architecture.
  • dv_dt 3y ago
    This is the guy that Boeing should have made CEO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally who has a much deeper background on the civil aviation side of things. Turned down for the Boeing CEO position, went to Ford and carried them through the Great recession as one of the big 3 auto makers that did not need a govt bailout. I'd say call him back, but he's probably enjoying retirement by now.
    • Gravityloss 3y ago
      Some people at Boeing criticize Mulally though. 777 program involved already a lot of outsourcing. There's a nice documentary about the program on youtube, "21st Century Jet": https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=21st+century+jet https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=21st+century+je...
      • dv_dt 3y ago
        After Mulally left, Boeing went all in (to an extreme imho) on outsourcing. I don’t know enough to say if he would have done the same. But imho spinning off fundamental items like fuselages is a big source of inefficiency and risk right now for Boeing.
  • strangattractor 3y ago
    More like this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk Someone with an engineering background and a pinch of Vlad the Impaler;)
    • belter 3y ago
      If you would hire Elon Musk as CEO, he would substitute all the pilots by FSD beta version 2.3.4, and change all the airplane seats USB chargers for a Neuralink plug.
    • BoxFour 3y ago
      Whatever your opinion of Elon is, it’s extremely generous to say he comes from an engineering background and just flat-out wrong to say he comes from the type of traditional engineering background relevant to companies like Boeing (the PE type of engineering). If you approve of Elon as a leader, he is basically the embodiment of “you do not need to be an engineer to run a highly technical company”
      • rpmisms 3y ago
        I think describing Elon as a small-e engineer (not designing powertrains, but at least understanding them) is accurate, and saying that an an engineering-first mindset is important for companies like Boeing and SpaceX would ring true. Engineering background is different than engineering mindset.
        • afavour 3y ago
          People contain multitudes. While I would agree that Elon has more of an engineer mindset than other CEOs I’m still not convinced that would amount to much. A look at Tesla build quality, or that ridiculous demo where the Cybertruck window smashed are just two things that immediately come to mind to cast doubt on Musk’s commitment to engineering. I think he’s a big picture guy, I absolutely think issues like those we're seeing with Boeing could happen under his watch.
          • 3y ago
• balderdash 3y ago
  I don’t think this a technical problem - it’s a matter of changing culture.
  • wongarsu 3y ago
    It's frequently framed as an issue with Boing now having an accounting-driven culture instead of an engineering-driven culture. In that framing a CEO with engineering background is a logical choice to effect that culture change.
    • NoboruWataya 3y ago
      It was arguably under Muilenberg, an engineer, that many of the current issues with Boeing's culture were either created or allowed to flourish. I think it is "frequently framed" as an engineers-vs-accountants thing by engineers or others who like to think that STEM people can do no wrong.
      • hef19898 3y ago
        I am an engineee of sorts, and have zero illusions about the shit engineers can cause, and do.
        • throwway120385 3y ago
          I think the real problem here is over-reliance on cost-savings as a single dimension of quality.
          • hef19898 3y ago
            Cost savings and quality live on different scales so.
            • throwway120385 3y ago
              If a customer wants to buy thousands of a widget at $1500 and you usually sell them at $2000 a widget but you can move the slider on maintainability or make an agreement that the customer accepts some reduced quality -- if that's something the two businesses can agree on and it's not a negligent change to make then it's probably worth prioritizing that. I think we might agree on that. Trying to figure out what to do in any given business situation is usually challenging because the devil is in the details. It happens that in this particular case, Boeing should be checking that their supplier installs bolts and drills holes correctly because their supplier has screwed it up so many times. But in a lot of industries, cheaping out on materials is a reasonable thing to do if your customers agree it's a reasonable thing to do and it's not going to kill anyone.
• tsunamifury 3y ago
  Ah yes the fantasy that an IC can just magic this all away. This would likely result in a CEO with no pull and a CFO that had all the hard power to call the shots. The reality seems to be, for some reason, building profitable and safe planes in America is becoming increasingly difficult. A company most be able to do both: build a quality and safe product and make a margin. It can’t exist without revenue. I’m guessing the real problem is somewhere between low quality or overworked and poorly trained line workers, complex systems, and a revenue strategy that obscures what the company is selling. It takes more than a random ic manager to fix that — but I agree they should come from that past maybe.
  • sebzim4500 3y ago
    >The reality seems to be, for some reason, building profitable and safe planes in America is becoming increasingly difficult. Is there another data point or are you just basing this off Boeing's issues?
    • jacquesm 3y ago
      The other datapoints have been merged into Boeing or they went away, Lockheed hasn't made a passenger plane for decades. Gulfstream doesn't really count I think, because it isn't in competition with either Boeing or Airbus.
  • TylerE 3y ago
    Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to.
    • randmeerkat 3y ago
      > Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to. Other people with a similar perspective about rockets tried to convince Musk that as well. Thankfully he didn’t listen. You’re never going to realize gains that surpass the return on the S&P if you don’t take risks in business.
• spamizbad 3y ago
  I don't think having an engineer as a leader is some golden ticket to success. Its ultimately what ruined Nortel for example.
  • Twirrim 3y ago
    Same for Sun Microsystems.
    • hef19898 3y ago
      Nor is it an indicator for good business ethics: exhibit A, the VW Diesel scandal.
    • fch42 3y ago
      Sun Microsystems never had an engineering-career CEO; whether Scott McNealy, Ed Zander, or Ponytail ... all on the sales side. No doubt it had strong "CTO" type people. Though not in the CEO, chairman or president/COO positions.
  • avalys 3y ago
    Selecting an engineer doesn’t absolve the board of the responsibility to choose the right guy. There are incompetent engineers, unethical engineers and there are engineers who are bad leaders. But an accountant as CEO is not going to restore a culture of engineering excellence.
