5 ms·

> It just took 25 years to finally happen. "Quality inertia" is one thing which allows for giant amounts of damage to be done long before the wheels visibly co

> It just took 25 years to finally happen. "Quality inertia" is one thing which allows for giant amounts of damage to be done long before the wheels visibly come off, as deviance gets normalised (and even mandated in cases such as Boeing) and the company eats its reserve of quality and goodwill, it starts going off-track in small ways before it falls off a cliff. It took closer to 20 years than 25 for the wheels to come off of Boeing. Lion Air 610 crashed on October 29, 2018, the MDD merger was on August 1, 1997. And that crash was the first major externally visible symptom[0], the decisions which led to it happened years earlier (2014-2015). [0] unless you count the dreamliner's joke of a rollout, which probably should have been the warning shot that things were getting unwell

tacocataco 3y ago
Analog enshitification
hammock 3y ago
Where can I read more about quality inertia , find other case studies, etc?
- jgeada 3y ago
  There was a recent discussion right here on HN about "trading trust": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39394990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39394990 Basically, many of these companies took decades to reach these positions where they're trusted. A bunch of managers rightfully figured out this was an asset that could be easily traded away for increased profits and they'd be gone by the time anyone noticed the devastation they left behind.
  - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
    Also called "brand harvesting". (If you built the brand yourself and did this all intentionally, I think it could also simply be called "the long con".)
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      "Exit scam," just on a longer timeline than usual.
      - galangalalgol 3y ago
        How do companies not have a defense against this? It seems rampant. Is it just more visible for some reason?
        wpietri 3y ago
        Which companies? The ones who had quality and lost it? There's not a lot of defense against being purchased on the open market, as happened with Boeing. Or Simmons is another good example: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmon... The real problem here is the US's dominant business culture, which tends to value short-term cash extraction over long-term value creation. There are a lot of practical incentives for that, but the culture problem itself will have a lot of inertia, so I think we're going to have to look for a generational change.
        IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
        Stockholders always want the company to survive, over short term profits. The problem is that stockholder interests are not the same as the custodian interests. Custodians get paid on the basis of inmediate performance. Thats the broken link. Custodians are thus nominating board members that are incentivized by short term decision making. The nomination is based on relationships and based on trust. And then you get in trouble. If board members were elected as a sort of election by ultimate stockholders (which include actual employees, in fact) you would see a different board. Therefore different CEO.
        jnwatson 3y ago
        It is a variation of the principal-agent problem [1]. It is extraordinarily hard to perfectly align the long term interests of shareholders and employees. It requires a level of oversight that most boards can't manage. 1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/principal-agent-problem.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/principal-agent-problem...
- bumby 3y ago
  https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/caib/news/report/default.html https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/caib/news/report/default.htm...
- zo1 3y ago
  Case studies are all around us in different forms. The example closest to me is the country I live in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa It's been slowly cannibalized and is barely running on Inertia left by the previous government. Took almost the same as Boeing, about 25years. We barely have electricity, and now we're unable to supply clean drinking water to vast amounts of the country, including the capital.
  - mp05 3y ago
    Was there a particular catalyst or just a combination of factors?
    - zo1 3y ago
      Depends on who you ask really, and what side of the aisle they're on. Personally, I think at the core what started it, is the movement away from meritocracy. Other "things" took priority, and everyone on the ground was left trying to figure out how to not let the whole thing collapse whilst still servicing the new priorities given to them.
      - mp05 3y ago
        This sounds it was a bad thing for them! I hope other countries considering such agendas look at the outcome in South Africa and think twice.
jrs235 3y ago
https://youtu.be/GN80sx3s4LA?si=de_4xxo1YhFVy0lD https://youtu.be/GN80sx3s4LA?si=de_4xxo1YhFVy0lD
ctrw 3y ago
I disagree it happened instantly, it's just that Boeing didn't make any new planes for 20 years that made it to the sky. Even the Max was a redesign of an existing design.
- acdha 3y ago
  That sounds like inertia to me: they had a ton of institutional knowledge and practice around mature designs, which kept things from going too badly when the financial engineers first started – and since nothing fell from the sky, clearly that meant they had earned those bonuses and should go further!
- cpuguy83 3y ago
  Was the 787 not a brand new plane? That got grounded in 2013 due to battery fires.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  What’s funny is I know from personal experience that many of the folks inside Boeing at the junior to mid levels (and up, selectively) were also aware of the major culture issue well before the accidents. This is where I started my career.
hliyan 3y ago
I call this "quality momentum". A leader can come in, look at whatever "engine" that drives quality, decide it's not essential, remove it entirely, and coast on the momentum of previous quality practices for years before entropy sets in. But by this time, the board and shareholders have already rewarded the leader for "eliminating waste".
- data_maan 3y ago
  Funny isn't it? I work in AI, where it's always about the learning signal, and how much that is delayed. Humans (boards) really also suck at learning if the signal (crashes) is delayed (due to quality momentum)
- atoav 3y ago
  You can really get more efficient by cutting fat — until the next winter comes when it is needed. In a simpler society, leaders that proposed something like that once they were at least thrown out of the village. Today they get a golden parachute and are sent off to the next host to bleed dry.
raiyu 3y ago
That description you have of quality inertia certainly seems applicable to other areas of life as well. I’m certainly seeing a few troubling issues brewing but don’t see as many people as myself taking them as serious warning signs. But when the collapse happens it’s rapid because the entire foundation has rotted away. It keeps happening because that’s what the system rewards, short sightedness, and is also why founder led companies have more success, because they are able to execute in years not quarters.
- chasil 3y ago
  For day to day concerns, Boeing does not appear to be an outlier. My coworker loves the Boeing legacy, and in her staunch advocacy, she showed me this. https://avherald.com/ https://avherald.com/
GCA10 3y ago
Ironically, Boeing's stock price was at about $140 at the start of 2014 -- and rose pretty steadily to a peak of $422 in March 2019. So in addition to pushing out whatever sorts of financial results that Wall Street wanted, Boeing's perhaps questionable approach to quality was not registering with its financial overlords. This happened in spite of the Al-Jazeera investigative piece of 2014, a $2.5 billion penalty paid in 2021 in connection with the 787 crashes, etc. Not to mention steady coverage of problems in the Seattle Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. Boeing's stock is still above $100 now, which suggests that it's got a strong enough monopoly/duopoly position that investors do not regard quality issues as being all that detrimental to the "investment thesis." Brrr!

