Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 137 posts

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#31

Post by kibwen »

markus_zhang wrote: post #18
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #5

I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…

That's what Capitalism does, to make as much money as possible. And it's up to the government to regulate them, and it failed to do so.

You're going to get downvoted for painting in broad strokes, but the spirit is correct: the societal goal of the free market was to use profit incentives to improve process efficiency in order to more effectively allocate scarce resources, but the failure mode we're experiencing is that the people pursuing profit have come to see the pursuit of profit as the point of capitalistic exercise, rather than as merely a carrot to entice entrepreneurial exercise for the good of society.

It's supposed to be the responsibility of society to keep incentives in check such that this doesn't happen (via regulation or otherwise), but once profit-seekers leverage their profits to seize the reins of power you've got a big problem on your hands.

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#32

Post by notreallymee »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #5

I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…

Using a throwaway account.

A few years ago I did some consulting work for British Airways. It was interesting in that as far as the planes themselves, and the operational risk of the planes was concerned, the company had their shit together. Decisions made from a safety first point of view. Engineers making the calls. Everything else no object.

But ALL the software around the planes, from the ops to ALL of the b2c was outsourced to hell. Cue a few months later their entire datacenter went down for 3 days, then a massive security breach.

Their idea of agile was to release stuff once every 3 months in a 2 week window.

The thing that I found odd was that they didn't really perceive software engineering as engineering. They had time, money and patience on the aero engineering, but software to them was just another cost center.

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#33

Post by p1necone »

perl4ever wrote: post #14
fzeroracer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to keep in mind for these companies keeping the customer happy is not the intent. It's merely a coincidental side effect of any potential profit seeking they do. The only people they really care about and are accountable to are the shareholders and investors. And they want infinite profit at the sake of everything else. If you want to solve this problem then you need to remove them from the equation entirely…

Shareholders by definition are not short term investors. Short term investors own bonds, short term ones to be specific. So it makes no sense that shareholders are scapegoated for everything. Even if someone trades in and out of Boeing stock in a millisecond, the existence of someone to sell to depends on people having an indefinitely long view of the company.

Why do large publicly owned companies optimize for maximizing the next quarters results at the expense of everything else then?

Perfectly rational investors with infinite lifespans might do what you say, but in reality most people are fickle, short sighted and don't actually do much thinking.

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#35

Post by ljm »

BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #23
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #5

I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…

It feels crazy to me to see 'make training profitable'. A) Not everything has to bring you a profit, jeez. B) You know how you profit from training? By actually providing solid training to pilots who then fly your planes skillfully and don't crash and don't have any trouble landing. You not only get money from customers paying you for those pilots to fly them, you also save money by not getting sued into oblivion for…

It feels crazy to me that there's no proper accountability for it.

"Let's make training profitable" + every other decision on the software side = 346 dead people. Those deaths weren't an accident, they were a result of Boeing's desire for perpetual growth at any cost, and to try and beat Airbus at their game. No one except the families of the victims will suffer from that. But go ahead and carry a bag of weed and be prepared to spend your life in the system.

Maybe it's time we rethink how limited liability works; and we get rid of this notion that corporations are beyond reproach (and they are, because the fines cost less than the profits).

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#36

Post by ljm »

markus_zhang wrote: post #18
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #5

I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…

That's what Capitalism does, to make as much money as possible. And it's up to the government to regulate them, and it failed to do so.

Nah, this is a business that is thriving on US corporate culture. They're doing the same as everyone else; avoiding spending money so they can keep it for themselves instead of paying it out. The executives and shareholders thusly get nice benefits from the company cutting corners and hoping they don't get caught.

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#37

Post by hkmurakami »

notreallymee wrote: post #32
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #5

I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…

Using a throwaway account. A few years ago I did some consulting work for British Airways. It was interesting in that as far as the planes themselves, and the operational risk of the planes was concerned, the company had their shit together. Decisions made from a safety first point of view. Engineers making the calls. Everything else no object. But ALL the software around the planes, from the ops to ALL of the b2c wa…

This mirrors my experience in automotive regarding the sentiment for hardware vs software.

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#38

Post by WWLink »

hkmurakami wrote: post #37
notreallymee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a throwaway account. A few years ago I did some consulting work for British Airways. It was interesting in that as far as the planes themselves, and the operational risk of the planes was concerned, the company had their shit together. Decisions made from a safety first point of view. Engineers making the calls. Everything else no object. But ALL the software around the planes, from the ops to ALL of the b2c wa…

This mirrors my experience in automotive regarding the sentiment for hardware vs software.

I think that's often the case in any company that doesn't sell software as a product/service. I know automotive companies are really terrible at it. That said, I'm not sure what level of engineering they do anyway. It seems like at best they design the chassis and maybe the engine. Everything else appears to be contracted out to some other firm. Is that the case?

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#39

Post by sokoloff »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #29
colonwqbang wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the share holders for something like this is a bit weak. Share holders of a big, established company want long-term and stable profit. Short-term profit at the cost of increased risk is not something that share holders of a company like Boeing are looking for.

In theory they should want that, but if the company spends money on preparing for the future and its profits decline as a result, then the share price drops. The incentives aren't there.

If short term profit drops but the consensus DCF of future activities rises, the share price is likely to go up. (That’s where preparing for the future creates shareholder value.)

On the other side, it happens all the time that a company has a single blowout quarter and the shares fall.

Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared

#40

Post by [deleted] »

notreallymee wrote: post #32
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #5

I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…

Using a throwaway account. A few years ago I did some consulting work for British Airways. It was interesting in that as far as the planes themselves, and the operational risk of the planes was concerned, the company had their shit together. Decisions made from a safety first point of view. Engineers making the calls. Everything else no object. But ALL the software around the planes, from the ops to ALL of the b2c wa…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN