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More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

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Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#431
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do investors (owners of the company) accept CEO's pay packages that involve golden parachutes My understanding is that this is seen as a cost of acquiring the right expertise. “Pay peanuts, get monkeys” kinda thing. They want the best of the best, and according to their perception these people can do a number of things with their time. Why would they work on this thing instead of their own thing, or a number of…

No I don't buy this. The shareholders would be better off if they promised a $800m incentives-based / performance-based package (e.g. stock options etc.) than promising $80m if the CEO performance sucks . And any CEO rejecting this offer, is a huge red flag.

I am not sure that this will work unless the company is considered a highly desirable place to work for. A prospective CEO might simply walk over to another company which has a more lucrative deal. So you might end up with people who are either desperate, or those who are highly able and see that as a challenge. The second might be very rare.

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#432
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not fly internationally?

Most Americans don't! I'm sure HN commenters from the US fly internationally more often than the average American, but still. And the poster upthread talked about airlines operating in the US, not just US airlines. That would include, e.g. airlines from EU countries that fly to the US, and even have some domestic hops here.

Ethiopian Airlines had 8 (now 6) routes to the USA.

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say 15 year old Toyota arrives on your Uber, instead of a shiny new one - would you cancel and wait for another car? Keep in mind that riding in both cars is statistically vastly more dangerous than flying any modern Boeing, including 737, by a huge margin. Unless flying is the only mode of transportation you ever use, avoiding Boeing will not make your life safer, it will at most make you calmer.

There are some 20 year old Toyota recently recalled over Takata airbags that blow shrapnel in your face potentially leading to your death, but no one is reselling their toyotas, I'm not sure what the HN panic over Boeing airplanes is.

It is a psychological bias called availability heuristic: https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/availability-heuristic...

They use funny example in this article:

  When asked if falling airplane parts or shark attacks are a more likely cause of death in the United States, most people would say shark attacks. In reality, the chances of dying from falling airplane parts are 30 times greater than the chances of being killed by a shark.
Would be interesting to check if today people would estimate the risk of being killed by falling Boeing door higher than shark attack - bias predicts they would.

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then make the connection between racism and damages to a company relevant to the discussion, or being thin-skinned and the same. There is zero evidence that Elon profited off the emerald mine his dad bought shares in, and the allegation is that he conspired to hide that money somehow. It's a normal definition of conspiracy.

> Then make the connection between racism and damages to a company relevant to the discussion, or being thin-skinned and the same. They both have obvious consequences in a leadership position. Obvious consequences are enough. > There is zero evidence that Elon profited off the emerald mine his dad bought shares in, and the allegation is that he conspired to hide that money somehow. It's a normal definition of conspir…

> Obvious consequences are enough.

Obvious potential consequences are not enough. This is the richest man in the world, surely you have an example.

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#435
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do investors (owners of the company) accept CEO's pay packages that involve golden parachutes My understanding is that this is seen as a cost of acquiring the right expertise. “Pay peanuts, get monkeys” kinda thing. They want the best of the best, and according to their perception these people can do a number of things with their time. Why would they work on this thing instead of their own thing, or a number of…

No I don't buy this. The shareholders would be better off if they promised a $800m incentives-based / performance-based package (e.g. stock options etc.) than promising $80m if the CEO performance sucks . And any CEO rejecting this offer, is a huge red flag.

> would be better off if they promised a $800m incentives-based / performance-based package (e.g. stock options etc.) than promising $80m if the CEO performance sucks.

I don’t know about the relative ratios between the two but i believe you need both.

From a perspective of a succesfull CEO candidate with a proven track record joining your company is risky. There might be something structurally wrong with your industry, or there might be some “ticking bomb” with your business (like some hidden technological flaw, or personality conflict, or regulatory/compliance risk, or the risk of some catastrophy hitting your factories/offices) Many of these are already present before the CEO candidate joins and there is nothing they can do about them.

Basically your business might stink and “explode” in the face of the new CEO. On the other hand the CEO candidate presumably have some other options. You are usually not recruiting CEOs from the literal bread line.