tacocataco 3y ago

Analog enshitification

hammock 3y ago

Where can I read more about quality inertia , find other case studies, etc?

jgeada 3y ago
There was a recent discussion right here on HN about "trading trust": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39394990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39394990 Basically, many of these companies took decades to reach these positions where they're trusted. A bunch of managers rightfully figured out this was an asset that could be easily traded away for increased profits and they'd be gone by the time anyone noticed the devastation they left behind.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  Also called "brand harvesting". (If you built the brand yourself and did this all intentionally, I think it could also simply be called "the long con".)
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    "Exit scam," just on a longer timeline than usual.
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      How do companies not have a defense against this? It seems rampant. Is it just more visible for some reason?
      - wpietri 3y ago
        Which companies? The ones who had quality and lost it? There's not a lot of defense against being purchased on the open market, as happened with Boeing. Or Simmons is another good example: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmon... The real problem here is the US's dominant business culture, which tends to value short-term cash extraction over long-term value creation. There are a lot of practical incentives for that, but the culture problem itself will have a lot of inertia, so I think we're going to have to look for a generational change.
        IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
        Stockholders always want the company to survive, over short term profits. The problem is that stockholder interests are not the same as the custodian interests. Custodians get paid on the basis of inmediate performance. Thats the broken link. Custodians are thus nominating board members that are incentivized by short term decision making. The nomination is based on relationships and based on trust. And then you get in trouble. If board members were elected as a sort of election by ultimate stockholders (which include actual employees, in fact) you would see a different board. Therefore different CEO.
      - jnwatson 3y ago
        It is a variation of the principal-agent problem [1]. It is extraordinarily hard to perfectly align the long term interests of shareholders and employees. It requires a level of oversight that most boards can't manage. 1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/principal-agent-problem.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/principal-agent-problem...
bumby 3y ago
https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/caib/news/report/default.html https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/caib/news/report/default.htm...
zo1 3y ago
Case studies are all around us in different forms. The example closest to me is the country I live in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa It's been slowly cannibalized and is barely running on Inertia left by the previous government. Took almost the same as Boeing, about 25years. We barely have electricity, and now we're unable to supply clean drinking water to vast amounts of the country, including the capital.
- mp05 3y ago
  Was there a particular catalyst or just a combination of factors?
  - zo1 3y ago
    Depends on who you ask really, and what side of the aisle they're on. Personally, I think at the core what started it, is the movement away from meritocracy. Other "things" took priority, and everyone on the ground was left trying to figure out how to not let the whole thing collapse whilst still servicing the new priorities given to them.
    - mp05 3y ago
      This sounds it was a bad thing for them! I hope other countries considering such agendas look at the outcome in South Africa and think twice.

