Boeing retaliated against its own engineers working for FAA, union says

So far, not many for-profit companies have been successful long-term in balancing those two things, as net-positive for society is not strictly necessary for the ultimate goal, generating profits.

If you were to make a Venn diagram of amoral and illegal (including civil malfeasance) have a pretty large overlap. Eventually, the illegal part gets people (even CEOs) sued, fired and/or jailed, but the company might continue if it can afford to pay the legal bills.

> These big companies are applauded for being amoral because their stock prices go up.

I don't think any investors are applauding the mismanagement at Boeing. I suspect the leadership team there is checking to make sure their "golden parachute" isn't an anvil. Being amoral works for a while, but it is a very poor long term strategy.

> Boeing can replace their management and the company continues.

Society has decided that closing down large employers is a cure worse than the disease. Closing a misbehaving company sure seems like justice, but to the 43,000 people who depend on that company for a livelihood, and the communities, even small manufacturing towns that the amoral company is keeping alive, well, the network effects are serious. So the consequences are usually in the form of inflicting financial pain to the company, or directly enforcing consequences against the people who do illegal/tortuous things.

Usually it’s followed by some misinterpretation of what “fiduciary responsibility” is, something about “shareholders”, and an implication that literally any software developer pulled off the streets of the Bay Area knows more about effectively running a business than literally anyone with an MBA.

Companies are organisations. Organisations are run by people. People are more than capable of acting ethically. I have never worked for an organisation that I haven’t seen do something that’s put something else ahead of the bottom line, and not in some silly CSR way. In fact, I routinely make these decisions on behalf of my employer, within the scope of my role, but these are on occasion quite material.

I’ve never been clear on how this can be reconciled with the utterly childish view that there’s some invisible hand that requires growth at all costs as soon as a “company” is involved.

It really speaks to how much of a bubble a lot of people here are in. I suppose if you paint all organisations with the same brush, it makes it easier to work for Meta or Palantir or whatever.

Do you know what shareholders even are?

Are you in such a tech bubble that you can’t comprehend of an organisation delivering surplus value back to shareholders by just…doing something that people want, and charging for it? It sounds like you think that tech startup hypergrowth followed by enshitification is, like, a given, in every situation.

It isn’t. MOST businesses don’t work this way. Evidently just the ones that you read about.

USA is dumb cos too many USAians believe that greed is good ~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_mddzPl6Go