211–220 of 227 posts
What a total crock of shit. He is a scapegoat. Guilty yes, but if you want to send a powerful deterrent message to the rest of the automotive industry you go after the managing directors and C-level employees and put them into prison for a while and then you'll see ethical business practices.
OTOH Michael Horn CEO of VW and person who signed off on the emissions testing cheating walked away with a 50 million pension.
Of course, you often get no choice in what you do when upper management says 'just do it'. It's that, or asshat exec decides to wreck your career, fire you, etc, etc,
A federal judge in Detroit ... of course..
To see America being this blatant in going after foreign companies is amusing, and a bit scary. But hey, "muh evil Germans".
The German automotive industry has a very aggressive culture. Our (German) managers put enormous pressure on us to do whatever it took to win deals. I can clearly remember watching one of our engineering managers turning a very unhealthy shade of green (~= #d2dbc9) as her boss turned the metaphorical screws to pressure her to win our segment's first big deal -- Ironically with VW as the customer. Shamefully, I stayed…
> I stayed silent as I watched my colleagues lie through their teeth to the customer: claiming, for example, that a range of functions were already mature and in series production when in reality they were little more than vapourware at that point. I worked for a guy like that. When I finally decided to call it quits he got physical (chased me through the company premises with an iron bar, not kidding). Nowadays I wo…
I think sometimes about this relationship between assholes and engineers. On one hand it's entirely manipulative and destructive to the engineer on multiple levels. On the other hand it has a track record of leading to achievements engineers probably wouldn't even attempt otherwise (or of the task actually being impossible).
But looking at the positive outcomes, how do we get those achievements without assholes exploiting engineers? The sort of achievements that a reasonable engineer wouldn't even attempt because the demands seem unrealistic?
The German automotive industry has a very aggressive culture. Our (German) managers put enormous pressure on us to do whatever it took to win deals. I can clearly remember watching one of our engineering managers turning a very unhealthy shade of green (~= #d2dbc9) as her boss turned the metaphorical screws to pressure her to win our segment's first big deal -- Ironically with VW as the customer. Shamefully, I stayed…
I view FITYMI as more as a positive confidence building and projecting practice. When it goes on to deception, either self-deception or deceiving employees, partners, customers or investors it's corrosively bad.
Sure, lying to one customer might get you a deal, but then you have to perform on that deal. And maybe you do, this time. But that just sucks you into doing it again and again and over time your organization is going to get known as liars who can't meet commitments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> selling millions of vehicles VW sold approximately 475000 affected diesel vehicles in the US (compared to approx. 84.5 million car sales in the same time period).
This has always been my problem with the whole case. Yes they violated the law and yes they probably should be some punishment but the real impact was almost nothing, the vehicles would have met the restrictions of only a few years prior, and the limits are almost entirely arbitrary and politically motivated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most states emissions testing requirements are not stringent. Having lived in Washington, Oregon, and California I can say that WA's and OR's tests don't do much.
This "hack" by VW should have been caught in weeks by the EPA. It was detected simply by driving the car around with a sensor in the tailpipe. And yes, when emissions testing switched to relying on the OBD codes, all was lost. Even I thought about hacking the ECU to report "all good"
> Liang is one of the lowest-ranking executives charged so far. While I approve of strict punishments for such terrible actions, I worry that this is a case of a "scapegoat" being advertised as punished, so that the real decision makers higher up can go with lighter reprimands. Since the scapegoat is guilty of the crime, the deception is much easier.
James Liang engineer for VW was sentenced to 40 months in prison and ordered to pay a $200,000 fine. OTOH Michael Horn CEO of VW and person who signed off on the emissions testing cheating walked away with a 50 million pension. Of course, you often get no choice in what you do when upper management says 'just do it'. It's that, or asshat exec decides to wreck your career, fire you, etc, etc, A federal judge in Detroi…
> you often get no choice in what you do when upper management says 'just do it'
You always have a choice. You can quit.
If your boss told you to rob a bank, would you do it? It's a more severe crime but it's still your boss saying "break the law or I'll fire you". It's simply a matter of where you draw the line, of how far into unethical territory you're willing to go for money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough on the death penalty, but I don't see how that's relevant for any other crimes.
It's already hard to understand the culture in a country. I see also the difficulty of handling administrative matters for my American wife, from taxes to mortgage contracts. Everything of course in a second language. Even people's gestures or their facial expressions are different. To have to navigate the juridicial system in another country is a huge disadvantage. You will make errors which a native will never make…
All of that is the lawyers' job, not the defendant's, and these guys will be able to hire very good local lawyers.
No judicial system composed of humans can ever be perfectly fair and free of bias, but that doesn't mean we should let criminals go free.