Let’s think through a concrete example. You tomp is a succesfull business person and you estimate you will conservatively earn $200m in the next 5 years. You have unique skills and they offer you a chance to become the CEO of Boeing today. You have what you belive is a good plan to restore Boeing to its former glory and the pay package will net you if everything goes well $800m in the same time frame. Sounds good, isn’t it? But you are worried that some gizmo in the airplanes already out of the factory might have some flaw. Maybe costs were cut and maybe some part you have never even heard about fails, kills a few thousand people a year after you joined and tanks the whole company. You don’t know what is the chance of that happening, nobody knows. What you know is that if that happens you will earn in your estimate $0. If that happens you might need to sell off your yacth, and tell your daughter she has to drop out of that lovely swiss private school she loves so much.

Will you join?

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#436
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can ELI5 why do investors (owners of the company) accept CEO's pay packages that involve golden parachutes? It doesn't make sense to me (I mean, it might in case of offensive takeovers, but who's gonna take over Boeing?!)

> why do investors (owners of the company) accept CEO's pay packages that involve golden parachutes My understanding is that this is seen as a cost of acquiring the right expertise. “Pay peanuts, get monkeys” kinda thing. They want the best of the best, and according to their perception these people can do a number of things with their time. Why would they work on this thing instead of their own thing, or a number of…

Corporate boards are a notoriously small world. These are buddy deals. Global corporations reap structural harvests and the guy who gets to be on top gets the prize. Their network is their biggest asset. It helps a corporation to have well connected board members, CEOs and directors, sure. So they get paid for it. Network effects -> winner takes all.

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#437
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type certification is a thing that exists, and the whole reason the 737 max is designed in this particular wonky way is so that it can grandfather into the type certification from the existing 737 family. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_certificate Having to mix and match pilots across the fleet is less efficient, what if you have a 737 pilot but the only aircraft available is an airbus? So, many airlines (eg so…

> So, many airlines (eg southwest) will indeed only use one type And yet many airlines fly a very high amount of planes of many types, of multiple brands. Southwest is a consumer darling and punches above its weight but it is an outlier.

> And yet many airlines fly a very high amount of planes of many types, of multiple brands

That's simply untrue. Most airlines use 2, 3 types of planes at most. I'm not referring to the niche 5 percent of plane types but the overwhelming majority.

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#438

I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. The problem is that, if you are doing this after many years of "deny the problem and ship it", the number of apparent problems is actually going to go up for a while. I wonder if Boeing's customers and shareholders will have enough patience for him to complete the tr…

For what it's worth, in "Flying Blind", the book written about the first round of 737 max issues, the author has a pretty negative outlook on Calhoun as being mostly aligned with Muilenburg. > Robison, however, finds little reason for optimism. While Boeing has now accepted responsibility for one of the crashes as part of a settlement, no one at the company besides Forkner has been charged with a crime. Muilenburg wa…

> Muilenburg was ousted as C.E.O., but still collected a $60 million golden parachute

That's why I hate the MBA types and the whole executive caste with a passion

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Replacing the CEO" isn't a panacea because most CEOs are pretty average, but when an exceptional CEO does take the helm, they can pull off some amazing feats (e.g. Satya Nadella).

I agree that most people are "average" (truism?), and that some are exceptional. And I agree that exceptional people sometimes achieve amazing feats in their field of endeavour. But what's so special about CEOs?

The scale of their impact when they are exceptional

Re: More misdrilled holes on 737 MAX in latest setback

#440
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can ELI5 why do investors (owners of the company) accept CEO's pay packages that involve golden parachutes? It doesn't make sense to me (I mean, it might in case of offensive takeovers, but who's gonna take over Boeing?!)

It's fairly fundamental capitalism, right? The world is not overflowing with people who can even theoretically lead a $77bn company and will be acceptable candidates in the eyes of the board/shareholders. So you will need to pay accordingly if you want one. It's like wondering why pro sports teams give megabucks guaranteed contracts to superstars. There aren't a lot of them and there is a lot of money at stake when i…

> The world is not overflowing with people who can even theoretically lead a $77bn company

I strongly disagree. It's a matter of surrounding yourself with capable people and there's a huge factor of financial inertia. I guarantee you most HN-ers could run Google or Apple for 5 years without causing their value to plummet.

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