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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

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

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