371–380 of 407 posts
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We do? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19443925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17991905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16808171
Exceptions proving the rule? It gets a lot more love than hate.
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Really, all you need is for the CEO and perhaps the board of directors to lose their jobs. Sure, they'd get golden parachutes and it wouldn't seem sufficient, but people in positions of power don't like losing their position. If you did that, it would be sufficient to make the next CEO (and board) think twice about doing something similar. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be happening.
The way Europe handled Volkswagen is... nothing, but Vw directors are being arrested one by one when they transit through US jurisdictions, and jailed. Perhaps we’ll ser the same: Europe arresting and trialling Boeing officials one by one as they ser foot in Europe. Perhaps there are already negociations on immunity for Vw against immunity for Boeing.
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> the entire horizontal stabilizer needs to be moved to ensure the nose is brought back down in short order Doesn't MCAS take a long time to significantly move the stabilizer? Like tens of seconds? It's hard to square needing to decrease AoA so dramatically with the actual mechanics of MCAS.
MCAS has a duty cycle of on 10 seconds, off five. It ramps up the degrees per activation up to a max of 2.5 degrees per activation (2.5 degrees per 10 seconds), all the way to max down trim if you let it. Keep in mind, the entire horizontal tail plane moving has a heck of a lot more influence on attitude than the elevators. If it were a stringed instrument, trim would be the tuning tabs at the top of the neck, the el…
(I think the proposed software changes also reduce this control authority but I'm not sure how.)
The dent the reputation of Boeing got after this is nothing compared to the drop in reputation of the FAA.
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The problem with Southwest is that their entire fleet is 737s. So the 737MAX was a big thing for them: they could stick with that same crappy old airframe, but get better fuel economy, and not have to retrain pilots. They don't want to switch to Airbus because that means they can't standardize on a single model and manufacturer, and they'd have to retrain so many pilots too.
Southwest only has 34 737MAX planes in their fleet of 750 737s. "crappy old airframe" It's actually an incredible good design with a proven history. What exactly makes you think its such a "crappy" design?
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The way Europe handled Volkswagen is... nothing, but Vw directors are being arrested one by one when they transit through US jurisdictions, and jailed. Perhaps we’ll ser the same: Europe arresting and trialling Boeing officials one by one as they ser foot in Europe. Perhaps there are already negociations on immunity for Vw against immunity for Boeing.
But the us is the empire. So they still make the rules...
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We like imagine a big conspiracy, or pressure from the top because of corporate greed. And sure, CEOs and the board called leaders for a reason, and ultimately they're responsible, not just for culture, but the whole operation. While I can't speak for the aviation industry, in my experience lower and middle management is just as much at fault, if not more. That's often where the real cowards sit, tyrannizing downward…
Upper management sets the cultural expectations. If they prioritize shipping over safety, the middle managers will follow the incentives. Middle managers don't have the power to drive institutional change in a hierarchical organization. Cultures flows from whomever can fire your ass.
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Wasn't that for sales though?
I'm not sure I'm willing to narrow the goalposts that much just so I can absolve Airbus from misbehaving. And that's just the most recent example easy to find with a quick Google search.
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Companies are run by people and their objectives are not and need not be entirely economic. I often hear people say "well companies are legally required to maximise return for their shareholders" but that is not at all the case. Sure, some company management may be spurred to be good actors because they feel it will cause long term vale creation. But then again you could just do the right thing because by and large p…
> I often hear people say "well companies are legally required to maximise return for their shareholders" but that is not at all the case. They are required to do what the shareholders want, which is usually maximizing returns.
I know of no such law. In which country is the the law?
In fact there is some concern by some economists that the management of public firms have too much discretion as unhappy shareholders can simply sell their shares and invest elsewhere rather than provide any direct feedback. Even when direct feedback is provided, management can and usually does ignore it, as can be seen from this week's Amazon AGM.
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> I often hear people say "well companies are legally required to maximise return for their shareholders" but that is not at all the case. They are required to do what the shareholders want, which is usually maximizing returns.
> They are required to do what the shareholders want, which is usually maximizing returns. I know of no such law. In which country is the the law? In fact there is some concern by some economists that the management of public firms have too much discretion as unhappy shareholders can simply sell their shares and invest elsewhere rather than provide any direct feedback. Even when direct feedback is provided, managemen…
All that respect private property. The shareholders own the company, the management is essentially their employees.
The shareholders may not micromanage their company, but still management's job is to further the aims of the shareholders just as the job of elected politicians in a representative democracy is to further the aims of the people. Otherwise they get fired.
While this may not be working as well as it should, you wouldn't say a law is not the law because enforcement is spotty either.