    • lrem 3y ago
      Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. They’re there to set up an incentive system to further the goals of their choosing. Neither seems to call for deep understanding of neither. And no background absolves a CEO from building a surface understanding of all aspects of running the business. TBF, from my experience with VPs, technical background might be a hindrance to executives. The guy who used to work on databases worries about persistence, even though nobody raised that issue. Networking background? Oh well, good that I know why we put this many bits into this field, despite it only needs a couple bytes and we can afford megabytes. Sure, they know their job enough to leave enough time for the actual question. I even understand why they first interrogate the room about some arbitrary cog in the machine. Still makes me wonder if there aren’t better ways to do this.
• acomms 3y ago
  The "engineer CEO" you speak of is the one who was at the helm when all the mess kicked off.
• bookofjoe 3y ago
  Interesting. Last night I watched the excellent 2018 biopic "First Man" (starring Ryan Gosling) about Neil Armstrong and was struck by NASA's selection criteria for Gemini and Apollo astronauts: they required pilots with an engineering background. Frank Borman, chosen for Gemini and Apollo missions, "earned a Master of Science degree at Caltech in 1957, and then became an assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point." [Wikipedia] "After retiring from NASA and the Air Force in 1970, Borman became senior vice president for operations at Eastern Air Lines. He became chief executive officer of Eastern in 1975, and chairman of the board in 1976. Under his leadership, Eastern went through the four most profitable years in its history...." [Wikipedia]
• saalweachter 3y ago
  I think you also need to be expecting the CEO to "clean house" at the top if you realistically want anything to change. The CEO may set the culture, as much as that is set from the top down, but by the time a company actually starts having problems visible to the outside, its entire suite of executives, VPs, etc, have optimized their career for the sort of problematic attitude the previous CEOs demanded.
• andyjohnson0 3y ago
  > Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back. I'd argue they need an effective engineering culture, and leadership that enables and values and fights for it, not a former-engineer figurehead. Good engineers within Boeing need to be enabled to do their job properly, within normal business constraints, and bad engineers need to be removed. The business needs to understand that good engineering is a necessity and a profit centre in aerospace. I don't know how they'd achieve this change. The company seems to have rotted from the head down since it merged with McDonnel Douglas, and its possible that the senior leadership lack the self awareness to comprehend the problem.
  • hinkley 3y ago
    Move headquarters back to Puget Sound. It’s the only way.
  • AaronM 3y ago
    I think the MD merge gets the blame by many, however, it seems as though the shift in the market that started around the same time to optimize shareholder value at all costs is really to blame.
    • kelnos 3y ago
      I think it's both in a sort of chicken and egg sort of situation. The MD execs taking over Boeing had a terrible effect on safety culture, but the reason the MD execs took over in the first place was because of this shift in the market that you describe. If the pre-MD Boeing management had managed to retain control of the company things may have been ok from a quality and safety perspective... but the stock would have declined because they would have refused to chase short-term quarterly success at the expense of the long term.
      • p_l 3y ago
        Phil Condit was a Boeing engineering lifer who spearheaded the first steps that led to things described as "MD takeover". And was still in charge of 7E7 (today's Dreamliner) when the excessive outsourcing and cost targets began.
• _xerces_ 3y ago
  Muilenburg was an aerospace engineer by training, that is how he ended up at Boeing. To be fair, though it sounds like he was on the management track early on, so not sure how much engineering he did after graduation.
• OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  I think you think Boeing's purpose in life is to make planes. I think it's primary objective is to make money for execs and short term traders. If airplanes come out of the company, it's a random side-effect.
  • AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    > I think it's primary objective is to make money for execs... Plausibly, yes. > ... and short term traders. Nope. Not even on the radar. Stockholders, maybe. Not short term traders. Short term traders have no say on the makeup of the board, nor on executive compensation. They therefore have zero input into the direction of the company.
• denton-scratch 3y ago
  I don't buy the oft-repeated claim that you can re-make a company simply by replacing the CEO. I don't believe that CEOs in large companies have much influence on the company's direction, except in terms of decisions to downsize/outsource, how to use money, and who's on the board. There's only so much one person can do (and accordingly, I think all big-company CEOs are vastly overpaid). Moving the deckchairs in the boardroom isn't going to solve systemic problems in a company.
  • twh270 3y ago
    You can't "re-make" a company by replacing the CEO/CxO, but I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the influence of the c-suite either. What they care about and talk about filters down, often through unofficial channels of communication, and it does have an impact on how front-line employees do their work. Of course, this does take time and often involves some changes in management as well.
    • denton-scratch 3y ago
      I've been watching the Post Office Horizon Inquiry sessions, and reading transcripts. From what I've seen, a completely new board would have no noticeable effect on the PO; they'd have to remove most of the management. It looks as if the company ethos is driven by line management. Well, that really means tearing the company up completely. I can't see how a new board could effect reform. And replacing all the middle management would destroy the company. And as you say, it takes time for a new culture to move through the layers; but the PO doesn't have time. Does Boeing? I realize the companies are very different, but both have marinated in an unhealthy culture for a long time.
      • kelnos 3y ago
        If replacing all of middle management to effect an essential change will destroy a company, then that company maybe needs to be destroyed. Because that's how the CEO makes big change happen: management -- from the C-suite down to line managers -- needs to get on board with that change. If they refuse, they get fired and are replaced by people who will carry out the change. If this process will take too long to save the company, then... again, maybe the company needs to fail.
• ken47 3y ago
  Boeing apparently can't withstand the immense quarterly financial scrutiny it is under without making dangerous engineering trade offs. Time to take the company private?
  • AniseAbyss 3y ago
    [dead]
  • hef19898 3y ago
    At 420?