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I don’t doubt that prioritizing leadership with a finance background over engineering is a huge contributor. But friends who worked on the Dreamliner also compl

I don’t doubt that prioritizing leadership with a finance background over engineering is a huge contributor. But friends who worked on the Dreamliner also complained about the cliques of older long time Boeing engineers that seemed to do little work, and contributed little to innovation. They also pointed out the inefficiencies and internal politics of union labor that showed up on the assembly line, with redundant staffing and aggressive territorial attitudes creating serious limitations. These issues aren’t talked about in news or social media, but they matter and I think it would be odd to pin everything just on executives.

lovich 2y ago
Their compensation is arbitrarily high because they are responsible for the results of the business. If the rewards are being pinned on them then why wouldn’t responsibility?
- deleted 2y ago
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sonofhans 2y ago
Consider that you’re not describing an “old guard engineer” problem but a management problem. People will behave as they are motivated. Good management would detect that and shut it down, redirect the energy somewhere productive.
dccoolgai 2y ago
It would be odd, if the executives weren't paid 300x what the union assembly line workers were... This "heads they win tails we lose" system is the thing that seems odd. They make millions on the theory that they take responsibility for things... If the union guys aren't doing their job: fix it. If some engineers aren't doing their job: fix it. Otherwise what are they getting paid so much for?
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  You can’t just “fix” the union situations because of how the labor relations act (and other legislation at different levels) limits the speech and actions of corporations. A union basically creates a monopoly around labor within the company, and that monopoly creates rules that result in benefits for members at the expense of the company. And overcoming that is hard unless you resort to things like outsourcing, which happened to significant portions of the Dreamliner despite how awkward it was. The ideal fix would be to have competitive in house labor without these restrictions. Also I don’t think executive pay has any relation to what I am alleging, which is that part of the blame lies on old boys clubs and unions. Executive pay is determined by its own market of supply and demand. Sure they get some of the blame but there are limits to what is possible even for the best of executives. Also consider that the sum of executive pay is a lot less than the sum of the assembly line pay, so even by your own logic the responsibility cannot be solely at the top. That said I totally agree that Boeing executives have largely failed, and the choices made by the board in appointing finance people or old guard from other aerospace companies is a big part of the problem.

lovich 2y ago

Their compensation is arbitrarily high because they are responsible for the results of the business. If the rewards are being pinned on them then why wouldn’t responsibility?

deleted 2y ago
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sonofhans 2y ago

Consider that you’re not describing an “old guard engineer” problem but a management problem. People will behave as they are motivated. Good management would detect that and shut it down, redirect the energy somewhere productive.

dccoolgai 2y ago

It would be odd, if the executives weren't paid 300x what the union assembly line workers were... This "heads they win tails we lose" system is the thing that seems odd. They make millions on the theory that they take responsibility for things... If the union guys aren't doing their job: fix it. If some engineers aren't doing their job: fix it. Otherwise what are they getting paid so much for?

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
You can’t just “fix” the union situations because of how the labor relations act (and other legislation at different levels) limits the speech and actions of corporations. A union basically creates a monopoly around labor within the company, and that monopoly creates rules that result in benefits for members at the expense of the company. And overcoming that is hard unless you resort to things like outsourcing, which happened to significant portions of the Dreamliner despite how awkward it was. The ideal fix would be to have competitive in house labor without these restrictions. Also I don’t think executive pay has any relation to what I am alleging, which is that part of the blame lies on old boys clubs and unions. Executive pay is determined by its own market of supply and demand. Sure they get some of the blame but there are limits to what is possible even for the best of executives. Also consider that the sum of executive pay is a lot less than the sum of the assembly line pay, so even by your own logic the responsibility cannot be solely at the top. That said I totally agree that Boeing executives have largely failed, and the choices made by the board in appointing finance people or old guard from other aerospace companies is a big part of the problem.