Re: The Warm Equations

On 24 Jun 2024 18:28:08 -0000, kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Paul S Person  <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>
I can remember when riding a vehicle built by Boeing was a sensible
thing to do. Now it looks more like an act of desperation.

>
It's not just Boeing.  There was a day when most of the people heading
aerospace companies were engineers.
>
The last Boeing CEO who was an actual engineer was Phil Condit, who left
in 2003 after engineering the McDonnell-Douglas merger (which was great for
the company but terrible for th industry).  And he didn't even have a pilot's
license.  

Looks like "managing the design/testing/construction of air/space
craft" will need to be added to "managing nuclear reactors" as things
that people with MBAs should avoid.

As opposed to, say, managing a fast food joint or perhaps even a
ball-bearing plant [1]. Things where they aren't likely to actually
kill people by using their education.

[1] This may presuppose that the customers test sample the product to
ensure that it is acceptable. Then again, fast food joints may be
subject to health inspections that keep the quality up. Boeing, OTOH,
famously captured its regulators, forcing Trump to order grounding of
one of their more obvious mess-ups when the regulators' balked. (This,
together with Project Warp Speed, are the two things Trump did as
President that might actually be considered ... Presidential.)

IIRC, one of the regulators' arguments was that every new plane had
teething problems, and this was expected to have another 8 crashes
over the next five years, which was "acceptable". It should go without
saying that none of those who found such losses "acceptable" had any
intention of ever /flying/ on one of them -- their risk was 0, so of
course they found it acceptable.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"