jrs235 3y ago

https://youtu.be/GN80sx3s4LA?si=de_4xxo1YhFVy0lD https://youtu.be/GN80sx3s4LA?si=de_4xxo1YhFVy0lD

ctrw 3y ago

I disagree it happened instantly, it's just that Boeing didn't make any new planes for 20 years that made it to the sky. Even the Max was a redesign of an existing design.

acdha 3y ago
That sounds like inertia to me: they had a ton of institutional knowledge and practice around mature designs, which kept things from going too badly when the financial engineers first started – and since nothing fell from the sky, clearly that meant they had earned those bonuses and should go further!
cpuguy83 3y ago
Was the 787 not a brand new plane? That got grounded in 2013 due to battery fires.
DiggyJohnson 3y ago
What’s funny is I know from personal experience that many of the folks inside Boeing at the junior to mid levels (and up, selectively) were also aware of the major culture issue well before the accidents. This is where I started my career.

hliyan 3y ago

I call this "quality momentum". A leader can come in, look at whatever "engine" that drives quality, decide it's not essential, remove it entirely, and coast on the momentum of previous quality practices for years before entropy sets in. But by this time, the board and shareholders have already rewarded the leader for "eliminating waste".

data_maan 3y ago
Funny isn't it? I work in AI, where it's always about the learning signal, and how much that is delayed. Humans (boards) really also suck at learning if the signal (crashes) is delayed (due to quality momentum)
atoav 3y ago
You can really get more efficient by cutting fat — until the next winter comes when it is needed. In a simpler society, leaders that proposed something like that once they were at least thrown out of the village. Today they get a golden parachute and are sent off to the next host to bleed dry.

raiyu 3y ago

That description you have of quality inertia certainly seems applicable to other areas of life as well. I’m certainly seeing a few troubling issues brewing but don’t see as many people as myself taking them as serious warning signs. But when the collapse happens it’s rapid because the entire foundation has rotted away. It keeps happening because that’s what the system rewards, short sightedness, and is also why founder led companies have more success, because they are able to execute in years not quarters.

chasil 3y ago
For day to day concerns, Boeing does not appear to be an outlier. My coworker loves the Boeing legacy, and in her staunch advocacy, she showed me this. https://avherald.com/ https://avherald.com/

GCA10 3y ago

Ironically, Boeing's stock price was at about $140 at the start of 2014 -- and rose pretty steadily to a peak of $422 in March 2019. So in addition to pushing out whatever sorts of financial results that Wall Street wanted, Boeing's perhaps questionable approach to quality was not registering with its financial overlords. This happened in spite of the Al-Jazeera investigative piece of 2014, a $2.5 billion penalty paid in 2021 in connection with the 787 crashes, etc. Not to mention steady coverage of problems in the Seattle Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. Boeing's stock is still above $100 now, which suggests that it's got a strong enough monopoly/duopoly position that investors do not regard quality issues as being all that detrimental to the "investment thesis." Brrr!